前言 | Foreword

用这些从感情深处汲取魅力的话语，让这位弟弟停下了对宇宙自然现象的一般性描述。从最遥远的星云和旋转的双星，下至动物创造的最微小的有机体，无论表现在海洋深处还是地球表面，以及覆盖在雪山陡峭山坡上的精致植物胚芽；在这里，我们已经能够根据部分已知的规律来安排这些现象；但是，其他更神秘的规律支配着有机世界的更高领域，其中包括人类的各种形态、创造力和人类所创造的语言。物理描绘的自然世界终止于此，智力领域就此展现，一个新的脑海中的世界向我们敞开了视野。 它标记了极限，而没有越过它。

With these words, which draw their charm from the depths of feeling, let a brother be permitted to close this general description of the natural phenomena of the universe. From the remotest nebula and from the revolving double stars, we have descended to the minutest organisms of animal creation, whether manifested in the depths of ocean or on the surface of our globe, and to the delicate vegetable germs which clothe the naked declivity of the ice-crowned mountain summit; and here we have been able to arrange these phenomena according to partially known laws; but other laws of a more mysterious nature rule the higher spheres of the organic world, in which is comprised the human species in all its varied conformation, its creative intellectual power, and the languages to which it has given existence. A physical delineation of nature terminates at the point where the sphere of intellect begins, and a new world of mind is opened to our view. It marks the limit, but does not pass it.