From among the many illustrations which might be cited to bring the fact of historical continuity visibly before us, these from Professor Tylor's "Primitive Culture" are particularly suggestive because they deal with familiar things: "Progress, degradation10, survival, modification11, are all modes of the connection that binds12 together the complex network of civilization. It needs but a glance into the trivial details of our own daily life to set us thinking how far we are really its originators, and how far but the transmitters and modifiers of the results of long past ages. Looking round the rooms we live in, we may try here how far he[Pg 60] who knows only his own time can be capable of rightly comprehending even that. Here is the honeysuckle of Assyria, there the fleur-de-lis of Anjou, a cornice with a Greek border runs round the ceiling, the style of Louis XIV and its parent the Renaissance13 share the looking-glass between them. Transformed, shifted, or mutilated, such elements of art still carry their history plainly stamped upon them; and if the history yet farther behind is less easy to read, we are not to say that because we can not clearly discern it there is therefore no history there. It is thus even with the fashion of the clothes men wear. The ridiculous little tails of the German postilion's coat show of themselves how they came to dwindle14 to such absurd rudiments15; but the English clergyman's bands no longer so convey their history to the eye, and look unaccountable enough till one has seen the intermediate stages through which they came down from the more serviceable wide collars, such as Milton wears in his portrait, and which gave their name to the 'band-box' they used to be kept in. In fact, the books of costume, showing how one garment grew or shrank by gradual stages and passed into another, illustrate16 with much force and clearness the nature of the change[Pg 61] and growth, revival17 and decay, which go on from year to year in more important matters of life. In books, again, we see each writer not for and by himself, but occupying his proper place in history; we look through each philosopher, mathematician18, chemist, poet, into the background of his education,—through Leibnitz into Descartes, through Dalton into Priestly, through Milton into Homer.
"'Man,' said Wilhelm von Humboldt, 'ever connects on from what lies at hand (der Mensch knüpft immer an Vorhandenes an).' The notion of the continuity of civilization contained in this maxim19 is no barren philosophic20 principle, but is at once made practical by the consideration that they who wish to understand their own lives ought to know the stages through which their opinions and habits have become what they are. Auguste Comte scarcely overstated the necessity of this study of development, when he declared at the beginning of his 'Positive Philosophy' that 'no conception can be understood except through its history,' and his phrase will bear extension to culture at large. To expect to look modern life in the face and comprehend it by mere21 inspection22, is a philosophy whose weakness can easily be tested. [Pg 62]Imagine any one explaining the trivial saying, 'a little bird told me,' without knowing of the old belief in the language of birds and beasts, to which Dr. Dasent in the introduction to the Norse Tales, so reasonably traces its origin. To ingenious attempts at explaining by the light of reason things which want the light of history to show their meaning, much of the learned nonsense of the world has indeed been due."[5]
The illustrations are drawn23 from the domain24 of human interests. They could be paralleled by others drawn from natural history. The honeysuckle may carry us elsewhere than to Assyria, revealing unsuspected kinships in the world of plants. Biology has made the conception of the continuity of living forms a familiar commonplace, and geology can find in the earth's crust the story of countless25 years. So familiar has the idea of continuity become that terms like "evolution" and "development" have ceased to be technical and have become terms of common speech. We speak readily of the evolution of man, of government, of the steam-engine, of the automobile26, and of the atom. The idea has so possessed27 all departments of[Pg 63] inquiry that a large part of the literature of every subject is occupied with setting forth28 connections which have gone before. Not only do we go through Milton into Homer, but through yesterday into an ever receding29 past which grows more alluring30 the more it recedes31. The quest for origins has been of absorbing interest. It would seem that we can never understand anything at all until we have discovered its origin in something which preceded it.
In the first lecture I pointed32 out how impossible it appears ever to end any history finally. We now seem to face a corresponding impossibility, namely, the impossibility of ever really beginning it successfully. It would appear that we stop only because we do not care to go farther, or lack the means to do so, and not because we can say that we have found a first beginning with no antecedents before it. We may begin the history of philosophy with the Greeks, with Thales of Miletus, but the question has been repeatedly asked, Was not Thales a Semite? Did he not derive5 his ideas from Egypt and Babylonia? And whence came philosophy itself? Was it not the offspring of religion which preceded it, so that, before we begin its history,[Pg 64] we must pass, as Professor Cornford suggests,[6] from religion to philosophy? Then what of religion itself? What were its antecedents and whence was its descent? So the questions multiply interminably until we must admit that "in the beginning" is a time arbitrarily fixed33 or only relatively34 determined35. History, being continuous, has neither beginning nor end.
