CHAPTER VI. GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND MODERN THOUGHT.

I.

Adequately to exhibit the relation of Greek philosophy to modern thought would require a volume. The object of the present discussion is merely to show in what ways that relation has been most clearly manifested, and what assistance it may afford us in solving some important problems connected with the development of metaphysical and moral speculation².

Historians often speak as if philosophy took an entirely³ fresh start at different epochs of its existence. One such break is variously associated with Descartes, or Bacon, or some one of their Italian predecessors⁶. In like manner, the introduction of Christianity, coupled with the closing of the Athenian schools by Justinian, is considered, as once was the suppression of the West-Roman Caesarate by Odoacer, to mark the beginning of a new régime. But there can be no more a real break in the continuity of intellectual than in the continuity of political history, beyond what sleep or inactivity may simulate in the life of the organic aggregate⁸ no less than in the life of the organic individual. In each instance, the thread is taken up where it was dropped. If the rest of the world has been advancing meanwhile, new tendencies will come into play, but only by first attaching themselves to older lines of movement. Sometimes, again, what seems to be a revolution is, in truth, the revival¹⁰ or liberation of an earlier movement, through the decay or destruction of beliefs364 which have hitherto checked its growth. Thus the systems of Plato and Aristotle, after carrying all before them for a brief period, were found unsuitable, from their vast comprehension and high spirituality, to the undeveloped consciousness of their age, and were replaced by popularised versions of the sceptical or naturalistic philosophies which they had endeavoured to suppress. And when these were at length left behind by the forward movement of the human mind, speculative¹² reformers spontaneously reverted¹³ to the two great Socratic thinkers for a better solution of the problems in debate. After many abortive¹⁴ efforts, a teacher appeared possessing sufficient genius to fuse their principles into a seemingly coherent and comprehensive whole. By combining the Platonic¹⁵ and Aristotelian spiritualism with a dynamic element borrowed from Stoicism, Plotinus did for an age of intellectual decadence¹⁷ what his models had done in vain for an age of intellectual growth. The relation in which he stood to Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Scepticism, reproduced the relation in which they stood to the various physical and sophistic schools of their time; but the silent experience of six centuries won for him a much more enduring success.

Neo-Platonism was the form under which Greek philosophy passed into Christian⁷ teaching; and the transition was effected with less difficulty because Christianity had already absorbed some of its most essential elements from the original system of Plato himself. Meanwhile the revival of spiritualism had given an immense impulse to the study of the classic writings whence it was drawn¹⁹; and the more they were studied the more prominently did their antagonism²⁰ on certain important questions come into view. Hence, no sooner did the two systems between which Plotinus had established a provisional compromise come out victorious²¹ from their struggle with materialism²², than they began to separate and draw off into opposing camps. The principal subject of dispute was the form under which ideas exist. The conflicting theories of365 Realism and Nominalism are already set forth²³ with perfect clearness by Porphyry in his introduction to the Organon; and his statement of the case, as Victor Cousin has pointed²⁴ out, gave the signal for a controversy²⁵ forming the central interest of Scholasticism during the entire period of its duration.

Now, it is a remarkable²⁷ fact, and one as yet not sufficiently²⁸ attended to, that a metaphysical issue first raised between the Platonists and Aristotle, and regarded, at least by the latter, as of supreme²⁹ importance for philosophy, should have been totally neglected at a time when abundant documents on both sides were open to consultation³⁰, and taken up with passionate³¹ eagerness at a time when not more than one or two dialogues of Plato and two or three tracts³² of Aristotle continued to be read in the western world. Various explanations of this singular anomaly may be offered. It may be said, for instance, that after every moral and religious question on which the schools of Athens were divided had been closed by the authoritative³³ ruling of Catholicism, nothing remained to quarrel over but points too remote or too obscure for the Church to interfere³⁴ in their decision; and that these were accordingly seized upon as the only field where human intelligence could exercise itself with any approach to freedom. The truth, however, seems to be that to take any interest in the controversy between Realism and Nominalism, it was first necessary that European thought as a whole should rise to a level with the common standpoint of their first supporters. This revolution was effected by the general adoption³⁵ of a monotheistic faith.

Moreover, the Platonic ideas were something more than figments of an imaginative dialectic. They were now beginning to appear in their true light, and as what Plato had always understood them to be—no mere¹ abstractions from experience, but spiritual forces by which sensuous³⁶ reality was to be reconstituted and reformed. The Church herself seemed366 something more than a collection of individuals holding common convictions and obeying a common discipline; she was, like Plato’s own Republic, the visible embodiment of an archetype laid up in Heaven.533 And the Church’s teaching seemed also to assume the independent reality of abstract ideas. Does not the Trinity involve belief in a God distinct from any of the Divine Persons taken alone? Do not the Fall, the Incarnation, and the Atonement become more intelligible³⁷ if we imagine an ideal humanity sinning with the first Adam and purified by becoming united with the second Adam? Such, at least, seems to have been the dimly conceived metaphysics of St. Paul, whatever may now be the official doctrine³⁸ of Rome. It was, therefore, in order that, during the first half of the Middle Ages, from Charlemagne to the Crusades, Realism should have been the prevailing³⁹ doctrine; the more so because Plato’s Timaeus, which was studied in the schools through that entire period, furnishes its readers with a complete theory of the universe; while only the formal side of Aristotle’s philosophy is represented by such of his logical treatises⁴² as were then known to western Christendom.

Yet Realism concealed⁴³ a danger to orthodoxy which was not long in making itself felt. Just as the substantiality of individuals disappeared in that of their containing species, so also did every subordinate species tend to vanish in the summum genus of absolute Being. Now such a conclusion was nothing less than full-blown pantheism; and pantheism was, in fact, the system of the first great Schoolman, John Scotus Erigena; while other Realists were only prevented from reaching the same goal by the restraint either of Christian faith or of ecclesiastical authority. But if they failed to draw the logical consequences of their premises⁴⁵, it was drawn for them by others; and Abélard did not fail to twit his opponents with the formidable heresy⁴⁶ implied in their realistic prin367ciples.534 As yet, however, the weight of authority inclined towards Plato’s side; and the persecution⁴⁷ suffered by Abélard himself, as compared with the very mild treatment accorded to his contemporary, Gilbert de la Porrée, when each was arraigned⁴⁸ on a charge of heresy, shows that while the Nominalism of the one was an aggravation⁴⁹, the Realism of the other was an extenuation⁵⁰ of his offence.535

So matters stood when the introduction of Aristotle’s entire system into western Europe brought about a revolution comparable to that effected two centuries later by the complete recovery of ancient literature. It was through Latin translations from the Arabic, accompanied by Arabic commentaries, that the Peripatetic⁵¹ philosophy was first revealed in its entirety; and even Albertus Magnus, living in the thirteenth century, seems to have derived⁵³ his knowledge of the subject from these exclusively. But a few years after the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204, the Greek manuscripts of Aristotle were brought to Paris; and, towards the middle of the century, a new Latin version was made from these under the supervision⁵⁴ of St. Thomas Aquinas.536 The triumph of Aristotle was now, at least for a time, secured. For, while in the first period of the Middle Ages we find only a single great name, that of Abélard, among the Nominalists, against a strong array of Realists, in the second period the proportions are reversed, and Realism has only a single worthy⁵⁵ champion, Duns Scotus, to pit against Albertus, Aquinas, and William of Ockham, each of them representing one of the principal European nations.537 The human intellect, hitherto confined within the narrow bounds of logic⁴⁰, now ranged over physics, metaphysics, psychology⁵⁶, and ethics⁵⁷; and although all these subjects were368 studied only at second-hand⁵⁸, and with very limited opportunities for criticism, still the benefit received must have been immense. The priceless service of the later Schoolmen is to have appropriated and successfully upheld, against Platonism on the one hand and theological mysticism on the other, a philosophy which, however superficial, took in the whole range of natural phenomena⁶⁰, derived all knowledge from external observation, and set an example of admirable precision in the systematic⁶¹ exposition of its results. If no positive addition was made to that vast storehouse of facts and ideas, the blame does not lie with Aristotle’s method, but with the forcible suppression of free mental activity by the Church, or its diversion to more profitable fields by the study of Roman jurisprudence. Even as it was, Aristotle contributed largely to the downfall of ecclesiastical authority in two ways: directly by accustoming⁶² men to use their reason, and indirectly⁶³ by throwing back mysticism on its proper office—the restoration of a purely⁶⁴ personal religion.

But before the dissolving action of Nominalism had become fully⁵⁹ manifest, its ascendency was once more challenged; and this time, also, the philosophical⁶⁶ impulse came from Constantinople. Greek scholars, seeking help in the West, brought with them to Florence the complete works of Plato; and these were shortly made accessible to a wider public through the Latin translation of Ficino. Their influence seems at first to have told in favour of mysticism, for this was the contemporary tendency to which they could be most readily affiliated⁶⁷; and, besides, in swinging back from Aristotle’s philosophy to the rival form of spiritualism, men’s minds naturally reverted, in the first instance, to what had once linked them together—the system of Plotinus. Thus Platonism was studied through an Alexandrian medium, and as the Alexandrians had looked at it, that is to say, chiefly under its theological and metaphysical aspects. As such, it became the accepted philosophy of the Renaissance⁶⁸;369 and much of what we most admire in the literature—at least the English literature—of that period, is directly traceable to Platonic influence. That the Utopia of Sir Thomas More was inspired by the Republic and the Critias is, of course, obvious; and the great part played by the ideal theory in Spenser’s Faery Queen, though less evident, is still sufficiently clear. As Mr. Green observes in his History of the English People (II., p. 413), ‘Spenser borrows, in fact, the delicate and refined forms of the Platonic philosophy to express his own moral enthusiasm.... Justice, Temperance, Truth are no mere names to him, but real existences to which his whole nature clings with a rapturous affection.’ Now it deserves observation, as illustrating⁶⁹ a great revolution in European thought, that the relation of Plato to the epic¹⁸ of the English Renaissance is precisely⁷⁰ paralleled by the relation of Aristotle to the epic of mediaeval Italy. Dante borrows more than his cosmography from the Stagirite. The successive circles of Hell, the spirals of Purgatory⁷¹, and the spheres of Paradise, are a framework in which the characters of the poem are exhibited, not as individual actors whom we trace through a life’s history, but as types of a class and representatives of a single mental quality, whether vicious or virtuous⁷². In other words, the historical arrangement of all previous poems is abandoned in favour of a logical arrangement. For the order of contiguity⁷³ in time is substituted the order of resemblance and difference in idea. How thoroughly⁷⁴ Aristotelian, indeed, were the lines within which mediaeval imagination moved is proved by the possibility of tracing them in a work utterly⁷⁵ different from Dante’s—the Decameron of Boccaccio. The tales constituting this collection are so arranged that each day illustrates⁷⁷ some one special class of adventures; only, to make good Aristotle’s principle that earthly affairs are not subject to invariable rules, a single departure from the prescribed subject is allowed in each decade; while370 during one entire day the story-tellers are left free to choose a subject at their own discretion⁷⁸.

