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以前，人的四肢并不像现在这样友好地合作。他们有各自的意志和行事方式。他们指责肚子过着悠闲、奢侈的生活，而他们则为他终日忙碌着，给他吃，给他喝，让他快乐。后来，他们密谋要切断对肚子的供应。手不再把食物送到嘴里，嘴不再接受东西,牙齿也不再咀嚼了。 他们本想让肚子挨饿,从而使他臣服，可是，没过多久他们就坚持不住了。 他们个个感到疲倦乏力，整个身体也消瘦了下去。此时，这些器官才相信，肚子虽看似笨拙、无用，实际上却有其自身重要的作用。他离不开他们，而他们也同样离不开他。 The Belly and Its Members In former days, when all a man’s limbs did not work together as amicably as they do now，but each had a will and way of its own, the Members generally began to find fault with the Belly for spending an idle luxurious life, while they were wholly occupied in laboring for its support，and ministering to its wants and pleasure ； so they entered into a conspiracy to cut off its supplies for the future. The hands were no longer to carry food to the mouth, nor the mouth to receive the food, nor the teeth to chew it. They had not long persisted in this course of starving the Belly into subjection, ere they all began, one by one, to fail and flag, and the whole body to pine away. Then the Members were convinced that the Belly also, cumbersome and useless as it seemed, had an important function of its own；that they could no more do without it than it could do without them. |