This fact, however, ought not to bewilder any one who contemplates36 it steadily38. It is an obvious consequence of the nature of time, for every present has a past and a future, and a first or last present is, consequently, quite unintelligible39. The historian, least of all, should be bewildered. If he has recognized that history is pluralistic, he will recognize also that beginnings and ends are, in any intelligible40 sense, the termini of distinctions. There is not an absolute first or last in history taken as a whole, for, as we have seen, the attempt to take history as a whole, if it has any meaning at all, means the attempt to define history. It gives us the metaphysics of time, but not an absolute, complete, and finished whole, whose boundaries, although never empirically reached, are ideally conceivable.[Pg 65] Our thinking moves in a direction quite different. It leads us to observe that distinctions begin and end, and begin and end as absolutely as one chooses, but do not, thereby41, cut themselves off from all connections. These lectures began to be delivered last Friday, but not the day before; the first word of them was written at a perfectly42 definite time and place which can never be changed; they will end with a definiteness equally precise; but these beginnings and endings destroy no continuity. Every history is equally continuous, undisturbed by its beginnings and endings. Each action of time is preceded and followed by everything which precedes and follows it, and yet each action of time begins and ends with its own peculiar43 and individual precision. In affirming this we are affirming, by means of a particular instance, the metaphysical nature of continuity itself. For by continuity we mean the possibility of precise and definite distinctions. The continuity of a line may be divided at its middle point. It is then precisely44 divided, but is not, thereby, broken into two separate lines.[7] After this[Pg 66] manner the continuity of history is to be conceived. And in the light of this conception we should understand what the continuity of history can explain.
It is tempting45 to say that it can explain nothing at all, but it is evident that there is an uncertainty46 of meaning in such a claim. For things may be explained or made clear in a variety of ways with little resemblance to one another. What we mean by a circle may be made clear by defining a circle, or by an algebraical formula, or by drawing a circle. All these ways will be fruitful, but they will be fruitful relatively to the problem which provokes them. To explain anything at all, it is necessary to keep in mind the questions to which the proposed explanation is relevant. If I am asked to draw a circle it will not do simply to define it; and if I am asked to tell what it is algebraically, it will not do simply to draw it. So it is apparent that, when we wish to know what the continuity of history can explain, or when we affirm that it explains nothing, we should have in mind, first of all, the questions to which the continuity of history would be an appropriate answer. There appears to be only one such question, and that is, What have been the antecedents of any[Pg 67] given fact? These antecedents the continuity of history explains in that it makes them clear. It may also make clear what the consequences of a given fact have been or may be. But this explanatory value is a derivative47 of the preceding or an enlargement of it, through our habit of looking at consequences as derived from their antecedents, and of basing our expectations of what may happen upon our observations of what has happened. Further explanatory value in the continuity of history it seems difficult to find, even if we make the statement of it less general and more precise.
But in saying this, it is not implied that this value is mean or inconsiderable. The continuity of history is both entertaining and instructive. It is entertaining because it reveals unsuspected kinships and alluring connections. It is instructive because it furnishes a foundation for inference and practice. To man it gives the long experience of his race to enjoy and profit by. It guides his expectations and enhances the control of his own affairs. It is the same with the continuities of nature generally. They beget48 the vision of an ordered world and help to frame rules which are applicable in the control of nature. Accordingly it is not disparagement[Pg 68] which is here intended, but a limitation which should be appreciated.
When we say to our children, "A little bird told me," both we and our children may be quite ignorant of Dr. Dasent's introduction to the Norse Tales. We may be quite unconscious that we are using an expression traceable to a time when people believed in such language of birds and beasts as gifted persons could understand. It may be that we repeat the words simply because we remember that our parents once successfully deceived us in our childhood by using them, and that our parents did but follow the example of theirs. But evidently we should not explain the trivial saying simply by following it back endlessly into antiquity49 unless we concluded that it had always been characteristic of parents to deceive children in this manner. In that case we should have discovered a metaphysical truth about the nature of parents, and no further explanation would be required.