Now what distinguishes Spenser from Dante is that, while he also disposes his inventions according to an extremely artificial and abstract schematism, with him, as with Plato, abstractions acquire a separate individual existence, being, in fact, embodied⁷⁹ as so many persons; while Dante, following Aristotle, never separates his from the concrete data of experience. And it may be noted⁸⁰ that, in this respect at least, English literature has not deserted⁸¹ the philosophy which presided over its second birth. It has ever since been more prone⁸² to realise abstractions than any other literature, whether under the form of allegories, parables⁸³, or mere casual illustrations drawn from material objects. Even at this day, English writers crowd their pages with dazzling metaphors⁸⁴, which to Continental⁸⁵ readers must have sometimes a rather barbaric effect.

Another and profounder characteristic of Plato, as distinguished⁸⁷ from Aristotle, is his thorough-going opposition⁸⁸ of reality to appearance; his distrust of sensuous perception, imagination, and opinion; his continual appeal to a hidden world of absolute truth and justice. We find this profounder principle also grasped and applied⁸⁹ to poetical⁹¹ purposes in our Elizabethan literature, not only by Spenser, but by a still greater master—Shakespeare. It is by no means unlikely that Shakespeare may have looked into a translation of the Dialogues; at any rate, the intellectual atmosphere he breathed was so saturated⁹² with their spirit that he could easily absorb enough of it to inspire him with the theory of existence which alone gives consistency⁹³ to his dramatic work from first to last. For the essence of his comedies is that they represent the ordinary world of sensible experience as a scene of bewilderment and delusion⁹⁴, where there is nothing fixed⁹⁵, nothing satisfying, nothing true; as something which, because of its very unreality, is best represented by the drama,371 but a drama that is not without mysterious intimations of a reality behind the veil. In them we have the
Fallings from us, vanishings,
Blank misgivings⁹⁶ of a creature
Moving about in worlds not realised;

while in his tragedies we have the realisation of those worlds—the workings of an eternal justice which alone remains⁹⁷ faithful to one purpose through the infinite flux⁹⁸ of passion and of sense.

Besides the revival of Platonism, three causes had conspired⁹⁹ to overthrow¹⁰⁰ the supremacy¹⁰¹ of Aristotle. The literary Renaissance with its adoration¹⁰² for beauty of form was alienated¹⁰³ by the barbarous dialect of Scholasticism; the mystical theology of Luther saw in it an ally both of ecclesiastical authority and of human reason; and the new spirit of passionate revolt against all tradition attacked the accepted philosophy in common with every other branch of the official university curriculum. Before long, however, a reaction set in. The innovators discredited¹⁰⁴ themselves by an extravagance, an ignorance, a credulity, and an intolerance worse than anything in the teaching which they decried¹⁰⁵. No sooner was the Reformation organised as a positive doctrine than it fell back for support on the only model of systematic thinking at that time to be found. The Humanists were conciliated by having the original text of Aristotle placed before them; and they readily believed, what was not true, that it contained a wisdom which had eluded¹⁰⁶ mediaeval research. But the great scientific movement of the sixteenth century contributed, more than any other impulse, to bring about an Aristotelian reaction. After winning immortal¹⁰⁷ triumphs in every branch of art and literature, the Italian intellect threw itself with equal vigour¹⁰⁸ into the investigation¹⁰⁹ of physical phenomena. Here Plato could give little help, whereas Aristotle supplied a methodised description of the whole field to be explored, and contributions of extraordinary value towards the under372standing of some, at least, among its infinite details. And we may measure the renewed popularity of his system not only by the fact that Cesalpino, the greatest naturalist¹¹ of the age, professed¹¹⁰ himself its adherent¹¹¹, but also by the bitterness of the criticisms directed against it, and the involuntary homage¹¹² offered by rival systems which were little more than meagre excerpts¹¹³ from the Peripatetic ontology and logic.
II.

Of all testimonies¹¹⁴ to the restored supremacy of Aristotelianism, there is none so remarkable as that afforded by the thinker who, more than any other, has enjoyed the credit of its overthrow. To call Francis Bacon an Aristotelian will seem to most readers a paradox¹¹⁵. Such an appellation¹¹⁶ would, however, be much nearer the truth than were the titles formerly¹¹⁷ bestowed¹¹⁸ on the author of the Novum Organum. The notion, indeed, that he was in any sense the father of modern science is rapidly disappearing from the creed¹¹⁹ of educated persons. Its long continuance was due to a coalition¹²⁰ of literary men who knew nothing about physics and of physicists¹²² who knew nothing about philosophy or its history. It is certain that the great discoveries made both before and during Bacon’s lifetime were the starting-point of all future progress in the same direction. It is equally certain that Bacon himself had either not heard of those discoveries or that he persistently¹²⁴ rejected them. But it might still be contended that he divined and formulated¹²⁵ the only method by which these and all other great additions to human knowledge have been made, had not the delusion been dispelled¹²⁶ by recent investigations¹²⁷, more especially those of his own editors, Messrs. Ellis and Spedding. Mr. Spedding has shown that Bacon’s method never was applied to physical science at all. Mr. Ellis has shown that it was incapable¹²⁸ of application, being founded on a complete misconception of the problem to be solved. The facts could in truth, hardly have been other373 than what they are. Had Bacon succeeded in laying down the lines of future investigation, it would have been a telling argument against his own implied belief that all knowledge is derived from experience. For, granting the validity of that belief, a true theory of discovery can only be reached by an induction¹²⁹ from the observed facts of scientific practice, and such facts did not, at that time, exist in sufficient numbers to warrant an induction. It would have been still more extraordinary had he furnished a clue to the labyrinth¹³⁰ of Nature without ever having explored its mazes¹³¹ on his own account. Even as it is, from Bacon’s own point of view the contradiction remains. If ever any system was constructed à priori the Instauratio Magna was. But there is really no such thing as à priori speculation. Apart from observation, the keenest and boldest intellect can do no more than rearrange the materials supplied by tradition, or give a higher generalisation to the principles of other philosophers. This was precisely what Bacon did. The wealth of aphoristic¹³² wisdom and ingenious illustration scattered¹³³ through his writings belongs entirely to himself; but his dream of using science as an instrument for acquiring unlimited¹³⁴ power over Nature is inherited from the astrologers, alchemists, and magicians of the Middle Ages; and his philosophical system, with which alone we are here concerned, is partly a modification¹³⁵, partly an extension, of Aristotle’s. An examination of its leading features will at once make this clear.

Bacon begins by demanding that throughout the whole range of experience new facts should be collected on the largest scale, in order to supply materials for scientific generalisation. There can be no doubt that he is here guided by the example of Aristotle, and of Aristotle alone. Such a storehouse of materials is still extant in the History of Animals, which evidently suggested the use of the word ‘History’ in this sense to Bacon, and which, by the way, is immensely superior to anything that he ever attempted in374 the same line. The facts on which Aristotle’s Politics is based were contained in another vast descriptive work of the same kind, now unhappily lost. Even the Stagirite’s more systematic treatises comprise a multitude of observations, catalogued according to a certain order, but not reduced to scientific principles. What Bacon did was to carry out, or to bid others carry out, the plan so suggested in every department of enquiry. But if we ask by what method he was guided in his survey of the whole field to be explored, how he came by a complete enumeration¹³⁶ of the sciences, arranged according to their logical order,—the answer is still that he borrowed it from the Peripatetic encyclopaedia¹³⁷.

One need only compare the catalogue of particular histories subjoined to the Parasceve,538 with a table of Aristotle’s works, to understand how closely Bacon follows in the footsteps of his predecessor⁵. We do, indeed, find sundry¹³⁸ subjects enumerated¹³⁹ on which the elder student had not touched; but they are only such as would naturally suggest themselves to a man of comprehensive intelligence, coming nearly two thousand years after his original; while they are mostly of no philosophical value whatever. Bacon’s merit was to bring the distinction between the descriptive sciences and the theoretical sciences into clearer consciousness, and to give a view of the former corresponding in completeness to that already obtained of the latter.

The methodical distinction between the materials for generalisation and generalisation itself, is derived from the metaphysical distinction between Matter and Form in Nature.539 This distinction is the next great feature of Bacon’s philosophy, and it is taken, still more obviously than the first, from Aristotle, the most manifest blots¹⁴⁰ of the original being faithfully reproduced in the copy. The Forms375 of simple substances were, according to the Stagirite, their sensible qualities. The Forms of aggregates¹⁴¹ were the whole complex of their differential characteristics. And although the formal cause or idea of a thing was carefully discriminated¹⁴² from its efficient and final causes, it was found impossible, in practice, to keep the three from running into one. Again, the distinction between single concepts and the judgments¹⁴³ created by putting two concepts together, although clearly conveyed by the logical distinction between terms and propositions, was no sooner perceived than lost sight of, thanks to the unfortunate theory of essential predication. For it was thought that the import of universal propositions consisted either in stating the total concept to which a given mark belonged, or in annexing¹⁴⁴ a new mark to a given concept. Hence, in Aristotle’s system, the study of natural law means nothing but the definition and classification of natural types; and, in harmony with this idea, the whole universe is conceived as an arrangement of concentric spheres, each receiving its impulse from that immediately above it. Precisely the same confusion of Form, Cause, and Law reigns¹⁴⁸ throughout Bacon’s theory of Nature. We do, indeed, find mention made of axiomata or general propositions to a greater extent than in the Organon, but they are never clearly distinguished from Forms, nor Forms from functions.540 And although efficient and material causes are assigned to physics, while formal and final causes are reserved for metaphysics—an apparent recognition of the wide difference between the forces which bring a thing into existence and the actual conditions of its stability,—this arrangement is a departure from the letter rather than from the spirit of Aristotle’s philosophy. For the efficient causes of the De376 Augmentis answer roughly to the various kinds of motion discussed in the Physics and in the treatise⁴¹ On Generation and Corruption¹⁴⁹; while its Forms are, as we have seen, identified with natural causes or laws in the most general sense.

According to Bacon, the object of science is to analyse the complex of Forms making up an individual aggregate into its separate constituents¹⁵⁰; the object of art, to superinduce one or more such Forms on a given material. Hence his manner of regarding them differs in one important respect from Aristotle’s. The Greek naturalist was, before all things, a biologist. His interest lay with the distinguishing characteristics of animal species. These are easily discovered by the unassisted eye; but while they are comparatively superficial, they are also comparatively unalterable. The English experimenter, being primarily concerned with inorganic¹⁵¹ bodies, whose properties he desired to utilise for industrial purposes, was led to consider the attributes of an object as at once penetrating¹⁵² its inmost texture¹⁵³, and yet capable of being separated from it, like heat and colour for instance. But, like every other thinker of the age, if he escapes from the control of Aristotle it is only to fall under the dominion¹⁵⁴ of another Greek master—in this instance, Democritus. Bacon had a great admiration¹⁵⁵ for the Atomists, and although his inveterate¹⁵⁶ Peripatetic proclivities¹⁵⁷ prevented him from embracing their theory as a whole, he went along with it so far as to admit the dependence¹⁵⁸ of the secondary on the primary qualities of matter; and on the strength of this he concluded that the way to alter the properties of an object was to alter the arrangement of its component¹⁵⁹ particles.

