but equally inscrutable, natural wonders conspicuously failed to describe where the first cell in the human process came from, only dropping the elusive hint that 'the egg itself arose by the splitting of still another cell which, of course, was part of the parent's body.' the secret was left for the 'perplexed but serious-minded parent' to explain. mrs turing's way of dealing with the thorny topic was, in fact, highly consonant with brewster's, for john at least was the recipient at hazelhurst of a special letter starting with the birds and the bees, and ending with instructions 'not to go off the rails'. presumably alan was informed in the same way.

还有一件事，《自然奇迹》也没说清楚，那就是人的第一块砖是从哪来的。它只给出了一个让人不解的暗示，说：「蛋本身也是来自一个细胞的分裂，当然，这是母亲身体的一部分。」这个过程的细节，就要留给那些「严肃而困惑的父母」来解答了。图灵夫人在这个棘手的问题上，也像布鲁斯特一样，采取了隐晦的手法。她给在海兹赫斯特的约翰写了一封信，以鸟和蜜蜂开始，以「不要越轨」结束。可以想见，艾伦应该也是被用同样的方式教育的。

in other ways, however, natural wonders was indeed 'very modern', and certainly no little 'nature book'. it conveyed the idea that there had to be a reason for the way things were, and that the reason came not from god but from science. long passages explained why little boys liked throwing things and little girls liked babies, and derived from the pattern of the living world the ideal of a daddy to go out to work at the office and a mama to stay at home. this picture of respectable american life was rather remote from the training of the sons of indian civil servants, but more relevant to alan was a picture of the brain:

但是在另一个方面，《自然奇迹》是非常现代的，它绝不是一本简单的自然书。它里面传递了一种思想，那就是任何东西的存在，都是有原因的，而且这种原因源自科学，而非上帝。其中有很长的篇幅，解释了为什么男孩喜欢扔东西，女孩喜欢小婴儿，为什么这个世界的理想模式是父亲去办公室工作，而母亲留在家里。这些美国生活的画面，对于印度公务员的儿子来说，理解起来存在一定的复杂性，但是这里有另外一些内容，与艾伦的生活有直接的关系：

do you see now why you have to go to school five hours a day, and sit on a hard seat studying still harder lessons, when you would much rather sneak off and go in swimming? it is so that you may build up these thinking spots in your brains. … we begin young, while the brain is still growing. with years and years of work and study, we slowly form the thinking spots over our left ears, which we are to use the rest of our days. when we are grown up, we can no more form new thinking places. …

你知不知道，为什么在你想去游泳的时候，大人却非要让你去上学，在板凳上坐五个小时，学那些讨厌的课程？这是因为，只有这样，才能让你的大脑开始形成思维区……这必须趁大脑还在发育时就开始，通过长时间的学习，慢慢形成以后你都要使用的思维区。当我们长大后，我们的大脑就不能再形成新的思维区了……

so even school was justified by science. the old world of divine authority was reduced to a vague allusion in which brewster, having described evolution, said that 'why it all happens or what it is all for' was precisely 'one of those things that no fellah can find out.' brewster's living things were unequivocally machines:

这样一来，连上学的合理性也被科学化了，神权至上的旧世界，现在只剩下了模糊的隐喻。布鲁斯特还谈到了生物进化，他甚至还认为，生物就是一种机器：

for, of course, the body is a machine. it is a vastly complex machine, many, many times more complicated than any machine ever made with hands; but still after all a machine. it has been likened to a steam engine. but that was before we knew as much about the way it works as we know now. it really is a gas engine; like the engine of an automobile, a motor boat, or a flying machine.

身体显然就是一个机器，它非常复杂，比人工制造的机器要复杂许多，但它毕竟还是机器。以前我们不知道它是怎么工作的，以为它就像蒸汽发动机。现在我们已经知道了，它确实是个气体发动机，就像摩托车、摩托船或飞机的发动机一样。