首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
(1)When does history begin? It is tempting to reply "In the beginning", but like many obvious answers, this soon turns out to be
(1)When does history begin? It is tempting to reply "In the beginning", but like many obvious answers, this soon turns out to be
admin
2019-04-29
121
问题
(1)When does history begin? It is tempting to reply "In the beginning", but like many obvious answers, this soon turns out to be unhelpful. As a great Swiss historian once pointed out in another connection, history is the one subject where you cannot begin at the beginning. If we want to, we can trace the chain of human descent back to the appearance of vertebrates, or even to the photosynthetic cells which lie at the start of life itself. We can go back further still, to almost unimaginable upheavals which formed this planet and even to the origins of the universe. Yet this is not "history".
(2)Commonsense helps here: history is the story of mankind, of what it has done, suffered or enjoyed. We all know that dogs and cats do not have histories, while human beings do. Even when historians write about a natural process beyond human control, such as the ups and downs of climate, or the spread of disease, they do so only because it helps us to understand why men and women have lived (and died)in some ways rather than others.
(3)This suggests that all we have to do is to identify the moment at which the first human beings step out from the shadows of the remote past. It is not quite as simple as that, though. We have to know what we are looking for first and most attempts to define humanity on the basis of observable characteristics prove in the end arbitrary and cramping, as long arguments about "apemen" and "missing links" have shown. Physiological tests help us to classify data but do not identify what is or is not human. That is a matter of a definition about which disagreement is possible. Some people have suggested that human uniqueness lies in language, yet other primates possess vocal equipment similar to our own: when noises are made with it which are signals, at what point do they become speech? Another famous definition is that man is a tool-maker, but observation has cast doubt on our uniqueness in this respect, too, long after Dr. Johnson scoffed at Boswell for quoting it to him.
(4)What is surely and identifiably unique about the human species is not its possession of certain faculties or physical characteristics, but what it has done with them—its achievement, or history, in fact. Humanity’s unique achievement is its remarkably intense level of activity and creativity, its cumulative capacity to create change. All animals have ways of living, some complex enough to be called cultures. Human culture alone is progressive: it has been increasingly built by conscious choice and selection within it as well as by accident and natural pressure, by the accumulation of a capital of experience and knowledge which man has exploited. Human history began when the inheritance of genetics and behavior which had until then provided the only way of dominating the environment was first broken through by conscious choice. Of course, human beings have always only been able to make their history within limits. These limits are now very wide indeed, but they were once so narrow that it is impossible to identify the first step which took human evolution away from the determination of nature. We have for a long time only a blurred story, obscure both because the evidence is poor and because we cannot be sure exactly what we are looking for.
The passage is mainly about ______.
选项
A、what history is
B、the difference between human beings and animals
C、what point should be the beginning of the human history
D、how the human beings make their history
答案
A
解析
主旨题。文章自始至终都在探讨人类历史的问题,谈到它的起源,它的组成和人类创造历史的过程等,故A为正确答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/6nRK777K
0
专业英语四级
相关试题推荐
Thecoldisbadenough,butwinter’sshorterdaysmaketheseasonadowner,tosaytheleast.Buthowrealisseasonalaffective
Municipalbansonsmokinginrestaurantsandbarsarehighlycontroversial,buthistoryshowstheycanalsobehighlyeffective.
A.divisionB.sufficientC.constantD.depthsE.exteriorF.whereasG.stableH.provedI.externalJ.measuringK.environme
A.divisionB.sufficientC.constantD.depthsE.exteriorF.whereasG.stableH.provedI.externalJ.measuringK.environme
Thecurrentinvestment_____inourcountryarefavorable,soalotofforeigninvestorshavecome.
A、English.B、French.C、Russian.D、Spanish.D①选项都是表示语言的名词,听音时可在相应的语言旁记录。②女士说他高中时学习西班牙语四年,因此本题答案为D项Spanish。
A.interactionB.experiencedC.reflectD.responseE.undertakenF.affectG.althoughH.frustrationI.subjectJ.sufficient
Ifyouareasuccessfullanguagelearner,you______independently,actively,andpurposefully.
Theprisonerwasquestionedforthreehoursbutheremained_______throughouthistrial.
FlashMobsAflashmobiswhereyoungpeoplesuddenlygatherinalargegroupfornoapparentreason./Flashmobscaninvol
随机试题
下列选项中,符合Craves病眼征分级标准4级的是
符合急性肾小球肾炎临床表现的是
A.口咸B.口甜而黏腻C.口苦D.口中泛酸E.口中酸馊火盛可见
A、普通饮食B、软质饮食C、流质饮食D、高蛋白饮食E、低盐饮食老幼患者和手术恢复期患者应采用
投资者以货币方式缴纳的项目资本金,根据有关规定,其资金来源包括()。
下列不属于建设施工项目信息分类依据的是( )。
一项针对通过网络相识而缔结婚姻的调查显示:这部分人群的离婚率远低于整个社会的离婚率。这说明,网络相识有助于婚姻的稳定。如果以下陈述为真,哪一项最有力地质疑了上述结论?()
蜘蛛:织网:爬行
IEEE802系列规范、TCP协议、MPEG协议分别工作在()。
计算机的硬件主要包括:中央处理器(CPU)、存储器、输出设备和()。
最新回复
(
0
)