The next step was to create a method for determining the particular configuration¹⁶¹ on which any given property of matter depends. If such a problem could be solved at all, it would be by some new system of practical analysis. Bacon did not see this because he was a Schoolman, emancipated¹⁶², indeed,377 from ecclesiastical authority, but retaining a blind faith in the power of logic. Aristotle’s Organon had been the great storehouse of aids to verbal disputation; it should now be turned into an instrument for the more successful prosecution¹⁶³ of physical researches. What definitions were to the one, that Forms should be to the other; and both were to be determined¹⁶⁴ by much the same process. Now Aristotle himself had emphatically declared that the concepts out of which propositions are constructed were discoverable by induction and by induction alone. With him, induction meant comparing a number of instances, and abstracting the one circumstance, if any, in which they agreed. When the object is to establish a proposition inductively, he has recourse to a method of elimination¹⁶⁶, and bids us search for instances which, differing in everything else, agree in the association of two particular marks.541 In the Topics he goes still further and supplies us with a variety of tests for ascertaining¹⁶⁸ the relation between a given predicate and a given subject. Among these, Mill’s Methods of Difference, Residues¹⁶⁹, and Concomitant Variations are very clearly stated.542 But he does not call such modes of reasoning Induction. So far as he has any general name for them at all, it is Dialectic, that is, Syllogism¹⁷⁰ of which the premises are not absolutely certain; and, as a matter of nomenclature, he seems to be right. There is, undoubtedly¹⁷¹, a process by which we arrive at general conclusions from the comparison of particular instances; but this process in its purity is nothing more nor less than induction by simple enumeration. All other reasoning requires the aid of universal propositions, and is therefore, to that extent, deductive. The methods of elimination or, as they are now called, of experiment, involve at every step the assumption of378 general principles duly specified¹⁷² in the chapter of Mill’s Logic where they are analysed. And wherever we can rise immediately from, a single instance to a general law, it is because the examination of that single instance has been preceded by a chain of deductive reasoning.

The confusion of Induction, properly so called, and Elimination under a single name, is largely due to the bad example set by Bacon. He found it stated in the Analytics that all concepts and general propositions are established either by syllogism or by induction; and he found some very useful rules laid down in the Topics, not answering to what he understood by the former method; he therefore summarily dubbed¹⁷³ them with the name of Induction, which they have kept ever since, to the incalculable confusion of thought.

In working out his theory of logic, the point on which Bacon lays most stress is the use of negative instances. He seems to think that their application to reasoning is an original discovery of his own. But, on examination, no more seems to be meant by it than that, before accepting any particular theory, we should consider what other explanations of the same fact might conceivably be offered. In other words, we should follow the example already set by Aristotle and nearly every other Greek philosopher after Socrates. But this is not induction; it is reasoning down from a disjunctive proposition, generally assumed without any close scrutiny¹⁷⁴, with the help of sundry conditional¹⁷⁵ propositions, until we reach our conclusion by a sort of exhaustive process. Either this, that, or the other is the explanation of something. But if it were either that or the other, so and so would follow, which is impossible; therefore it must be this. No other logic is possible in the infancy¹⁷⁶ of enquiry; but one great advantage of experiment and mathematical analysis is to relieve us from the necessity of employing it.

The value of experimentation¹⁷⁷ as such had, however, scarcely dawned on Bacon. His famous Prerogative¹⁷⁸ In379stances are, in the main, a guide to simple observation, supplemented rather than replaced by direct interference with the phenomena under examination, comparable to that moderate use of the rack which he would have countenanced¹⁷⁹ in criminal procedure. There was, perhaps, a deeper meaning in Harvey’s remark that Bacon wrote about Nature like a Lord Chancellor¹⁸⁰ than the great physiologist¹⁸¹ himself suspected. To Bacon the statesman, science was something to be largely endowed out of the public treasury¹⁸² in the sure hope that it would far more than repay the expenditure¹⁸³ incurred¹⁸⁴, by inventions of priceless advantage to human life. To Bacon the lawyer, Nature was a person in possession of important secrets to be wrested¹⁸⁵ from her by employing every artifice¹⁸⁶ of the spy, the detective, the cross-examiner, and the inquisitorial judge; to Bacon the courtier, she was a sovereign whose policy might be discovered, and, if need be, controlled, by paying judicious¹⁸⁷ attention to her humours and caprices. And, for this very reason, he would feel drawn by a secret affinity¹⁸⁸ to the Aristotelian dialectic, derived as it was through Socrates and Plato from the practice of the Athenian law-courts and the debates of the Athenian assembly. No doubt the Topics was intended primarily for a manual of debate rather than of scientific enquiry; and the English Chancellor showed true philosophic⁶⁵ genius in his attempt to utilise it for the latter purpose. Nevertheless the adaptation proved a mistake. It was not without good grounds that the Socratic dialectic had been reserved exclusively by its great founder⁸⁶, and almost exclusively by his successors, for those human interests from the discussion of which it was first derived. And the discoverers, who in Bacon’s own lifetime were laying the foundations of physical science, employed a method totally different from his, because they started with a totally different conception of the universe. To them it was not a living whole, a Form of Forms, but a sum of forces to be analysed, isolated¹⁸⁹, and recombined, in fact or in idea, with a sublime¹⁹¹ disregard380 for the conditions under which they were presented to ordinary experience. That very extension of human power anticipated by Bacon came in a manner of which he had never dreamed. It was gained by studying, not the Forms to which he attached so much importance, but the modes of motion which he had relegated¹⁹² to a subordinate place in his classification of natural causes.543

It has been said that, whatever may be the value of his logic, Bacon recalled men from the construction of baseless theories to the study of facts. But, here also, he merely echoes Aristotle, who said the same thing long before him, with much greater terseness¹⁹³, and with the superior authority of one who teaches by example as well as by precept¹⁹⁴; while the381 merit of reviving Aristotle’s advice when it had fallen into oblivion belongs to another Bacon, the author of the Opus Majus; the merit of acting¹⁶⁵ on it, to the savants of the Renaissance, to such men as Vesalius, Cesalpino, and Tycho Brahe.

But, towards the close of the sixteenth century, the time for amassing¹⁹⁵ observations was past, no further progress being possible until the observations already recorded were interpreted aright. The just instinct of science perceived this; and for nearly a century after Cesalpino no addition of any magnitude was made to what Bacon called ‘History,’ while men’s conceptions of natural law were undergoing a radical¹⁹⁶ transformation¹⁹⁷.544 To choose such a time for developing the Aristotelian philosophy was peculiarly unfortunate; for that philosophy had become, both on its good and on its bad side, an obstacle to progress, by encouraging studies which were not wanted, and by fostering a spirit of opposition to the Copernican astronomy.

The mere fact that Aristotle himself had pronounced in favour of the geocentric system did not count for much. The misfortune was that he had constructed an entire physical philosophy in harmony with it; that he had linked this to his metaphysics; and that the sensible experience on whose authority he laid so much stress, seemed to testify in its behalf. The consequence was that those thinkers who, without being professed Aristotelian partisans¹⁹⁹, still remained profoundly affected²⁰⁰ by the Peripatetic spirit, could not see their way to accepting a theory with which all the hopes of intellectual progress were bound up. These considerations will enable us to understand the attitude of Bacon towards the new astronomy; while, conversely, his position in this respect will serve to confirm the view of his character set forth in382 the preceding pages. The theory, shared by him with Aristotle, that Nature is throughout composed of Form and Matter reached its climax²⁰¹ in the supposition that the great elementary bodies are massed together in a series of concentric spheres disposed according to some principle of graduation, symmetry, or contrast; and this seemed incompatible²⁰² with any but a geocentric arrangement. It is true that Bacon quarrelled with the particular system maintained by Aristotle, and, under the guidance of Telesio, fell back on a much cruder form of cosmography; but his mind still remained dominated by the fancied necessity of conceiving the universe under the form of a stratified sphere; and those who persist in looking on him as the apostle of experience will be surprised to find that he treated the subject entirely from an à priori point of view. The truth is that Bacon exemplified, in his own intellectual character, every one of the fundamental fallacies which he has so picturesquely²⁰³ described. The unwillingness²⁰⁴ to analyse sensible appearances into their ideal elements was his Idol²⁰⁵ of the Tribe; the thirst for material utilities was his Idol of the Den⁹: the uncritical acceptance of Aristotle’s metaphysics, his Idol of the Theatre; and the undefined notions associated with induction, his Idol of the Market.
III.

We may consider it a fortunate circumstance that the philosophy of Form,—that is to say, of description, definition, classification, and sensuous perception, as distinguished from mathematical analysis and deductive reasoning,—was associated with a demonstrably false cosmology, as it thus became much more thoroughly discredited than would otherwise have been possible. At this juncture²⁰⁶, the first to perceive and point out how profoundly an acceptance of the Copernican theory must affect men’s beliefs about Nature and the whole universe, was Giordano Bruno; and this alone would entitle him to a great place in the history of philosophy. The383 conception of a single finite world surrounded by a series of eternal and unchangeable crystal spheres must, he said, be exchanged for the conception of infinite worlds dispersed²⁰⁷ through illimitable space. Once grant that the earth has a double movement round its own axis²⁰⁸ and round the sun, and Aristotle’s whole system of finite existence collapses²⁰⁹ at once, leaving the ground clear for an entirely different order of ideas.545 But, in this respect, whatever was established by the new science had already been divined by a still older philosophy than Aristotle’s, as Bruno himself gladly acknowledged,546 and the immediate¹⁴⁵ effect of his reasoning was to revive the Atomic theory. The assumption of infinite space, formerly considered an insuperable objection to that theory, now became one of its chief recommendations; the arguments of Lucretius regained²¹¹ their full force, while his fallacies were let drop; Atomism seemed not only possible but necessary; and the materialism once associated with it was equally revived. But Aristotelianism, as we have seen, was not alone in the field, and on the first symptoms of a successful revolt, its old rival stood in readiness to seize the vacant throne. The question was how far its claim would be supported, and how far disputed by the new invaders²¹². It might be supposed that the older forms of Greek philosophy, thus restored to light after an eclipse of more than a thousand years, would be no less hostile to the poetic⁹⁰ Platonism than to the scientific Aristotelianism of the Renaissance. Such, however, was not the case; and we have to show how an alliance was established between these apparently²¹³ opposite lines of thought, eventually giving birth to the highest speculation of the following century.

Bruno himself acted as a mediator²¹⁴ between the two philo384sophies. His sympathies with Platonism were strongly pronounced, he looked with admiration on its mediaeval supporters, especially David of Dinan; and regretted the time when Oxford²¹⁵ was a focus of realistic teaching, instead of being what he found her, devoted²¹⁶ to the pedantic²¹⁷ humanism of the Renaissance.547 He fully accepted the pantheistic conclusions towards which Platonism always tended; but in proclaiming an absolute principle whence all specific differences are evolved, he is careful to show that, while it is neither Form nor Matter in the ordinary sense, it may be called Matter in the more refined signification attached to that term by Plotinus and, indeed, by Aristotle himself. There is a common substance underlying²¹⁸ all abstract essences, just as there is a common substance left behind when the sensible qualities of different bodies are stripped off; and both are, at bottom, the same. Thus monism became the banner round which the older forms of Greek speculation rallied in their assault on Aristotle’s philosophy, though what monism implied was as yet very imperfectly understood.

