英语语感
Reflections on His Eightieth Birthday
pastimeBertrand Rusll
消防工程师好考吗The rious part of my life ever since boyhood has been devoted to two different objects which for a long time remained parate and have only in recent years united into a single whole. I wanted, on the one hand, to find out whether anything could be known; and on the other hand, to do whatever might be possible toward creating a happier world. Up to the age of thirty-eight I 英语四级网站gave most of my energies to the first of the tasks. I was troubled by scepticism and unwillingly forced to the conclusion that most of what pass for knowledge is open to reasonable doubt. I wanted certainty in the kind of way in which people want religious faith. I thought that certainty is more likely to be found in mathematics than elwhere. But I discovered that many mathematical demonstrations, which my teachers expected me to accept, were full of fallacies, and that, if certainty were indeed discoverable in mathematics, it would be in a new kind of mathematics, with more solid foundations than tho that had hitherto been thought cure. But as the work proceeded, I was continually r
eminded of the fable about the elephant and thetortoi. Having constructed an elephant upon which the mathematical world could rest, I found the elephant tottering, and proceeded to construct a tortoi to keep the elephant from falling. But the tortoi was no more cure than the elephant, and after some twenty years of very arduous toil, I came to the conclusion that there was nothing more that I could do in the way of making mathematical knowledge indubitable. Then came the First World War, and my thoughts became concentrated on human miry and folly. Neither miry nor folly ems to me any part of the inevitable lot of man. And I am convinced that intelligence, patience, and eloquence can, sooner or later, lead the human race out of its lf-impod tortures provided it does not exterminate itlf meanwhile.
On the basis of this belief, I have had always a certain degree of optimism, although, as I have grown older, the optimism has grown more sober and the happy issue more distant. But I remain completely incapable of agreeing with tho who accept fatalistically the view that man is born to trouble. The caus of unhappiness in the past and in the prent are not difficult to ascertain. There have been poverty, pestilence, and famine, wh
ich were due to man’s inadequate mastery of nature. There have been wars, oppressions and tortures which have been due to men’s hostility to their fellow men. And there have been morbid miries fostered by gloomy creeds, which have led men into profound inner discords that made all outward prosperity of no avail. All the are unnecessary. In regard to all of them, means are known by which they can be overcome. In the modern world, if communities are unhappy, it is often becau they have ignorances, habits, beliefs, and passions, which are dearer to them than happiness or even life. I find many men in our dangerous age who em to be in love with miry and death, and who grow angry when hopes are suggested to them. They think hope is irrational and that, in sitting down to lazy despair, they are merely facing facts. I cannot agree with the men. To prerve hope in our world makes calls upon our intelligence and our energy. In tho who despair it is frequently the energy that is lacking.
The last half of my life has been lived in one of tho painful epochs of human history during which the world is getting wor, and past victories which had emed to be definitive have turned out to be only temporary. When I was young, Victorian optimism wa
s taken for granted. It was thought that freedom and prosperity would spread gradually throughout the world by an orderly process, and it was hoped that cruelty, tyranny, and injustice would continually diminish. Hardly anyone was haunted by the fear of great wars. Hardly anyone thought of the nineteenth century as a brief interlude between past and future barbarism. For tho who grew up in that atmosphere, adjustment to the world of the prent has been difficult. It has been difficult notonly emotionally but intellectually. Ideas that had been thought adequate have proved inadequate. In some directions valuable freedoms have proved very hard to prerve. In other directions, especially as regards relations between nations, freedoms formerly valued have proved potent sources of disaster. New thoughts, new hopes, new freedoms, and new restrictions upon freedom are needed if the world is to emerge from its prent perilous state.
圣诞节 英语 I cannot pretend that what I have done in regard to social and political problems has had any great importance. It is comparatively easy to have an immen effect by means of a dogmatic and preci gospel. But for my part I cannot believesichuan earthquake 上海国际高中课程that what mankind needs is anything either preci or dogmatic. Nor can I believe with any wholeheartednes
treasureislands in any partial doctrine which deals only with some part or aspect of human life. There are tho who hold that everything depends upon institutions, and that good institutions will inevitably bring the millennium. And, on the other hand, there are tho who believe that what is needed is a change of heart, and that, in comparison, institutions are of little account. I cannot accept either view.
Institutions mould character, and character transforms institutions. Reforms in both must march hand in hand. And if individuals are to retain that measure of initiative and flexibility which they ought to have, they must not be all forced into one rigid mould; or, to change the metaphor, all drilled into one army. Diversity is esntial in spite of the fact that it precludes universal acceptance of a single gospel. But to preach such a doctrine is difficult especially in arduous times. And perhaps it cannot be effective until some bitter lessons have been learned by tragic experience.
创始人英文 My work is near its end, and the time has come when I can survey it as a whole. How far have I succeeded, and how far have I failed? From an early age I thought of mylf as
dedicated to great and arduous tasks. Nearly three quarters of acentury ago, walking alone in the Tiergarten through melting snow under the coldly glittering March sun, I determined to write two ries of books; one abstract, growing gradually more concrete; the other concrete, growing gradually more abstract. They were to be crowned by a synthesis, combining pure theory with a practical social philosophy. Except for the final synthesis, which still eludes me, I have written the books. They have been acclaimed and praid, and the thoughts of many men and women have been affected by them. To this extent I have succeeded.
