History offered a feeble and delusive smile at the sound of the word; evolutionists and ethnologists disputed its very existence; no one knew what to make of it; yet, without the clue, history was a nursery tale.

听到这个词，历史露出了微弱而虚幻的微笑；进化论者和民争论它的存在；没有人知道该么做；然而，如果没有线索，历史话故事。

There was a constant jarring of literary formulas, Dyson exalting the claims of the pure imagination, while Phillipps, who was a student of physical science and something of an ethnologist, insisted that all literature ought to have a scientific basis.

文公式一直存在冲突，戴森推崇纯粹想象力的主张，而物理科专业的生和民菲利普斯坚持认为所有文都应该有科依据。