Meanwhile a new and powerful agency was about to interpose with decisive effect in the doubtful struggle. This was the study of mathematics. Revived by the Arabians and never wholly neglected during the Middle Ages, it had profited by the general movement of the Renaissance, and was finally applied to the cosmical problem by Galileo. In this connexion, two points of profound philosophical interest must be noted. The first is that, even in its fall, the Aristotelian influence survived, to some extent, both for good and for evil. To Aristotle belongs the merit of having been the first to base astronomy on physics. He maintains the earth’s immobility on experimental no less than on speculative grounds. A stone thrown straight up in the air returns to its starting-point instead of falling to the west of it; and the absence of stellar385 parallax seems to show that there is no change in our position relatively²²⁰ to the heavenly bodies. After satisfying himself, on empirical considerations, that the popular astronomy is true, he proceeds to show that it must be true, by considerations on the nature of matter and motion, which, although mistaken, are conceived in a genuinely scientific spirit. Now Galileo saw that, to establish the Copernican system, he must first grapple with the Peripatetic physics, and replace it by a new dynamical theory. This, which he could hardly have effected by the ordinary mathematical methods, he did by borrowing the analytical²²¹ method of Atomism and applying it to the measurement of motion. The law of falling bodies was ascertained²²² by resolving their descent into a series of moments, and determining its rate of velocity²²³ at successive intervals²²⁴; and curvilinear motions were similarly resolved into the combination of an impulsive²²⁵ with an accelerating force, a method diametrically opposed to that of Bacon, who would not even accept the rough analysis of the apparent celestial²²⁶ motions proposed by Greek astronomers²²⁸.

It seems strange that Galileo, having gone so far, did not go a step further, and perceive that the planetary orbits, being curvilinear, must result from the combination of a centripetal²²⁹ with a tangential²³⁰ force. But the truth is that he never seems to have grasped his own law of inertia²³¹ in its full generality. He understood that the planets could not have been set in motion without a rectilinear impulse; but his idea was that this impulse continued only so long as was necessary in order to give them their present velocity, instead of acting on them for ever as a tangential force. The explanation of this strange inconsequence must be sought in a survival of Aristotelian conceptions, in the persistent¹²³ belief that rectilinear motion was necessarily limited and temporary, while circular motion was natural, perfect, and eternal.548 Now such conceptions as386 Nature, perfection, and eternity²³² always rebel against an analysis of the phenomena wherein they are supposed to reside. The same prejudice will explain why Galileo should have so persistently ignored Kepler’s Laws, for we can hardly imagine that they were not brought under his notice.

The philosophical affinities²³³ of the new science were not exhausted²³⁴ by the atomistic analysis of Democritus and the regulative method of Aristotle. Platonism could hardly fail to benefit by the great impulse given to mathematical studies in the latter half of the sixteenth century. The passionate love of its founder for geometry must have recommended him as much to the most advanced minds of the period as his religious mysticism had recommended him to the theologians of the earlier Renaissance. And the increasing ascendency of the heliocentric astronomy, with its splendid defiance²³⁵ of sense and opinion, was indirectly a triumph for the philosophy which, more than any other, had asserted the claims of pure reason against both. We see this distinctly in Galileo. In express adhesion to Platonism, he throws his teaching into a conversational²³⁶ form, endeavouring to extract the truth from his opponents rather than convey it into their minds from without; and the theory of reminiscence as the source of demonstrative knowledge seems to meet with his approval.549 He is always ready with proofs drawn from observation and experiment; but nothing can be more in Plato’s spirit, nothing more unlike Aristotle and Bacon, than his encomium²³⁷ on the sublime genius of Aristarchus and Copernicus for having maintained a rational hypothesis against what seemed to be the evidence of their senses.550 And he elsewhere observes how much less would have been the glory of Copernicus had he known the experimental verification of his theory.551

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The Platonic influence told even more efficaciously on Galileo’s still greater contemporary, Kepler. With him as with the author of the Republic, mysticism took the direction of seeking everywhere for evidence of mathematical proportions. With what brilliant success the search was attended, it is needless to relate. What interests us here is the fact, vouched²³⁸ for by Arago, that the German astronomer²²⁷ was guided by an idea of Plato’s, that the world must have been created on geometrical principles.552 Had Bacon known anything about the work on which his adventurous²³⁹ contemporary was engaged, we may be sure that it would have afforded him another illustration for his Id?la, the only difficulty being whether it should be referred to the illusions of the Tribe, the Den, or the Theatre.

Meanwhile Atomism continued to exercise a powerful influence on the method even more than on the doctrines²⁴⁰ of science. The analytical mode of treatment, applied by Galileo to dynamics²⁴¹, was applied, with equal success, by other mathematicians²⁴³, to the study of discrete²⁴⁴ and continuous quantity. It is to the division of numbers and figures into infinitesimal parts—a direct contravention of Aristotle’s teaching—that we owe logarithms, algebraic geometry, and the differential calculus²⁴⁵. Thus was established a connexion between spiritualism and materialism, the philosophy of Plato and the philosophy of Democritus. Out of these elements, together with what still survived of Aristotelianism, was constructed the system of Descartes.
IV.

To understand Descartes aright, we must provisionally disregard the account given in his work on Method of the process by which he arrived at a new theory of the world; for, in truth, there was nothing new about it except the pro388portion in which fragments taken from older systems were selected and recombined. As we have already noticed, there is no such thing as spinning philosophies out of one’s own head; and, in the case of Descartes, even the belief that he was so doing came to him from Plato; for, along with Aristotle’s dogmatic errors, his sound teaching with regard to the derivation of knowledge had fallen into oblivion. The initial doubt of the Discourse²⁴⁶ on Method and the Meditations²⁴⁷ is also Platonic; only it is manifested under an individual and subjective²⁴⁸, instead of a universal and objective form. But to find the real starting-point of Descartes’ enquiries we must look for it in his mathematical studies. A geometrician naturally conceives the visible world under the aspect of figured extension; and if he thinks the figures away, nothing will remain but extension as the ultimate material out of which all determinate bodies are shaped. Such was the result reached by Plato in his Timaeus. He identified matter with space, viewing this as the receptacle for his eternal and self-existent Ideas, or rather the plastic medium on which their images are impressed. The simplest spatial²⁴⁹ elements are triangles; accordingly it is with these that he constructs his solid bodies. The theory of triangular²⁵⁰ elements was probably suggested by Atomism; it is, in fact, a compromise between the purely mathematical and the materialistic²⁵² methods. Like all Plato’s fancies, this theory of matter was attacked with such convincing arguments by Aristotle that, so long as his physics remained in the ascendent, it did not find a single supporter; although, as we saw in the last chapter, Plotinus very nearly worked his way back to it from the Peripatetic definition. Even now, at the moment of Aristotle’s fall, it might have failed to attract attention, had not the conditions under which it first arose been almost exactly repeated. Geometrical demonstration²⁵³ had again become the type of all reasoning; there was again a sceptical spirit abroad, forcing men to fall back on the most elementary and universal con389ceptions; an atomistic materialism again threatened to claim at least the whole field of physical enquiry for its own. That Descartes followed the Timaeus in identifying matter with extension cannot be doubted; especially when we see that he adopts Plato’s analysis of body into elementary triangles; but the theory agreed so well with his intellectual predispositions that he may easily have imagined it to be a necessary deduction²⁵⁴ from his own à priori ideas. Moreover, after the first two steps, he parts company with Plato, and gives himself up, so far as his rejection²⁵⁵ of a vacuum will permit, to the mechanical physics of Democritus. Much praise has recently been bestowed on his attempt to interpret all physical phenomena in terms of matter and motion, and to deduce them from the unaided operation of natural causes; but this is no more than had been done by the early Greek thinkers, from whom, we may observe, his hypothesis of an initial vortex was also derived. His cosmogony is better than theirs, only in so far as it is adapted to scientific discoveries in astronomy and physiology²⁵⁶ not made by Descartes himself; for where his conjectures²⁵⁷ go beyond these they are entirely at fault.

Descartes’ theory of the universe included, however, something more than extension (or matter) and motion. This was Thought. If we ask whence came the notion of Thought, our philosopher will answer that it was obtained by looking into himself. It was, in reality, obtained by looking into Aristotle, or into some text-book reproducing his metaphysics. But the Platonic element in his system enabled Descartes to isolate¹⁹⁰ Thought much more completely than it had been isolated by Aristotle. To understand this, we must turn once more to the Timaeus. Plato made up his universe from space and Ideas. But the Ideas were too vague or too unintelligible²⁵⁸ for scientific purposes. Even mediaeval Realists were content to replace them by Aristotle’s much clearer doctrine of Forms. On the other hand, Aristotle’s First Matter was anything but a satisfactory conception. It was a mere abstraction; the390 unknowable residuum left behind when bodies were stripped, in imagination, of all their sensible and cogitable qualities. In other words, there was no Matter actually existing without Form; whereas Form was never so truly itself, never so absolutely existent, as when completely separated from Matter: it then became simple self-consciousness, as in God, or in the reasonable part of the human soul. The revolution wrought²⁵⁹ by substituting space for Aristotle’s First Matter will now become apparent. Corporeal²⁶⁰ substance could at once be conceived as existing without the co-operation of Form; and at the same stroke, Form, liberated²⁶¹ from its material bonds, sprang back into the subjective sphere, to live henceforward only as pure self-conscious thought.

This absolute separation of Form and Matter, under their new names of Thought and Extension, once grasped, various principles of Cartesianism will follow from it by logical necessity. First comes the exclusion²⁶² of final causes from philosophy, or rather from Nature. There was not, as with Epicurus, any anti-theological feeling concerned in their rejection. With Aristotle, against whom Descartes is always protesting, the final cause was not a mark of designing intelligence imposed on Matter from without; it was only a particular aspect of Form, the realisation of what Matter was always striving after by virtue²⁶³ of its inherent potentiality. When Form was conceived only as pure thought, there could be no question of such a process; the most highly organised bodies being only modes of figured extension. The revival of Atomism had, no doubt, a great deal to do with the preference for a mechanical interpretation²⁶⁵ of life. Aristotle had himself shown with masterly clearness the difference between his view of Nature and that taken by Democritus; thus indicating beforehand the direction in which an alternative to his own teaching might be sought; and Bacon had, in fact, already referred with approval to the example set by Democritus in dealing²⁶⁶ with teleological²⁶⁷ enquiries.

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Nevertheless Bacon’s own attitude towards final causes differs essentially²⁶⁸ from Descartes’. The French mathematician²⁴², had he spoken his whole mind, would probably have denied their existence altogether. The English reformer fully admits their reality, as, with his Aristotelian theory of Forms, he could hardly avoid doing; and we find that he actually associates the study of final with that of formal causes, assigning both to metaphysics as its peculiar¹⁹⁸ province. This being so, his comparative neglect of the former is most easily explained by the famous comparison of teleological enquiries to vestal virgins²⁶⁹, dedicated²⁷⁰ to the service of God and bearing no offspring; for Mr. Ellis has made it perfectly²¹⁹ clear that the barrenness alluded²⁷¹ to is not scientific but industrial. Our knowledge is extended when we trace the workings of a divine purpose in Nature; but this is not a kind of knowledge which bears fruit in useful mechanical inventions.553 Bacon probably felt that men would not be very forward to improve on Nature if they believed in the perfection of her works and in their beneficent adaptation to our wants. The teleological spirit was as strong with him as with Aristotle, but it took a different direction. Instead of studying the adaptation of means to ends where it already existed, he wished men to create it for themselves. But the utilitarian²⁷² tendency, which predominated with Bacon, was quite exceptional with Descartes. Speaking generally, he desired knowledge for its own sake, not as an instrument for the gratification of other wants; and this intellectual disinterestedness²⁷⁴ was, perhaps, another aspect of the severance²⁷⁵ effected between thought and matter.

