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
2017-10-17
43
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
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/PNDK777K
0
专业英语四级
相关试题推荐
PASSAGETHREEComparedwithvisitingasocialnetworkingsite,whatcanyoudowhendealingwithhealthtracking?
Theworld’sleadingclimatescientistshavesetoutindetailforthefirsttimehowmuchmorecarbondioxidehumanscanpourin
A、Mechanicaloperationofthebody.B、Absenceofdiseaseorillness.C、Physical,mentalandsocialwell-being.D、Cleanwater,im
WhenColumbusembarked______hishistoricvoyage,heneverimaginedthattheworldhistorywouldenterintoanewera.
Inrecentyears,bothAmericansandChinesehavegainedsightoftheoriginalvisionthatbroughtthemtogether.Theitalicized
Itmaybeoneoftheworld’sgreatshoppingdestinations,butLondon’sRegentStreetisfailingthefashiontest,accordingtot
EdnaO’BrienhaslivedinLondonforafewdecades,butshespeaks,asshewrites,inavoiceinflectedwiththerhythmsandacc
Massivechangesinalloftheworld’sdeeplycherishedsportinghabitsareunderway.Whetherit’soneofLondon’sparksfullof
_____wehavenotmadeanyarrangementforourpicnic.
随机试题
WhatwillhappenattheendofJune?
下列诗人的诗歌风格属于“清新淡雅”的是()
下列关于住宅的性能划分,正确的是:[2010-40]
施工项目成本管理的基础不包括( )。
假定市场资产组合的期望收益率为17%,而零贝塔资产组合的期望收益率为8%。贝塔值为0.6的资产组合的期望收益率为( )。
遗忘是指()。
关于宇宙的起源,最具代表性、影响最大的理论是()。
甲是某公司司机,专职为董事长乙开车。一日,甲送乙去参加饭局,中途乙喝酒过多,实在无法支持,便将甲也叫到餐厅,让甲陪客户喝酒。客户尽兴而归,甲乙也都喝了不少酒。乙本想叫出租车,但是甲坚持可以开车,要送乙回家,乙最终同意。车辆在行驶至某一路口时,甲未看清红绿灯
HowmanylanguageshasDr.Green’snewbookbeentranslatedinto?
人生有三重境界,这三重境界可以用一段充满禅机的语言来说明,这段语言便是:看山是山,看水是水;看山不是山,看水不是水;看山还是山,看水还是水。这就是说一个人的人生之初纯洁无瑕,初识世界,一切都是新鲜的,眼睛看见什么就是什么,人家告诉他这是山,他就认识了山,
最新回复
(
0
)