If, however, we are not willing to admit that parents are such by nature that they will cite birds as sources of information when it is expedient50 to keep the real source hidden, but insist that this habit be otherwise explained, we ask for an explanation which the continuity of history[Pg 69] alone can not afford. An explanation in contemporaneous terms is required. We do not use the phrase because our ancestors used it, although we may have derived it from them; we use it because of its known efficacy. We may, however, discover that our ancestors—or Norse parents—used it for a different reason, namely, because they believed in a language of beasts and birds. But if we ask why they so believed, it will not profit us to pursue antiquity again, unless by so doing we come upon the contemporaneous, experimental origin of that belief. For it is evident that if the belief had an origin, there was a time anterior51 when it did not exist, and its origin can not, therefore, be explained solely52 in terms of that anterior time. Its origin points, not to continuity, but to action. It indicates not that the originators of the belief had ancestors, but that, in view of their contemporaneous circumstances, they acted in a certain way. To explain the origin of anything, therefore, we can not trust to the continuity of history alone. That continuity may carry us back to the beginnings of beliefs and institutions which have persisted and been transmitted from age to age; it may reveal to us experimental factors which have shaped beliefs and institutions, but which have[Pg 70] long since been forgotten; but it can never, of itself, reveal the experimental origin of any belief or institution whatever. That is, in principle, the limitation by which the explanatory value of historical continuity is restricted. To understand origins we must appeal to the contemporaneous experience of their own age, or to experimental science.[8]
Simple as this consideration is, it has been too much neglected by historians and philosophers in recent times on account of the profound influence of the doctrine53 of evolution. The great service, which that doctrine has rendered, has been to fix our attention on the evident fact of continuity from which our minds had been distracted by a too exclusive preoccupation with theories of the atomic kind. Through several centuries, philosophy had acquired the habit of thinking generally in terms of elements and their compounds, whenever it addressed itself to a consideration of nature, or of the mind, or of the relation between the two. Its principal problem[Pg 71] was to discover means of connection and unification which might make clear how that which is essentially54 discrete55 and discontinuous might, none the less, be combined into a unity56 of some sort. As it failed, it usually took refuge in the opposite idea, and attempted to conceive an original unity out of which diversity was generated by some impulsion in this initial and primal57 being. Philosophy thus vibrated between the contrasted poles of the same fundamental endeavor, between the attempt to combine elements into a unity, and the attempt to resolve unity into elements. The latter attempt, especially in men like Hegel and Spencer, had the advantage of involving the idea of continuity, and became the controlling philosophical58 enterprise of the latter part of the last century. But it was principally the doctrine of evolution or development as set forth by biologists, anthropologists, and historians that made the fact of continuity convincingly apparent and freed philosophy from the necessity of attempting to explain it. Continuity became a fact to be appreciated and understood, and ceased to be a riddle59 to be solved. The doctrine of evolution thus wrought60 a real emancipation61 of the mind.
But this freedom has been often abused.[Pg 72] Relieved of the necessity of explaining continuity, philosophers, biologists, historians, and even students of language, literature, and the arts, have been too frequently content to let the fact of continuity do all the explaining that needs to be done. To discover the historical origins and trace the descent of ideas, institutions, customs, and forms of life, have been for many the exclusive and sufficient occupation, to the neglect of experimental science and with the consequent failure to make us very much wiser in our attempts to control the intricate factors of human living. If we would appreciate our own morals and religion we are often advised to consider primitive man and his institutions. If we would evaluate marriage or property, we are often directed to study our remote ancestors. And this practical advice has sometimes taken the form of metaphysics. If we wish to know the nature of things or to appraise62 their worth, we are told to contemplate37 some primitive cosmic stuff from which everything has been derived. Thus man and all the varied63 panorama64 of the world vanish backward into nebul?, and life disappears into the impulse to live. Not trailing clouds of glory do we come, but trailing the primitive and the obsolete65.
[Pg 73]
Such considerations as these have diverse effects according to our temperaments66. They quite uniformly produce, however, disillusionment and sophistication. That is the usual result of inquisitions into one's ancestry67. But disillusionment and sophistication may produce either regret or rebellion. This exaltation of the past, as the ancestral home of all that we are, may make us regret our loss of illusions and our disconcerting enlightenment. It had been better for us to have lived then when illusions were cherished and vital, than to live now when they are exposed and artificial. The joy of living has been sapped, and we may cry with Matthew Arnold's Obermann
"Oh, had I lived in that great day!"