The celebrated²⁷⁶ Cartesian paradox, that animals are unconscious automata, is another consequence of the same principle. In Aristotle’s philosophy, the doctrine of potentiality developing itself into act through a series of ascending²⁷⁷ manifestations²⁷⁸, supplied a link connecting the highest rational392 with the lowest vegetal life. The identification of Form with pure thought put an end to the conception of any such intermediate gradations. Brutes²⁸⁰ must either have a mind like ours or none at all. The former alternative was not even taken into consideration; probably, among other reasons, because it was not easily reconcilable with Christianity; so that nothing remained but to deny sensibility where thought was believed not to exist.

Finally, in man himself, thought is not distinguished from feeling; it is, in fact, the essence of mind, just as extension is the essence of body; and all spiritual phenomena are modes of thought in the same sense that all physical phenomena are modes of space. It was, then, rather a happy chance than genuine physiological²⁸¹ insight which led Descartes to make brain the organ of feeling no less than of intellection; a view, as Prof. Huxley has observed, much in advance of that held by Bichat a hundred and fifty years later. For whoever deduced all the mental manifestations from a common essence was bound in consistency to locate them in the same bodily organ; what the metaphysician had joined the physiologist could not possibly put asunder²⁸².

We are now in a position to understand the full force of Descartes’ Cogito ergo sum. It expresses the substantiality of self-conscious Form, the equal claim of thought with extension to be recognised as an element of the universe. This recognition of self-consciousness as the surest reality was, indeed, far from being new. The Greek Sceptics had never gone to the length of doubting their own personal existence. On the contrary, they professed a sort of subjective idealism. Refusing to go beyond their own consciousness, they found in its undisturbed self-possession the only absolute satisfaction that life could afford. But knowledge and reality had become so intimately associated with something independent of mind, and mind itself with a mere reflection of reality, that the denial of an external world393 seemed to the vulgar a denial of existence itself. And although Aristotle had found the highest, if not the sole absolute actuality in self-thinking thought, he projected it to such a distance from human personality that its bearing on the sceptical controversy had passed unperceived. Descartes began his demonstration at the point where all the ancient systems had converged²⁸³, but failed to discover in what direction the conditions of the problem required that they should be prolonged. No mistake can be greater than to regard him as the precursor²⁸⁵ of German philosophy. The latter originated quite independently of his teaching, though not perhaps of his example, in the combination of a much profounder scepticism with a much wider knowledge of dogmatic metaphysics. His method is the very reverse of true idealism. The Cogito ergo sum is not a taking up of existence into thought, but rather a conversion²⁸⁷ of thought into one particular type of existence. Now, as we have seen, all other existence was conceived as extension, and however carefully thought might be distinguished from this as absolutely indivisible, it was speedily reduced to the same general pattern of inclusion, limitation, and expansion. Whereas Kant, Fichte, and Hegel afterwards dwelt on the form of thought, Descartes attended only to its content, or to that in which it was contained. In other words, he began by considering not how he thought but what he thought and whence it came—his ideas and their supposed derivation from a higher sphere. Take, for example, his two great methods for proving the existence of God. We have in our minds the idea of a perfect being—at least Descartes professed to have such an idea in his mind,—and we, as imperfect beings, could not have originated it for ourselves. It must, therefore, have been placed there by a perfect being acting on us from without. It is here taken for granted that the mechanical equivalence between material effects and their causes must obtain in a world where spatial relations, and therefore measurement, are presumably394 unknown. And, secondly²⁸⁸, existence, as a perfection, is involved in the idea of a perfect being; therefore such a being can only be conceived as existing. Here there seems to be a confused notion that because the properties of a geometrical figure can be deduced from its definition, therefore the existence of something more than a simple idea can be deduced from the definition of that idea itself. But besides the mathematical influence, there was evidently a Platonic influence at work; and one is reminded of Plato’s argument that the soul cannot die because it participates in the idea of life. Such fallacies were impossible so long as Aristotle’s logic continued to be carefully studied, and they gradually disappeared with its revival. Meanwhile the cat was away, and the mice used their opportunity.

That the absolute disjunction of thought from matter involved the impossibility of their interaction, was a consequence not drawn by Descartes himself, but by his immediate followers²⁹⁰. Here also, Greek philosophy played its part in hastening the development of modern ideas. The fall of Aristotle had incidentally the effect of reviving not only the systems which preceded, but also those which followed his. Chief among these were Stoicism and Epicureanism. Differing widely in most other respects, they agreed in teaching that body is acted on by body alone. The Cartesians accepted this principle to the fullest extent so far as human perceptions and volitions were concerned; and to a great extent in dealing with the problems of physical science. But instead of arguing from the laws of mechanical causation to the materiality of mind, they argued from its immateriality to the total absence of communication between consciousness and motion. There was, however, one thinker of that age who went all lengths with the later Greek materialists. This was Thomas Hobbes, the founder of modern ethics, the first Englishman to grasp and develope still further Galileo’s method of mathematical deduction and mechanical analysis.

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V.

The author of the Leviathan has sometimes been represented as one who carried the Baconian method into politics, and prepared the way for its more thorough application to psychology by Locke. But this view, which regards the three great leaders of English philosophy in the seventeenth century as successive links in a connected series, is a misapprehension of history, which could only have arisen through leaving out of account the contemporary development of Continental speculation, and through the inveterate habit of looking on the modern distinction between empiricism and transcendentalism as a fundamental antithesis²⁹³ dividing the philosophers of every epoch⁴ into two opposing schools. The truth is that, if the three writers just mentioned agree in deriving²⁹⁴ knowledge solely²⁹⁵ from experience, they agree in nothing else; and that their unanimity²⁹⁶ on this one point does not amount to much, will be evident if we consider what each understood by the notion in question.

With Bacon, experience was the negation²⁹⁷ of mere authority, whether taking the form of natural prejudice, of individual prepossession, of hollow phrases, or of established systems. The question how we come by that knowledge which all agree to be the most certain, is left untouched in his logic; either of the current answers would have suited his system equally well; nor is there any reason for believing that he would have sided with Mill rather than with Kant respecting the origin of mathematical axioms. With Locke, experience meant the analysis of notions and judgments into the simple data of sense and self-consciousness; and the experientialists of the present day are beyond all doubt his disciples²⁹⁹; but the parentage of his philosophy, so far as it is simply a denial of innate³⁰⁰ ideas, must be sought, not in the Novum Organum, nor in any other modern work, but in the old Organon of Aristotle, or in the comments of the396 Schoolmen who followed Aristotle in protesting against the Platonism of their time, just as Locke protested against the Platonism of Descartes and Malebranche.

The experience of Hobbes differs both in origin and application from either of these. With him, sensible impressions are not a court of appeal against traditional judgments, nor yet are they the ultimate elements into which all ideas may be analysed; they are the channels through which pulsating³⁰¹ movements are conveyed into the mind; and these movements, again, represent the action of mechanical forces or the will of a paramount³⁰² authority. And he holds this doctrine, partly as a logical consequence of his materialism, partly as a safeguard against the theological pretensions³⁰³ which, in his opinion, are a constant threat to social order. The authority of the political sovereign is menaced on the one hand by Papal infallibility, and on the other by rebellious³⁰⁴ subjects putting forward a claim to supernatural inspiration. To the Pope, Hobbes says: ‘You are violating the law of Nature by professing³⁰⁵ to derive⁵² from God what is really given only by the consent of men, and can only be given by them to their temporal head,—the right to impose a particular religion.‘ To the Puritan, he says: ‘Your inward illumination is a superstitious³⁰⁶ dream, and you have no right to use it as a pretext³⁰⁷ for breaking the king’s peace. Religion has really nothing to do with the supernatural; it is only a particular way of inculcating obedience³⁰⁸ to the natural conditions of social union.’

Again, Hobbes differs wholly from Bacon in the deductive character of his method. His logic is the old syllogistic³⁰⁹ system reorganised on the model of mathematical analysis. Like all the great thinkers of his time, he was a geometrician and a mechanical physicist¹²¹, reasoning from general to particular propositions and descending³¹⁰ from causes to effects.554397 His famous theory of a social contract is a rational construction, not a historical narrative³¹¹. But though a mathematician, he shows no traces of Platonic influence. He is, therefore, all the more governed by Atomist and Stoic¹⁶ modes of thought. He treats human nature, single and associated, as Galileo and Descartes had treated motion and space. Like them, too, he finds himself in constant antagonism to Aristotle. The description of man as a social animal is disdainfully rejected, and the political union resolved into an equilibrium³¹² of many opposing wills maintained by violent pressure from without. In ethics, no less than in physics, we find attractive forces replaced by mechanical impacts.

While the analysis of Hobbes goes much deeper than Aristotle’s, the grasp of his reconstructive synthesis is wider and stronger in at least an equal proportion. Recognising the good of the whole as the supreme rule of conduct,555 he gives a new interpretation to the particular virtues³¹³, and disposes of the theory which made them a mean between two extremes no less effectually than his contemporaries had disposed of the same theory in its application to the elementary constitution of matter. And just as they were aided in their revolt against Aristotle by the revival of other Greek systems, so also was he. The identification of justice with public interest, though commonly attributed to Epicurus alone, was, like materialism, an idea shared by him with Stoicism, and was probably impressed on modern thought by the weight of their united authority. And when we find the philosopher of Malmesbury making public happiness consist in order and tranquillity³¹⁴, we cannot but think that this was a generalisation from the Stoic and Epicurean conceptions of individual happiness; for it reproduces, under a social form, the same ideal of passionless repose³¹⁵.

On the other hand, this substitution of the social for the personal integer involves a corresponding change in the398 valuation of individual happiness. What the passions had been to later Greek philosophy, that the individual soul became to Hobbes, something essentially infinite and insatiable, whose desires grow as they are gratified, whose happiness, if such it can be called, is not a condition of stable repose but of perpetual movement and unrest.556 Here, again, the analogy between physics and ethics obtains. In both, there was an original opposition between the idea of a limit and the idea of infinite expansion. Just as, among the earlier Greek thinkers, there was a physical philosophy of the infinite or, as its impugners called it, the indefinite, so also there was, corresponding to it, a philosophy of the infinite or indefinite in ethics, represented, not indeed by professional moralists, but by rhetoricians and men of the world. Their ideal was not the contented³¹⁶ man, but the popular orator³¹⁷ or the despot who revels³¹⁸ in the consciousness of power—the ability to satisfy his desires, whatever they may be. And the extreme consequence of this principle is drawn by Plato’s Callicles when he declares that true happiness consists in nursing one’s desires up to the highest point at which they can be freely indulged; while his ideal of character is the superior individual who sets at naught³¹⁹ whatever restraints have been devised by a weak and timid majority to protect themselves against him.

The Greek love of balanced antithesis and circumscribing³²⁰ form triumphed over the infinite in both fields. While the two great masters of idealism imprisoned³²¹ the formless and turbulent terrestrial elements within a uniform and eternal sphere of crystal, they imposed a similar restraint on the desires and emotions, confining them within a barrier of reason which, when once erected³²², could never be broken through. And although the ground won in physics was lost again for a time through a revival of old theories, this was because true Hellenism found its only congenial sphere in399 ethics, and there the philosophy of the finite continued to reign¹⁴⁷ supreme. If the successors of Aristotle fell back on cosmologies of ampler scope than his, they retained his limiting method in their speculations³²³ on man.

