首页
登录
职称英语
When does history begin? It is tempting to reply ’hi the beginning", but li
When does history begin? It is tempting to reply ’hi the beginning", but li
游客
2024-09-30
29
管理
问题
When does history begin? It is tempting to reply ’hi 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, ff 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".
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.
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 east doubt on our uniqueness in this respect, too, long after Dr. Johnson scoffed at Boswell for quoting it to him.
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. [br] Man is distinguished from other animals in that
选项
A、language is unique to man.
B、man is a tool-maker.
C、man is characteristic of the possession of vocal equipment.
D、man has remarkable level of activity and creativity.
答案
D
解析
细节题。末段首句中的“not...but...”结构表明了人类与动物的区别,结合该段第2句可以推断人类与动物的区别就在于人类有非凡的活动力和创造力,这也就是选项D所描述的。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3780170.html
相关试题推荐
Warandpeace______aconstantthemeinhistory.A、isB、areC、hadbeenD、havebeen
Atthebeginningofthepassage,theauthorindicatesthat_____.[br]Whichof
Atthebeginningofthepassage,theauthorindicatesthat_____.[br]Whichto
Whendoeshistorybegin?Itistemptingtoreply’hithebeginning",butli
Whendoeshistorybegin?Itistemptingtoreply’hithebeginning",butli
Jack________fromhomefortwodaysnow,andIambeginningtoworryabouthiss
Atthebeginningoftheprogram,thespeaker[br][originaltext]Goodevenin
Whydoesthemanwanttogiveherdaughterahistorybook?[br][originaltext]M
Whydoesthemanwanttogiveherdaughterahistorybook?[originaltext]M:Excu
Afterbriefly______thehistoryoftheauthor,Prof.Liturnestothenovelitse
随机试题
Readthebookreviewbelow.Inmostofthelines(34-45),thereisoneex
ThomasJeffersonwasinauguratedonMarch4,1801.HewasthefirstPresiden
[audioFiles]audio_ehbz20076_001(20076)[/audioFiles]A、Nothingserious.B、No,tha
Isuggestweputtheschemeintoeffect,foritisquite_________.A、eligibleB、
DepartingforLosAngelesisnoordinary【C1】______whereasforforeignstud
如果你在批改作业的时候,学生说想来找你谈心,那么你会怎么做?
通过刺激骨形成而抗骨质疏松的药物是A.氟制剂 B.降钙素 C.二膦酸盐 D
超声雾化吸入的正确操作步骤是A、药液用温水稀释后散入雾化罐 B、先开雾化开关,
单缝缝宽a=0.10mm,在缝后放一焦距为50cm的会聚透镜,用波长为λ=546
根据经营区域和营运线路长度,班车客运线路分为( )。A.一类客运班线 B.二类
最新回复
(
0
)