Or disillusionment and sophistication may beget rebellion. We may break with the past, scorn an inheritance so redolent of blood and lust9 and superstition68, revel69 in an emancipation unguided by the discipline of centuries, strive to create a new world every day, and imagine that, at last, we have begun to make progress.
But progress is not to be construed70 in terms of a conservatism which is artificial and reactionary71, or of a radicalism72 which is undisciplined[Pg 74] and irresponsible. Conservatism and radicalism are, as already indicated, temperamental affections which a too exclusive and irrational73 contemplation of our ancestry may produce in us. They are born of fear or impatience74, and are not the legitimate75 offspring of history. For historical continuity, just because it does not of itself reveal the experimental origin of any belief or institution, does not of itself disclose progress or any standard by which progress may be estimated. It teaches no lesson in morals and provides no guide to the perplexed76. And the reason for this is simple. History is continuous, and, therefore, there is no point, no date, no occurrence, no incident, no origin, no belief, and no institution, which can claim pre?minence simply on account of its position. If men were once superstitious77 because of their place in history and are now scientific for precisely the same reason, we can not therefore conclude, with any intelligent or rational certainty, that evolution has progressed from superstition to science, or that science is better than superstition. Values are otherwise determined. The continuity of history levels them all.
Yet there may be laws of history. The comparative study of history, whether the history[Pg 75] be of civilizations or of living forms or of geological formations, reveals uniformities and sequences which promote our understanding and aid our practice. If we should find that wherever men have lived, their institutions, laws, customs, religion, and philosophy tend to show a uniformity of direction in their development, we should feel justified78 in concluding that the tendency indicated a law of history. Yet such laws would not be indications of progress. They would indicate rather the conditions under which progress is or can be made. For laws are expressions of the limitations under which things may be done. They show the forms and structures to which actions conform. But whether these actions are good or bad, upward or downward, progressive or retrogressive, they do not show. For decline no less than progress is in conformity79 with law, and the continuity of history is indifferent to both. Were we, therefore, in possession of all the laws and uniformities of history, we should not have discovered thereby what either decline or progress is; but were we in possession of a knowledge of what decline and progress are, the laws and uniformities of history would teach us better to avoid the one and attain80 the other.
[Pg 76]
It would seem to follow from these considerations that progress involves something more than the continuous accumulation of results in some specified81 direction, the piling of them up on one another in such a way that the total heap is more impressive than any of the portions added to it, and more illustrative, consequently, of a particular career. There might, indeed, be progress in this sense, if we divorced the conception of it from any standard which might intelligently judge it and set a value upon it. For the passage from seed to fruit, or any movement in time which attains82 an end illustrative of the steps by which it has been reached is in that sense progressive. But progress in this sense means no more than the fact of history. The career of things in time is precisely that sort of movement, and indicates the sense in which history is naturally purposeful. To call it progress adds nothing to the meaning of it unless a standard is introduced by which it can be measured. If we will risk again the treacherous83 distinction between man as intelligent and nature as simply forceful, we may say that progress rightfully implies some improvement of nature. We should then see that to improve nature involves the doing of something which[Pg 77] nature, left to herself, does not do, and, consequently, that nature herself affords no indication of progress and no measure or standard of it. Nor does history afford them, if we divorce history from every moral estimate of it. For again, we may say that progress implies some improvement of history, so that to judge that there has been progress is not to discover that history by evolving has put a value upon itself. It is rather to judge that history has measured up to a standard applied84 to it. It seems idle, therefore, to suppose that history apart from such a standard can tell us what progress is or whether it has been made.