With Christianity, there came a certain inversion³²⁴ of parts. The external universe again became subjected to narrow limitations, and the flammantia moenia mundi beyond which Epicurus had dared to penetrate³²⁵, were raised up once more and guarded by new terrors as an impassable barrier to thought. But infinity³²⁶ took refuge within the soul; and, while in this life a sterner self-control than even that of Stoicism was enjoined³²⁷, perspectives of illimitable delight in another life were disclosed. Finally, at the Renaissance, every barrier was simultaneously³²⁸ overthrown³²⁹, and the accumulated energies of western civilisation³³⁰ expatiated³³¹ over a field which, if it was vast in reality, was absolutely unbounded in imagination. Great as were the achievements of that age, its dreams were greater still; and what most excites our wonder in the works of its heroes is but the fragment of an unfinished whole. The ideal of life set up by Aristotle was, like his conception of the world, contradicted in every particular; and the relative positions assigned by him to act and power were precisely reversed. It has been shown how Shakespeare reflected the Platonism of his contemporaries: he reflected also the fierce outburst of their ambition; and in describing what they would dare, to possess solely sovereign sway and masterdom, or wear without corrival all the dignities of honour, he borrowed almost the very words used by Euripides to express the feelings encouraged by some teachers of his time. The same spirit is exhibited a generation later in the dramas of Calderon and Corneille, before their thoughts were forced into a different channel by the stress of the Catholic reaction; while its last and highest manifestation²⁷⁹ is the sentiment of Milton’s ruined archangel, that to reign in hell is better than to serve in heaven. Thus,400 when Hobbes reduces all the passions to modes of the fundamental desire for power,557 he does but give the scientific theory of that which stands proclaimed in more thrilling accents by the noblest poetry of his age.

Where no danger could deter¹⁶⁰ from the pursuit of power, no balancing of pain with pleasure availed to quench³³² the ardour of desire. With full knowledge that violent delights have violent ends and in their triumph die, the fateful condition was accepted. Not only did Giordano Bruno, in conscious parallelism with his theory of matter, declare that without mutation³³³, variety, and vicissitude³³⁴ nothing would be agreeable, nothing good, nothing delightful³³⁵, that enjoyment³³⁶ consists solely in transition and movement, and that all pleasure lies midway between the painful longing³³⁷ of fresh appetite and the sadness of its satiation and extinction;558 but the sedater³³⁸ wisdom of Bacon, in touching³³⁹ on the controversy between Callicles and Socrates, seems to incline towards the side of the former; and, in all cases, warns men not to make too much of the inconveniences attendent on pleasure, but ‘so to procure³⁴⁰ serenity³⁴¹ as they destroy not magnanimity.’559

These, then, were the principal elements of the philosophical Renaissance. First, there was a certain survival of Aristotelianism as a method of comprehensive and logical arrangement. Then there was the new Platonism, bringing along with it a revival of either Alexandrian or mediaeval pantheism, and closely associated with geometrical studies. Thirdly, there was the old Greek Atomism, as originally set forth by Democritus or as re-edited by Epicurus, traditionally unfavourable to theology, potent²⁶⁴ alike for decomposition³⁴² and reconstruction³⁴³, confirmed by the new astronomy, and lending its method to the reformation of mathematics; next the later Greek ethical³⁴⁴ systems; and finally the formless idea of infinite power which all Greek systems had, as such,401 conspired to suppress, but which, nevertheless, had played a great part in the earlier stages of Greek speculation both physical and moral.

On these foundations the lofty edifice³⁴⁵ of Spinozism was reared; out of these materials its composite structure was built; and without a previous study of them it cannot be understood.
VI.

Whether Spinoza ever read Plato is doubtful. One hardly sees why he should have neglected a writer whose works were easily accessible, and at that time very popular with thinking minds. But whether he was acquainted with the Dialogues at first hand or not, Plato will help us to understand Spinoza, for it was through the door of geometry that he entered philosophy, and under the guidance of one who was saturated with the Platonic spirit; so far as Christianity influenced him, it was through elements derived from Plato; and his metaphysical method was one which, more than any other, would have been welcomed with delight by the author of the Meno and the Republic, as an attempt to realise his own dialectical ideal. For Spinozism is, on the face of it, an application of geometrical reasoning to philosophy, and especially to ethics. It is also an attempt to prove transcendentally what geometricians only assume—the necessity of space. Now, Plato looked on geometrical demonstration as the great type of certainty, the scientific completion of what Socrates had begun by his interrogative method, the one means of carrying irrefragable conviction into every department of knowledge, and more particularly into the study of our highest good. On the other hand, he saw that geometricians assume what itself requires to be demonstrated; and he confidently expected that the deficiency would be supplied by his own projected method of transcendent dialectics. Such at least seems to be the drift of the following passage:

402

    When I speak of the division of the intellectual, you will also understand me to speak of that knowledge which reason herself attains³⁴⁶ by the power of dialectic, using the hypotheses not as first principles, but only as hypotheses—that is to say as steps and points of departure into a region which is above hypotheses, in order that she may soar beyond them to the first principle of the whole; and clinging to this and then to that which depends on this, by successive steps she descends³⁴⁷ again without the aid of any sensible object, beginning and ending in ideas.560

The problem, then, which Spinoza set himself was, first, to account for the fundamental assumptions of all science, and more particularly of geometry, by deducing them from a single self-evident principle; and then to use that principle for the solution of whatever problems seemed to stand most in need of its application. And, as usually happens in such adventurous enterprises, the supposed answer of pure reason was obtained by combining or expanding conceptions borrowed without criticism from pre-existing systems of philosophy.

Descartes had already accomplished³⁴⁸ a great simplification of the speculative problem by summing up all existence under the two heads of extension and thought. It remained to account for these, and to reduce them to a single idea. As we have seen, they were derived from Greek philosophy, and the bond which was to unite them must be sought for in the same direction. It will be remembered that the systems of Plato and Aristotle were bounded at either extremity³⁴⁹ by a determinate and by an indeterminate principle. With the one, existence ranged between the Idea of Good at the upper end of the scale and empty space at the lower; with the other, between absolute Thought and First Matter. It was by combining the two definite terms, space and thought, that Descartes had constructed his system; and after subtracting these the two indefinite terms remained. In one respect they were even more opposed to each other than were the terms with which they had been respectively associated. The Idea403 of Good represented unity²⁸⁹, identity, and constancy, as against plurality, difference, and change; while Aristotle’s Matter was, by its very definition, multiform, fluctuating, and indeterminate. Nevertheless, there were equally important analogies traceable between them. No very clear account could be given of either, and both were customarily described by negatives. If Matter fell short of complete existence, the Good transcended³⁵⁰ all existence. If the one was a universal capacity for assuming Forms, the other was the source whence all Forms proceeded. When the distinctive³⁵¹ characteristics of an individual were thought away, the question might well be mooted³⁵² into which principle it would return. The ambiguous use of the word Power contributed still further to their identification, for it was not less applicable to the receptive than to the productive faculty³⁵³. Now we have just seen into what importance the idea of Power suddenly sprang at the Renaissance: with Bruno it was the only abiding³⁵⁴ reality of Nature; with Hobbes it was the only object of human desire.

Another term occupying a very large place in Aristotle’s philosophy was well adapted to mediate¹⁴⁶ between and eventually to unite the two speculative extremes. This was Substance; in logic the subject of predication, in metaphysics the substratum of qualities, the ο?σ?α or Being of the Ten Categories. Now First Matter might fairly claim the position of a universal subject or substance, since it was invested with every sensible quality in turn, and even, as the common element of all Forms, with every thinkable quality as well. Aristotle himself had finally pronounced for the individual compound of Form and Matter as the true substance. Yet he also speaks as if the essential definition of a thing constituted the thing itself; in which case Form alone could be the true subject; and a similar claim might be put forward on behalf of the Plotinian One.561

404

Such were the à priori elements which a historical synthesis had prepared to satisfy the want of a metaphysical Absolute. Let us now see what result would follow when the newly-recovered idea of space was subjected to a metaphysical analysis. Extension is both one and infinite. No particular area can be conceived apart from the whole which both contains and explains it. Again, extension is absolutely homogeneous; to whatever distance we may travel in imagination there will still be the same repetition of similar parts. But space, with the Cartesians, meant more than a simple juxtaposition³⁵⁵ of parts; having been made the essence of matter, it was invested with mechanical as well as with geometrical properties. The bodies into which it resolved itself were conceived as moving, and as communicating their movement to one another through an unbroken chain of causation in which each constituted a single link, determining and determined by the rest; so that, here also, each part was explained by reference to an infinite whole, reproducing its essence, while exempt³⁵⁶ from the condition of circumscribed³⁵⁷ existence. We can understand, then, that when the necessity of accounting³⁵⁸ for extension itself once became felt, the natural solution would be to conceive it as holding the same relation to some greater whole which its own subdivisions held to their sum total; in other words it should be at once a part, an emanation, and an image of the ultimate reality. This is, in fact, very nearly the relation which Matter holds to the One in the Neo-Platonic system. And we know that with Plotinus Matter is almost the same as infinite Extension.

Corresponding to the universal space which contains all particular spaces, there was, in the Neo-Platonic system, a universal Thought which contained all particular thoughts,—the Nous about which we heard so much in studying Plotinus.405 Such a conception is utterly strange to the modern mind, but it was familiar enough to Spinoza; and we can see how it would be suggested by the common forms of reasoning. The tendency of syllogism is either to subsume lower under higher notions until a summum genus is reached, or to resolve all subjects into a single predicate, or to connect all predicates with a single subject. The analogies of space, too, would tell in the same direction, bringing nearer the idea of a vast thought-sea in which all particular thoughts, or what to a Cartesian meant the same thing, all particular minds, were contained. And Neo-Platonism showed how this universal Mind or Thought could, like the space which it so much resembled, be interpreted as the product of a still higher principle. To complete the parallelism, it remained to show that Thought, which before had seemed essentially finite, is, on the contrary, co-infinite with Extension. How this was done will appear a little further on.

Spinoza gathered up all the threads of speculation thus made ready for his grasp, when he defined God as a substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses his infinite and eternal essence; subsequently adding that the essence here spoken of is Power, and that two of the infinite attributes are Extension and Thought, whereof the particular things known to us are modes. Platonism had decomposed³⁵⁹ the world into two ideal principles, and had re-created it by combining them over again in various proportions, but they were not entirely reabsorbed and worked up into the concrete reality which resulted from their union; they were, so to speak, knotted together, but the ends continued to hang loose. Above and below the finite sphere of existence there remained as an unemployed³⁶⁰ surplus the infinite causal energy of the One and the infinite passive potentiality of Matter. Spinoza combined and identified the two opposing elements in the notion of a single substance as infinite in actuality as they had been in power. He thus gave its highest metaphysical expression406 to that common tendency which we traced through the prospects³⁶¹ opened out by the Copernican astronomy, the revival of Atomism, the dynamical psychology of Hobbes, and the illimitable passion of the Renaissance, while, at the same time, preserving the unity of Plato’s idealism, and even making it more concentrated than before.

