In the course of a few hours, there are hundreds, all sticking together and all very minute; so that the whole mass looks like the heap of soap bubbles which one blows by putting the pipe under the surface of the soap suds.
几个小时过后，就会有成百上千个细胞粘在一起，每个都很小，看起来就像一团肥皂泡，漂在水面上。
From this sphere of cells, Brewster explained, the animal would take shape:
布鲁斯特从细胞的角度继续讲解，动物是如何成形的：
If it is an animal like ourselves, this body stuff, before it becomes a body, is a round ball. A furrow doubles in along the place where the back is to be, and becomes the spinal cord.
这团东西在成形之前，是一个圆圆的球。在即将成为背部的地方，有一条沟会不断分裂，最后长成脊髓。
A rod strings itself along underneath this, and becomes the back-bone.
在它的周围，则会形成脊椎。
The front end of the spinal cord grows faster than the rest, becomes larger, and is the brain. The brain buds out into the eyes.
脊髓的前面一端，比其它地方长得更快、更大，最终形成大脑。大脑会长出眼睛。
The outer surface of the body, not yet turned into skin, buds inward and makes the ear.
身体的表面将会长成皮肤，然后长出耳朵。额头向下生长形成脸庞。
Four outgrowths come down from the forehead to make the face. The limbs begin as shapeless knobs, and grow out slowly into arms and legs. ...
四个没有形状的小块，慢慢地往外长，最后变成了手臂和腿……
Alan had thought about embryology all the time, fascinated by the fact that how such growth was determined was something 'nobody has yet made the smallest beginning at finding out.'
图灵一直在思考胚胎学，他想知道生长的秘密，这是任何人都不曾知道的秘密。
There had been little advance since Growth and Form, the 1917 classic that he had read before the war.
他在战前曾读过1917年出版的经典著作《生长与形状》，而这个领域在这本书之后，几乎没有任何进展。
The 1920s had made it possible to invoke the Uncertainty Principle to suggest that life was intrinsically unknowable, like the simultaneous measurement of position and velocity in quantum mechanics.
在20年代，不确定性原理表明，从本质上讲，生命是无法获知的，正如在量子力学中，位置和速度不能同时测量。
As with minds, there was an aura of religion and magic around the subject that attracted the attention of his scepticism.
至于思维，其宗教和魔法的光环，则引起了图灵更深的怀疑。
It was a fresh field.
这是一个全新的领域。
The greatest puzzle was that of how biological matter could assemble itself into patterns which were so enormous compared with the size of the cells.
最奇怪的是，这种生物过程，如何能把微小的细胞，组合成如此巨大的结构？