Yet history might do so if we are ready to admit man makes moral judgments85 as naturally as the sun shines. If his morality were some miracle, supernaturally imposed upon his natural career, we should need supernatural sanctions for it, for no natural achievement of his could justify87 it. These sanctions might justify him and what he does, if he conformed to them, but neither he nor his actions could give them natural warrant. They would express nothing after which he naturally aspires88, and could, consequently, afford him no vision of a goal the attainment89 of which would crown his history[Pg 78] with its own natural fruition. But if his morality is natural, his ideals and standards of judgment86 express what he has discovered he might be, and point out to him what his history might attain, had he knowledge and power enough to turn it in the direction of his own conscious purposes. Accordingly his history then might reveal both progress and the criterion of it. But it would do so not simply because it is a history, but because it is a history of a certain kind. Man makes progress because he can conceive what progress is, and use that conception as a standard of selection and as a goal to be reached. He participates in his own history consciously, and that means that he participates in it morally, with a sense of obligation to his career. For to be conscious implies the anticipation90 in imagination of results which are not yet attained91, but which might be attained if appropriate means were found. Conceiving thus what he might be, man always has some standard and measure of what he is. He sees ahead of him, and moves, therefore, with care and discrimination. All the forces and impulses of his nature do not simply impel92 him on from behind; they also draw him on from before through his ability to conceive to what [Pg 79]enlargement and fruition they might be carried. He condemns93 his life as miserable94, only because he conceives a happiness which condemns it; and he calls it good, only because joys, once anticipated but now attained, have blessed it. Progress is thus characteristic of human history, because it is characteristic of man that progress should be conceived. His life is not only a life of nutrition and reproduction, or of pleasures and pains, but a life also of hopes and fears. And when hope and fear are not blind, but enlightened, his life is also a life of reason, for reason is the ability to conceive the ends which clarify the movements toward them.
"Without reason, as without memory, there might still be pleasures and pains in existence. To increase those pleasures and reduce those pains would be to introduce an improvement into the sentient95 world, as if a devil suddenly died in hell or in heaven a new angel were created. Since the beings, however, in which these values would reside, would, by hypothesis, know nothing of one another, and since the betterment would take place unprayed-for and unnoticed, it could hardly be called a progress; and certainly not a progress in man, since man, without the ideal continuity given by memory and[Pg 80] reason, would have no moral being. In human progress, therefore, reason is not a casual instrument, having its sole value in its service to sense; such a betterment in sentience96 would not be progress unless it were a progress in reason, and the increasing pleasure revealed some object that could please; for without a picture of the situation from which a heightened vitality97 might flow, the improvement could be neither remembered nor measured nor desired."[9]
Carrying thus the conception and measure of progress in his own career, man can judge his history morally, and decide what progress he has made. He speaks aptly of "making" progress, recognizing in that expression that he uses the materials at his command for the ends he desires. But the materials at his command are not of his own making. He may, indeed, have modified them by former use, but in each instance of his using them they are always so much matter with a structure and character of their own. This fact puts the continuity of history in a new light. It forbids the attempt to conceive it as a movement pushing forward, as it were, into the future. We should conceive[Pg 81] it rather from the point of view of the time process as we have already analyzed98 it. Then we should see that the continuity of history is the continuity of the results of the conversion of the possible into the actual—the part of the line which has been drawn. It comprises all that has been accomplished99, conserved100 either by man's memory or by nature at large, and existing for continued modification or use. As such, it has its own structure, its own uniformities, and its own laws. To them every modification made is subject. That is why everything "connects on from what lies at hand," and why everything we do—even the expressions we use—points backward to what our ancestors have done. Since what they have done is only material for what we may do, it can not of itself explain our use of it, or judge our own values. An understanding of it should, however, make us wiser in the use of it. That is why we need contemporaneous experience and empirical science. We need to discover, either by our own experience or by reconstituting the experience of others, what happens when given material is used in a given way. Such discoveries are the only genuine explanations. They reveal the conditions to which actions[Pg 82] must conform if the ends we desire are to be attained.
More generally expressed the continuity of history is the continuity of matter. It comprises in sum the structure to which every movement in time is subject. It makes up what we call the laws of nature conformably to which whatever is done must be done. But in itself it is inert101 and impotent. Activity of some sort must penetrate102 it, if there is to be anything effected. And what is effected reveals, when experimentally understood, the laws as limitations within which the control of any movement is possible.
A wall is built by laying stone on stone. It may be torn down and built again, or left a ruin. The placing or overthrow103 of every stone occurs as just that event but once, never to return, but the stones, though chiseled104 or worn in the handling, remain constant material for constant use. The result is a wall or a ruin, both of which illustrate the law of gravitation, but neither of which was produced by that law. That is what history is like. It is an activity which transforms the materials of the world without destroying them, and transforms them subject to laws of their own. The world is thus ever new, but never lawless. It is always fresh[Pg 83] and always old. The present is, as Francis Bacon said, its real antiquity. Time is thus the arch-conservative and the arch-radical. Forever it revises its inheritance, but it is never quit of it.