It has been shown how universal space and universal thought at once contain and explain each particular space and each particular concept. In like manner, the infinite substance contains and explains space and thought themselves. Contains them, yes, as attributes; but explains them, how? As two among an infinity of attributes. In other words, if we ask why there should be such an existence as space, the answer is because existence, being infinite, must necessarily include every conceivable thing. The argument is strikingly like a principle of the Epicurean philosophy, and may well have been suggested by it. According to Lucretius, the appearance of design in our world need not be attributed to creative intelligence, because infinite atoms moving in infinite manners through infinite time, must at length arrive, after a comprehensive series of experiments, at the present frame of things;562 and the same principle is invoked³⁶² on a smaller scale to account for the origin of organised beings, of memory, and of civil society.563 In both systems, infinite space is the root-conception; but what Lucretius had legitimately³⁶³ used to explain becoming, Spinoza illegitimately applies to the elucidation³⁶⁴ of being. At one stroke all empirical knowledge is placed on an à priori foundation. By assuming unlimited credit at the bank of the universe we entitle ourselves to draw a cheque for any particular amount. Thus the idea of infinite attributes is no mere collateral³⁶⁶ speculation, but forms an407 essential element of Spinozism. The known varieties of existence are, so to speak, surrounded, supported, and fixed in their places by the endless multitude of the unknown. And this conception of being as absolutely infinite, is another proof of Spinoza’s Platonic tendencies, for it involves the realisation of an abstract idea, that is to say, of Being, which the philosopher treats as something more comprehensive than the facts of consciousness whence it is derived.

Or, again, we may say that two principles,—the Nominalistic as well as the Realistic,—are here at work. By virtue of the one, Spinoza makes Being something beyond and above the facts of experience. By virtue of the other he reinvests it with concrete reality, but a reality altogether transcending³⁶⁷ our powers of imagination. Very much, also, that Plotinus says about his One might be applied to Spinoza’s Substance, but with a new and positive meaning. The First Cause is above existence, but only existence as restricted within the very narrow limits of our experience, and only as infinite reality transcends³⁶⁸ the parts which it includes.

It is well known that Spinoza draws a sharp line of demarcation between the two attributes of Extension and Thought, which, with him, correspond to what are usually called body and mind. Neither attribute can act on the other. Mind receives no impressions from body, nor does body receive any impulses from mind. This proposition follows by rigorous logical necessity from the Platonic principle that mind is independent of body, combined with the Stoic principle that nothing but body can act on body, generalised into the wider principle that interaction implies homogeneity of nature. According to some critics, Spinoza’s teaching on this point constitutes a fatal flaw in his philosophy. How, it is asked, can we know that there is any such thing as body (or extension) if body cannot be perceived,—for perceived it certainly cannot be without acting on our minds? The idea of infinite substance suggests a way out of the408 difficulty. ‘I find in myself,’ Spinoza might say, ‘the idea of extension. In fact, my mind is nothing but the idea of extension, or the idea of that idea, and so on through as many self-reflections as you please. At the same time, mind, or thought, is not itself extended. Descartes and the Platonists before him have proved thus much. Consequently I can conceive extension as existing independently of myself, and, more generally, of all thought. But how can I be sure that it actually does so exist? In this wise. An examination of thought leads me to the notion of something in which it resides—a substance whose attribute it is. But having once conceived such a substance, I cannot limit it to a single attribute, nor to two, nor to any finite number. Limitation implies a boundary, and there can be no boundary assigned to existence, for existence by its very definition includes everything that is. Accordingly, whatever can be conceived, in other words whatever can be thought without involving a contradiction,—an important reservation which I beg you to observe,—must necessarily exist. Now extension involves no contradiction, therefore it exists,—exists, that is to say, as an attribute of the infinite substance. And, by parity³⁶⁹ of reasoning, there must be an idea of extension; for this also can exist without involving a contradiction, as the simplest introspection suffices to show. You ask me why then I do not believe in gorgons and chimaeras. I answer that since, in point of fact, they do not exist, I presume that their notion involves a contradiction, although my knowledge of natural law is not sufficiently extended to show me where the contradiction lies. But perhaps science will some day be able to point out in every instance of a non-existing thing, where the contradiction lies, no less surely than it can now be pointed out in the case of impossible geometrical figures.’ In short, while other people travel straight from their sensations to an external world, Spinoza travels round to it by the idea of an infinite substance.564

409

The relation of Spinoza’s Substance to its attributes is ambiguous. It is at once their cause, their totality, and their unity. The highly elastic³⁷⁰ and indefinite term Power helped these various aspects to play into and replace one another according to the requirements of the system. It is associated with the subjective possibility of multiplying imaginary existences to any amount; with the causal energy in which existence originates; and with the expansiveness characteristic alike of Extension and of Thought. For the two known attributes of the universal substance are not simply related to it as co-predicates of a common subject; they severally express its essential Power, and are, to that extent, identical with one another. But when we ask, How do they express Power? the same ambiguity³⁷¹ recurs²⁸⁶. Substance is revealed through its attributes, as a cause through its effects; as an aggregate through its constituents; and as an abstract notion through its concrete embodiments. Thus Extension and Thought are identical through their very differences, since these illustrate⁷⁶ the versatility³⁷² of their common source, and at the same time jointly³⁷³ contribute to the realisation of its perfection. But, for all practical purposes, Spinoza deals only with the parallelism and resemblance of the attributes. We have to see how he establishes it, and how far he was helped in so doing by the traditions of Greek philosophy.
VII.

It has been already shown how Extension, having become identified with matter, took on its mechanical qualities, and was conceived as a connected series of causes or modes of motion. The parallel found by Spinoza for this series in Thought is the chain of reasons and consequents forming a410 demonstrative argument; and here he is obviously following Aristotle, who although ostensibly distinguishing between formal and efficient causes, hopelessly confounds them in the second book of his Posterior Analytics.565 We are said to understand a thing when we bring it under a general rule, and also when we discover the mechanical agency which produces it. For instance, we may know that a particular man will die, either from the fact that all men are mortal, or from the fact that he has received a fatal wound. The general rule, however, is not the cause of what will happen, but only the cause of our knowing that it will happen; and knowledge of the rule by no means carries with it a knowledge of the efficient cause; as we see in the case of gravitation and other natural forces whose modus operandi is still a complete mystery. What deceived Aristotle was partly his false analysis of the syllogism, which he interpreted as the connexion of two terms by the interposition of a middle answering to the causal nexus³⁷⁵ of two phenomena; and partly his conception of the universe as a series of concentric spheres, through which movement is transmitted from without, thus combining the two ideas of notional comprehension and mechanical causation.

Be this as it may, Spinoza takes up the Aristotelian identification of logical with dynamical connexion, and gives it the widest possible development. For the Stagirite would not, at any rate, have dreamed of attributing any but a subjective existence to the demonstrative series, nor of extending it beyond the limits of our actual knowledge. Spinoza, on the other hand, assumes that the whole infinite chain of material causes is represented by a corresponding chain of eternal ideas; and this chain he calls the infinite intellect of God.566 Here, besides the necessities of systematisation, the411 influence of mediaeval realism is plainly evident. For, when the absolute self-existence of Plato’s Ideas had been surrendered in deference³⁷⁶ to Aristotle’s criticism, a home was still found for them by Plotinus in the eternal Nous, and by the Christian Schoolmen in the mind of God; nor did such a belief present any difficulties so long as the divine personality was respected. The pantheism of Spinoza, however, was absolute, and excluded the notion of any but a finite subjectivity³⁷⁷. Thus the infinite intellect of God is an unsupported chain of ideas recalling the theory at one time imagined by Plato.567 Or its existence may be merely what Aristotle would have called potential; in other words, Spinoza may mean that reasons will go on evolving themselves so long as we choose to study the dialectic of existence, always in strict parallelism with the natural series of material movements constituting the external universe; and just as this is determined through all its parts by the totality of extension, or of all matter (whether moving or motionless) taken together, so also at the summit of the logical series stands the idea of God, from whose definition the demonstration of every lesser³⁷⁸ idea necessarily follows. It is true that in a chain of connected energies the antecedent, as such, must be always precisely equal to the consequent; but, apparently, this difficulty did not present itself to Spinoza, nor need we be surprised at this; for Kant, coming a century later, was still so imbued³⁷⁹ with Aristotelian traditions as, similarly, to derive the category of Cause and Effect from the relation between Reason and Consequent in hypothetical propositions.568

Meanwhile the parallelism between Thought and Extension was not exhausted by the identification just analysed. Extension was not only a series of movements; it still remained an expression for co-existence and adjacency.412 Spinoza, therefore, felt himself obliged to supply Thought with a correspondingly continuous quality. It is here that his chief originality³⁸⁰ lies, here that he has been most closely followed by the philosophy of our own time. Mind, he declares, is an attribute everywhere accompanying matter, co-extensive and co-infinite with space. Our own animation³⁸¹ is the sum or the resultant of an animation clinging to every particle that enters into the composition of our bodies. When our thoughts are affected by an external impulse, to suppose that this impulse proceeds from anything material is a delusion; it is produced by the mind belonging to the body which acts on our body; although in what sense this process is to be understood remains a mystery. Spinoza has clearly explained the doctrine of animal automatism, and shown it to be perfectly conceivable;569 but he has entirely omitted to explain how the parallel influence of one thought (or feeling) on another is to be understood; for although this too is spoken of as a causal relation, it seems to be quite different from the logical concatenation described as the infinite intellect of God; and to suppose that idea follows from idea like movement from movement would amount to a complete materialisation of mind; while our philosopher would certainly have repudiated³⁸² Mr. Shadworth Hodgson’s theory, that states of consciousness are only connected through their extended substratum, as the segments of a mosaic³⁸³ picture are held together by the underlying surface of masonry³⁸⁴. Nor can we admit that Spinoza entertained the theory, now so popular, according to which extension and consciousness are merely different aspects of a single reality. For this would imply that the substance which they manifest had an existence of its own apart from its attributes; whereas Spinoza makes it consist of the attributes, that is to say, identifies it with their totality. We are forced, then, to conclude that the proposition declaring thought and extension to be the same thing570 has no413 other meaning than that they are connected by the double analogy which we have endeavoured to explain.

The analogy between Thought and Extension under the two aspects of necessary connexion and mere contingent³⁸⁵ relation in co-existence or succession, was, in truth, more interesting to its author as a basis for his ethical than as a development of his metaphysical speculations. The two orders of relations represent, in their distinction, the opposition of science to opinion or imagination, the opposition of dutiful conviction to blind or selfish impulse. Spinoza borrows from the Stoics³⁸⁶ their identification of volition²⁹¹ with belief; but in working out the consequences of this principle it is of Plato rather than of the Stoics that he reminds us. The passions are in his system what sense, imagination, and opinion were in that of the Athenian idealist; and his ethics may almost be called the metaphysics of the Republic turned outside in. Joy, grief and desire are more or less imperfect perceptions of reality—a reality not belonging to the external world but to the conscious subject itself.571 When Spinoza traces them to a consciousness or expectation of raised or lowered power, we recognise the influence of Hobbes; but when, here as elsewhere, he identifies power with existence, we detect a return to Greek forms of thought. The great conflict between illusion and reality is fought out once more; only, this time, it is about our own essence that we are first deceived and then enlightened. If the nature and origin of outward things are half revealed, half concealed by sense and imagination, our emotions are in like manner the obscuring and distorting medium through which we apprehend³⁸⁷ our inmost selves, and whatever adds to or takes away from the plenitude of our existence; and what science is to the one, morality and religion are to the other.

