Part One THE LOGICAL Esprit de Corps
Beginning my studies the first step pleased me so much,The mere fact consciousness, these forms, the power of motion,The least insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love,The first step I say awed me and pleased me so much,I have hardly gone and hardly wished to go any farther,But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs.
A son of the British Empire, Alan Turing‘s social origins lay just on the borderline between the landed gentry and the commercial classes. As merchants, soldiers and clergymen, his ancestors had been gentlemen, but not of the settled kind. Many of them had made their way through the expansion of British interests throughout the world.
The Turings could be traced back to Turings of Foveran, Aberdeenshire, in the fourteenth century.There was a baronetcy in the family, created in about 1638 for a John Turing, who left Scotland for England. Audentes Fortuna Juvat (Fortune Helps the Daring) was the motto of the Turings,but however brave, they were never very lucky. Sir John Turing backed the losing side in the English civil war, while Foveran was sacked by the Covenanters. Denied compensation after the Restoration, the Turings languished in obscurity during the eighteenth century, as the family history, the Lay of the Turings, was to describe:
Sir Robert Turing brought back a fortune from India in 1792 and revived the title. But he, and all the senior branches of the family, died off without male heirs, and by 1911 there were but three small clusters of Turings in the world. The baronetcy was held by the 84-year-old eighth baronet, who had been British Consul in Rotterdam. Then there was his brother, and his descendants, who formed a Dutch branch of Turings. The junior branch consisted of the descendants of their cousin, John Robert Turing, who was Alan‘s grandfather.
John Robert Turing took a degree in mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1848, and was placed eleventh in rank, but abandoned mathematics for ordination and a Cambridge curacy. In 1861 he married nineteen year old Fanny Boyd and left Cambridge for a living in Nottinghamshire, where he fathered ten children. Two died in infancy and the surviving four girls and four boys were brought up in a regime of respectable poverty on a clerical stipend.Soon after the birth of his youngest son, John Robert suffered a stroke and resigned his living.He died in 1883.
第一章 (标题待考究)
开始学习的第一步就使我心生欢喜，那微小的意识，那些形态，还有情感的力量，小小的昆虫或者动物，那感觉，目光和爱意，我刚提到的这第一步使我敬畏不已，惊喜不已，我止步不前且不再期待远方，而是终日停驻在这儿用狂喜的曲子为它歌唱。
大英帝国之子，艾伦图灵的出身是半贵族半资产阶级。他的祖先们是上流社会人，有商人，有军人，还有牧师，但都不是现在定居下来的那一支。他们中的大多数都随着英国的扩张开拓了自己的一片天。
图灵家族可以追溯回14世纪，发源于阿伯丁郡佛汶然地区。1638年这个家族出现了一位准男爵叫做约翰▪图灵，他离开了苏格兰去了英格兰。Audentes Fortuna Juvat(好运青睐勇者【原文是什么文字有待考究】)是图灵家族的信条。但是不管他们多勇敢，好运都没有降临。在英国内战中，准男爵铩羽而归，佛汶然遭到苏格兰盟约派大肆洗劫。在王政复辟后他也没有得到补偿，而图灵家族在18世纪渐渐没落。这一段家族历史，图灵家族的短诗是这么描述的：
1792年,罗伯特▪图灵先生从印度带回好运恢复了爵位和领地。但是他，以及家族的各大支系，都因为没有男性继承人而相继消亡，到了1911年的时候图灵家族就只剩下三小簇分支了。爵位被一位84岁的爵士继承了，他曾是英国驻罗特丹大使馆的领事。他的兄弟和他的后代，形成了图灵家族的荷兰分支。他们的后代的堂兄弟姊妹又形成了一个很小的分支，（这其中的）约翰▪罗伯特▪图灵，就是艾伦的祖父。
1848年，约翰▪罗伯特▪图灵以第11名的好成绩取得了剑桥大学三一学院的数学学位，但是他放弃了数学任命为剑桥大学的助理牧师。1861年他娶了19岁的范妮·博伊德，并且离开了剑桥在诺丁汉郡定居，在那里他们生了十个孩子。两个孩子在婴儿时期夭折，活下来的四个女儿和儿子靠他的牧师薪水勉强维持生计。不久以后，他最小的儿子出生了，约翰▪罗伯特中风辞职，死于1883年。