Man's inheritance comprises both what he has derived from his ancestors, and also the world bequeathed to him from day to day. This material he uses with some knowledge of its laws, and with the conscious desire to convert it to his own ends. The kinds of progress he can make are thus relevant to the purposes he sets before him. Since the satisfaction of his physical needs and the desire of comfortable living require some mastery of physical resources, his progress can naturally be measured by the degree of success he makes in providing for satisfactions of this kind. Such progress is material progress, and its standards are economy and efficiency, or the attainment of the maximum result with the minimum of effort. This kind of progress is very diversified105, embracing all the economic concerns of life, and much of society and the arts. But material prosperity is provisional. To be well-housed, well-fed, well-clothed, and even to have friends and the opportunity for unlimited106 amusement, these things have never been [Pg 84]permanently107 regarded as defining human happiness to the full. Having these things man is still curious to know what he will do. Material progress indicates mastery of the necessities of his existence in order that he may then be free to act. If no free act follows upon such mastery, life loses its savor108, and pleasures grow stale. Material progress would thus seem to be a preliminary to living well, but would not be living well itself. For man would be in a sorry plight109 if he succeeded in mastering the physical resources of his world, and then found nothing to do.
There seems to be nothing further for him to do than to reflect, or rather what he does further, flows from his reflections. Since he satisfies his bodily wants, not blindly, but consciously and through exercise of his intelligence, looking before and after, and trying to see his life from beginning to end, his reflections lead him to self-consciousness. He discovers his personality and makes the crucial distinction between his body and his soul. He speaks of his world, of his friends, of his life. He begins then to wonder for what purpose and by what right his possessive attitude is warranted; for unless he suppresses his reflections or yields himself thoughtlessly[Pg 85] to his instincts and emotions, he can not fail to observe that things are no more rightfully his than another's, and that to belong rightfully to any one there must be some warrant drawn from a world with which his soul could be congenial. Even his soul begins to appear as not rightfully his, for why should he have now this haunting sense of belonging to another world, and of being a visitor to this in need of introduction and credentials110? Reflection thus gives birth to a new kind of life in which also progress may be made. We call it rational progress, for it involves the attempt to justify existence by discovering sanctions which reason can approve, and to which all should give assent111, because each soul must, on seeing them, recognize them as its own.
Reflection may lead man to do generous things. He may comfort the distressed112, help the poor, relieve pain, or reform society. The world affords him abundant opportunity for his benefactions. He may create beautiful things which he and others can enjoy perfectly in the mere beholding113 of them. He may worship the gods, dimly conscious that they at least lead the perfect life, and that to dwell with them is immortality114. Such exercises of the spirit yield[Pg 86] him a new kind of happiness. But his danger lies in supposing that his existence can be thus externally justified: that others will bless him for his benefactions; that Beauty lurks115 hidden to be gloriously seen even at the risk of destruction; or that God intended him to be happy. If, however, he is saved from thus superstitiously116 converting the ideal possibilities of his life into justifying117 reasons why he should exist at all, he may see in them the fruition of all his history. Even his material progress gives him a hint of this, for it is genuine progress and justifies118 itself naturally through the attainment of its ends. For he needs no sanction to warm his body when cold, or to feed it when hungry. It is sufficient that he sees the end to be reached and finds the means to reach it. The hunger of the soul may be no less efficacious. Although these cravings tend to bring uneasiness and distaste into his animal enjoyments119, they find some satisfaction if these enjoyments are idealized and transformed into a vision of what they might be freed from the material grossness which clogs120 them. Man then begins to conceive ideal love and friendship, and an ideal society. If only he were the free partaker of such perfect things, his existence would need no justification121.[Pg 87] In acknowledging this, however, he may rediscover himself and learn more adequately what the purpose of his history is. It is so to use the materials of the world that they will be permanently used in the light of the ideal perfection they naturally suggest. Man can conceive no occupation more satisfying and no happiness more complete. In entering upon it he makes rational progress. Its measure is the degree of success he attains in making his animal life minister to ideals he can own without reserve and love without regret.
