2. 职称英语
  3. I have observed that the Americans show a less decided taste for general ide

I have observed that the Americans show a less decided taste for general ide

游客2025-05-07  25
问题     I have observed that the Americans show a less decided taste for general ideas than the French. This is especially true in politics.
    Although the Americans infuse into their legislation far more general ideas than the English, and although they strive more than the latter to adjust the practice of affairs to theory.no political bodies in the U-nited States have ever shown so much love for general ideas as the Constituent Assembly and the Convention in France. At no time has the American people laid hold on ideas of this kind with the passionate energy of the French people in the eighteenth century, or displayed the same blind confidence in the value and absolute truth of any theory.
    This difference between the Americans and the French originates in several causes, but principally in the following one. The Americans are a democratic people who have, always directed public affairs themselves. The French are a democratic people who for a long time could only speculate on the best manner of conducting them. The social condition of the French led them to conceive very general ideas on the subject of government, while their political constitution prevented them from correcting those ideas by experiment and from gradually detecting their insufficiency; whereas in America the two things constantly balance and correct each other.
    It may seem at first sight that this is very much opposed to what I have said before, that democratic nations derive their love of theory from the very excitement of their active life. A more attentive-examination will show that there is nothing contradictory in the proposition.
    Men living in democratic countries eagerly lay hold of general ideas because they have but little leisure and because these ideas spare them the trouble of studying particulars. This is true, but it is only to be understood of those matters which are not the necessary and habitual subjects of their thoughts. Mercantile men will take up very eagerly, and without any close scrutiny, all the general ideas on philosophy, politics, science, or the arts which may be presented to them;but for such as relate to commerce, they will not receive them with-out inquiry or adopt them without reserve. The same thing applies to statesman with regard to general ideas in politics.
    If, then, there is a subject upon which a democratic people is peculiarly liable to abandon itself, blindly and extravagantly, to general ideas, the best corrective that can be used will be to make that subject a part of their daily practical occupation. They will then be compelled to enter into details, and the details will teach them the weak points of the theory. This remedy may frequently be a painful one, but its effect is certain.
    Thus it happens that the democratic institutions which compel every citizen to take a practical part in the government moderate that excessive taste for general theories in polities which the principle of equality suggests. [br] Some people in democratic countries prefer general ideas because______.
选项 A、in politics it is easier to study general ideas
B、general ideas on different subjects are more interesting
C、mercantile men prefer general ideas on philosophy, politics, science and the arts
D、they do not have time to address details
答案 D
解析 文章指出，民主国家的人期望整体观念，因为这些观点可以帮助他们解决学习细节的麻烦。第五段第一句Men living in democratic countries eagedy lay hold of general ideas because they havebut little leisure and because these ideas spare them the trouble of studying particulars．
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