Human history is something more than the lives of great men, the rise and fall of states, the growth of institutions and customs, the vagaries122 of religion and philosophy, or the controlling influence of economic forces. It is also a rational enterprise. Expressed in naturalistic terms it is history conscious of what history is. To remember and to understand what has happened is not, therefore, simply an interesting and profitable study; it may be also an illustration of rational living. It may be an indication that man, in finally discovering what his history genuinely is, is at the same time making it minister constantly and consciously to its own enlargement and perfection. That intelligent[Pg 88] beings should recover their history is no reason why they should repudiate123 it, even if they find many things of which to be ashamed; for they are examples of the recovery of the past with the prospect124 of a future. In reading their own history, they may smile at that which once they reverenced125, and laugh at that which once they feared. They may have to unlearn many established lessons and renounce126 many cherished hopes. They may have to emancipate127 themselves continually from their past; but note that it is from their past that they would be emancipated128 and that it is freedom that they seek. It is not a new form of slavery. Into what greater slavery could they fall than into that implied by the squandering129 of their inheritance or by blaming their ancestors for preceding them? They will be ancestors themselves one day and others will ask what they have bequeathed. These others may not ask for Greece again or for Rome or for Christianity, but they will ask for the like of these, things which can live perennially130 in the imagination, even if as institutions they are past and dead. He is not freed from the past who has lost it or who regards himself simply as its product. In the one case he would have no experience to guide him and[Pg 89] no memories to cherish. In the other he would have no enthusiasm. To be emancipated is to have recovered the past untrammeled in an enlightened pursuit of that enterprise of the mind which first begot131 it. It is not to renounce imagination, but to exercise it illumined and refreshed.
History is, then, not only the conserving132, the remembering, and the understanding of what has happened: it is also the completing of what has happened. And since in man history is consciously lived, the completing of what has happened is also the attempt to carry it to what he calls perfection. He looks at a wilderness133, but, even as he looks, beholds134 a garden. For him, consequently, the purpose of history is not a secret he vainly tries to find, but a kind of life his reason enables him to live. As he lives it well, the fragments of existence are completed and illumined in the visions they reveal.
The End
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abound
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| vi.大量存在；(in，with)充满，富于 | |
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conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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derive
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| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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7
criteria
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| n.标准 | |
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8
envisage
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| v.想象，设想，展望，正视 | |
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9
lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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10
degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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11
modification
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| n.修改，改进，缓和，减轻 | |
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12
binds
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| v.约束( bind的第三人称单数 )；装订；捆绑；（用长布条）缠绕 | |
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13
renaissance
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| n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴 | |
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14
dwindle
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| v.逐渐变小（或减少） | |
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15
rudiments
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| n.基础知识，入门 | |
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16
illustrate
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| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
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17
revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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18
mathematician
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| n.数学家 | |
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19
maxim
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| n.格言，箴言 | |
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20
philosophic
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| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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21
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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22
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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23
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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24
domain
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| n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围 | |
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25
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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26
automobile
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| n.汽车，机动车 | |
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27
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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28
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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29
receding
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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30
alluring
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| adj.吸引人的，迷人的 | |
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31
recedes
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的第三人称单数 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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32
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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33
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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34
relatively
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| adv.比较...地，相对地 | |
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35
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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36
contemplates
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的第三人称单数 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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37
contemplate
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| vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视 | |
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38
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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39
unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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40
intelligible
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| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
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41
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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42
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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43
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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44
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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45
tempting
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| a.诱人的, 吸引人的 | |
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46
uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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47
derivative
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| n.派(衍)生物；adj.非独创性的，模仿他人的 | |
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48
beget
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| v.引起；产生 | |
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49
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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50
expedient
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| adj.有用的，有利的；n.紧急的办法，权宜之计 | |
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51
anterior
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| adj.较早的；在前的 | |
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52
solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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53
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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54
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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55
discrete
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| adj.个别的，分离的，不连续的 | |
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56
unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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57
primal
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| adj.原始的；最重要的 | |
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58
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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59
riddle
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|
| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
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60
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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61
emancipation
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| n.（从束缚、支配下）解放 | |
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62
appraise
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| v.估价，评价，鉴定 | |
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63
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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64
panorama
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| n.全景，全景画，全景摄影，全景照片[装置] | |
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65
obsolete
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| adj.已废弃的，过时的 | |
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66
temperaments
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| 性格( temperament的名词复数 )； （人或动物的）气质； 易冲动； （性情）暴躁 | |
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67
ancestry
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| n.祖先，家世 | |
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68
superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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69
revel
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| vi.狂欢作乐，陶醉；n.作乐，狂欢 | |
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70
construed
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|
| v.解释（陈述、行为等）( construe的过去式和过去分词 )；翻译，作句法分析 | |
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71
reactionary
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|
| n.反动者，反动主义者；adj.反动的，反动主义的，反对改革的 | |
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72
radicalism
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|
| n. 急进主义, 根本的改革主义 | |
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73
irrational
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|
| adj.无理性的，失去理性的 | |
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74
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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75
legitimate
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|
| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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76
perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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77
superstitious
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|
| adj.迷信的 | |
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78
justified
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|
| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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79
conformity
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|
| n.一致，遵从，顺从 | |
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80
attain
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|
| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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81
specified
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| adj.特定的 | |
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82
attains
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的第三人称单数 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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83
treacherous
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|
| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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84
applied
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|
| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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85
judgments
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| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
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86
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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87
justify
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|
| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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88
aspires
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| v.渴望，追求( aspire的第三人称单数 ) | |
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89
attainment
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| n.达到，到达；［常pl.］成就，造诣 | |
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90
anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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91
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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92
impel
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| v.推动；激励，迫使 | |
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93
condemns
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|
| v.（通常因道义上的原因而）谴责( condemn的第三人称单数 )；宣判；宣布…不能使用；迫使…陷于不幸的境地 | |
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94
miserable
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|
| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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95
sentient
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|
| adj.有知觉的，知悉的；adv.有感觉能力地 | |
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96
sentience
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| n.感觉性；感觉能力；知觉 | |
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97
vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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98
analyzed
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| v.分析( analyze的过去式和过去分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析 | |
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99
accomplished
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|
| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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100
conserved
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| v.保护，保藏，保存( conserve的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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101
inert
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| adj.无活动能力的，惰性的；迟钝的 | |
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102
penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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103
overthrow
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| v.推翻，打倒，颠覆；n.推翻，瓦解，颠覆 | |
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104
chiseled
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| adj.凿刻的，轮廓分明的v.凿，雕，镌( chisel的过去式 ) | |
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105
diversified
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|
| adj.多样化的，多种经营的v.使多样化，多样化( diversify的过去式和过去分词 )；进入新的商业领域 | |
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106
unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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107
permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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108
savor
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| vt.品尝，欣赏；n.味道，风味；情趣，趣味 | |
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109
plight
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| n.困境，境况，誓约，艰难；vt.宣誓，保证，约定 | |
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110
credentials
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| n.证明，资格，证明书，证件 | |
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111
assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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112
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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113
beholding
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| v.看，注视( behold的现在分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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114
immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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115
lurks
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| n.潜在，潜伏；（lurk的复数形式）vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的第三人称单数形式） | |
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116
superstitiously
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| 被邪教所支配 | |
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117
justifying
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| 证明…有理( justify的现在分词 )； 为…辩护； 对…作出解释； 为…辩解（或辩护） | |
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118
justifies
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| 证明…有理( justify的第三人称单数 )； 为…辩护； 对…作出解释； 为…辩解（或辩护） | |
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119
enjoyments
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| 愉快( enjoyment的名词复数 )； 令人愉快的事物； 享有； 享受 | |
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120
clogs
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| 木屐； 木底鞋，木屐( clog的名词复数 ) | |
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121
justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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122
vagaries
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| n.奇想( vagary的名词复数 )；异想天开；异常行为；难以预测的情况 | |
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123
repudiate
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| v.拒绝，拒付，拒绝履行 | |
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124
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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125
reverenced
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| v.尊敬，崇敬( reverence的过去式和过去分词 )；敬礼 | |
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126
renounce
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| v.放弃；拒绝承认，宣布与…断绝关系 | |
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127
emancipate
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| v.解放，解除 | |
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128
emancipated
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| adj.被解放的，不受约束的v.解放某人（尤指摆脱政治、法律或社会的束缚）( emancipate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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129
squandering
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| v.（指钱，财产等）浪费，乱花( squander的现在分词 ) | |
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130
perennially
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| adv.经常出现地；长期地；持久地；永久地 | |
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131
begot
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| v.为…之生父( beget的过去式 )；产生，引起 | |
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132
conserving
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| v.保护，保藏，保存( conserve的现在分词 ) | |
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133
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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134
beholds
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| v.看，注视( behold的第三人称单数 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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