It is remarkable that while Spinoza was giving a new application to the Platonic method, another Cartesian,414 Malebranche, was working it out more strictly³⁸⁸ on the old lines of speculative research. The Recherche³⁸⁹ de la Vérité of this unjustly neglected thinker is a methodical account of the various subjective obstacles which impede³⁹⁰ our apprehension²⁹² of things as they really exist, and of the means by which it may be facilitated. Here also, attention is concentrated on the subjective side of philosophy; and if the mental processes selected for study are of theoretical rather than practical interest, we may probably attribute this to the circumstance that every ethical question was already decided³⁹¹ for Malebranche by the Church whose orders he had assumed.

But it was not merely in the writings of professed philosophers that the new aspect of Platonism found expression. All great art embodies³⁹² in one form or another the leading conceptions of its age; and the latter half of the seventeenth century found such a manifestation in the comedies of Molière. If these works stand at the head of French literature, they owe their position not more to their author’s brilliant wit than to his profound philosophy of life; or rather, we should say that with him wit and philosophy are one. The comic power of Shakespeare was shown by resolving the outward appearances of this world into a series of dissolving illusions. Like Spinoza and Malebranche, Molière turns the illusion in, showing what perverted³⁹³ opinions men form of themselves and others, through misconceptions and passions either of spontaneous growth or sedulously³⁹⁴ fostered by designing hands. Society, with him, seems almost entirely made up of pretenders and their dupes, both characters being not unfrequently combined in the same person, who is made a victim through his desire to pass for what he is not and cannot be. And this is what essentially distinguishes the art of Molière from the New Comedy of Athens, which he, like other moderns, had at first felt inclined to imitate until the success of the Précieuses Ridicules³⁹⁵ showed him where his true opportunities lay. For the New Comedy was Aristotelian where it was not simply humanist; that is415 to say, it was an exhibition of types like those sketched³⁹⁶ by Aristotle’s disciple²⁹⁸, Theophrastus, and already prefigured in the master’s own Ethics. These were the perennial³⁹⁷ forms in a world of infinite and perishing individual existences, not concealed behind phenomena, but incorporated in them and constituting their essential truth. The Old Comedy is something different again; it is pre-philosophic, and may be characterised as an attempt to describe great political interests and tendencies through the medium of myths and fables³⁹⁸ and familiar domesticities, just as the old theories of Nature, the old lessons of practical wisdom, and the first great national chronicles had been thrown into the same homely³⁹⁹ form.572

The purely intellectual view of human nature, the definition of mind in terms of cognition, is one more fallacy from which Aristotle’s teaching, had it not fallen into neglect or contempt, might have guarded Spinoza. Nevertheless, his parallelism between passion and sensuous perception saves him from the worst extravagances of his Greek predecessors. For the senses, however much they might be maligned⁴⁰⁰, never were nor could be altogether rejected; while the passions met with little mercy from Plato and with none from the Stoics, who considered them not only unnecessary but even unnatural⁴⁰¹. Spinoza more wisely sees in them assertions, however obscure and confused, of the will to be and grow which constitutes individual existence. And he sees that they can no more be removed by pointing out their evil consequences than sense-impressions can be abolished by proving their fallaciousness. On the other hand, when Spinoza speaks as if one emotion could only be conquered or expelled by another emotion, we must not allow his peculiar phraseology to conceal⁴⁴ from us the purely intellectual character of his whole ethical system. What he really holds is that emotion can be416 overcome by reason or better knowledge, because it is itself an imperfect cognition. Point by point, an analogy—or something more than an analogy—is made out between the errors of sensuous perception joined to imagination, and the errors of our spontaneous efforts after happiness or self-realisation. Both are imposed on us from without, and neither can be got rid of by a simple act of volition. Both are affected by illusions of perspective: the nearer object of desire, like the nearer object of perception, assuming a disproportionate place in the field of view. In both, accidental contiguity is habitually⁴⁰² confounded with causation; while in both the assignment of causes to effects, instead of being traced back through an infinite series of antecedents, stops short with the antecedent nearest to ourselves. If objects are classified according to their superficial resemblances or the usages of common language, so also are the desires sustained and intensified⁴⁰³ by imitation and rivalry⁴⁰⁴. By parity of reasoning, moral education must be conducted on the same lines as intellectual education. First, it is shown how our individual existence, depending as it does on forces infinitely⁴⁰⁵ exceeding our own, is to be maintained. This is chiefly done by cultivating friendly relations with other men; probably, although Spinoza does not himself make the comparison, on the same principle as that observed in the mutual⁴⁰⁶ assistance and rectification⁴⁰⁷ of the senses, together with their preservation⁴⁰⁸ by means of verbal signs. The misleading passions are to be overcome by discovering their origin; by referring the pleasures and pains which produce them to the right causes; by calling in thought to redress⁴⁰⁹ the balance of imagination; by dividing the attention among an infinite number of causes; finally, by demonstrating the absolute necessity of whatever actions excite them, and classifying them according to their relations, in the same way that the phenomena of the material world are dealt with when subjected to scientific analysis.

417

So far Spinoza, following the example of Stoicism, has only studied the means by which reason conquers passion. He now proceeds to show, in the spirit of Plato or of Platonic Christianity, how immensely superior to the pleasures of sense and opinion are those afforded by true religion—by the love of God and the possession of eternal life. But, here also, as in the Greek system, logic does duty for emotion. The love of God means no more than viewing ourselves as filling a place in the infinite framework of existence, and as determined to be what we are by the totality of forces composing it. And eternal life is merely the adjustment of our thoughts to the logical order by which all modes of existence are deducible from the idea of infinite power.

Thus, while Spinoza draws to a head all the tendencies inherited from Greek philosophy, borrowing from the early physicists their necessarianism; from the Atomists, their exclusion of final causes, their denial of the supernatural, and their infinite worlds; from the Athenian school, their distinction between mind and body and between reason and sense; from Aristotle, his parallelism between causation and syllogism; from the Epicureans, their vindication⁴¹⁰ of pleasure; and from the Stoics, their identification of belief with action, their conquest of passion and their devotion to humanity;—it is to the dominant⁴¹¹ Platonism of the seventeenth century that his system owes its foundation, its development, and its crown; for he begins by realising the abstract conception of being, and infers its absolute infinity from the misleading analogy of space, which is not an abstraction at all; deduces his conclusions according to the geometrical method recommended by Plato; and ends, like Plato, by translating dialectic formulas into the emotional language of religious faith.573

418
VIII.

From this grand synthesis, however, a single element was omitted; and, like the uninvited guest of fairy tradition, it proved strong enough singly to destroy what had been constructed by the united efforts of all the rest. This was the sceptical principle, the critical analysis of ideas, first exercised by Protagoras, made a new starting-point by Socrates, carried to perfection by Plato, supplementing experience with Aristotle, and finally proclaimed in its purity as the sole function of philosophy by an entire school of Greek thought.

Notwithstanding the sterility⁴¹² commonly associated with mere negation, it was this which, of all the later Greek schools, possessed⁴¹³ the greatest powers of growth. Besides passing through more than one stage of development on its own account, Scepticism imposed serious modifications⁴¹⁴ on Stoicism, gave birth to Eclecticism⁴¹⁵, and contributed to the establishment of Neo-Platonism. The explanation is not far to seek. The more highly organised a system is, the more resistance does it offer to change, the more does its transmission tend to assume a rigidly⁴¹⁷ scholastic²⁶ form. To such dogmatism the Sceptics were, on principle, opposed; and by keeping the problems of philosophy open, they facilitated the task of all who had a new solution to offer; while mind and its activities being, to some extent, safe from the universal doubt, the sceptical principle spontaneously threw back thought on a subjective instead of an objective synthesis of knowledge—in other words, on that psychological idealism the pregnancy⁴¹⁸ and comprehensiveness of which are every day becoming more clearly recognised. And we shall now see how the same fertilising power of criticism has been manifested in modern times as well.

The sceptical philosophy, already advocated in the Middle Ages by John of Salisbury, was, like every other form of ancient thought, revived at the Renaissance, but only under419 the very superficial form which infers from the co-existence of many divergent opinions that none of them can be true. Even so, however, it led Montaigne to sounder notions of toleration and humanity than were entertained by any of his contemporaries. With Bacon, and still more with Descartes, it also appears as the necessary preparation for a remodelling⁴¹⁹ of all belief; but the great dogmatic systems still exercised such a potent influence on both those thinkers that their professed demand for a new method merely leads up to an altered statement of the old unproved assumptions.

Meanwhile the old principle of universal doubt could no longer be maintained in presence of the certainties already won by modern science. Man, in the time of Newton, had, as Pope tersely⁴²⁰ puts it, ‘too much knowledge for the sceptic side.’ The problem was not how to establish the reality, but how to ascertain¹⁶⁷ the origin and possible extent of that knowledge. The first to perceive this, the first to evolve criticism out of scepticism, and therefore the real founder of modern philosophy, was Locke. Nevertheless, even with him, the advantage of studying the more recent in close connexion with the earlier developments of thought does not cease; it only enters on a new phase. If he cannot, like his predecessors, be directly affiliated to one or more of the Greek schools, his position can be illustrated⁴²¹ by a parallel derived from the history of those schools. What Arcesilaus and Carneades had been to Socrates and his successors, that Locke was, in a large measure, to Bacon and the Cartesians. He went back to the initial doubt which with them had been overborne by the dogmatic reaction, and insisted on making it a reality. The spirit of the Apologia is absent from Plato’s later dialogues, only to reappear with even more than its original power in the teaching of the New Academy. And, in like manner, Descartes’ introspective method, with its demand for clear ideas, becomes, in the Essay concerning Human Understanding, an irresistible⁴²² solvent⁴²³ for 420the psychologyy and physics of its first propounder⁴²⁴. The doctrine of innate ideas, the doctrine that extension is the essence of matter, the doctrine that thought is the essence of mind, the more general doctrine, held also by Bacon, that things have a discoverable essence whence all their properties may be deduced by a process analogous⁴²⁵ to mathematical reasoning,—all collapsed⁴²⁶ when brought to the test of definite and concrete experience.

We have here, indeed, something comparable not only to the scepticism of the New Academy, but also to the Aristotelian criticism of Plato’s metaphysics; and, at first sight, it might seem as if the Peripatetic philosophy was destined⁴²⁷ once more to regain²¹⁰ the position taken from it by the resuscitation⁴²⁸ of its ancient foe⁴²⁹. But Locke was not inclined to substitute one form of scholasticism for another. By applying the analytical method of Atomism to knowledge itself, he created a weapon equally fatal to the two competing systems. Under his dissection⁴³⁰, the concrete individual substance of the one vanished no less completely than the universal ideas of the other. Nothing remained but a bundle of qualities held together by a subjective bond.

Similarly, in political science, the analytical method of assuming civil government to result from a concurrence⁴³¹ of individual wills, which with Hobbes had served only to destroy ecclesiastical authority, while leaving intact and even strengthening the authority of secular⁴³² rulers, was reinterpreted by Locke as a negation of all absolutism whatever.

It is interesting to observe how, here also, the positive science of the age had a large share in determining its philosophic character. Founded on the discovery of the earth’s true shape, Aristotle’s metaphysics had been overthrown by the discovery of the earth’s motion. And now the claims of Cartesianism to have furnished an exact knowledge of matter and a definition of it whence all the facts of observation could be deduced à priori, were summarily refuted by the discovery421 of universal gravitation. The Cartesians complained that Newton was bringing back the occult qualities of the Schoolmen; but the tendency of bodies to move towards one another proved as certain as it was inexplicably⁴³³ mysterious. For a time, the study of causes was superseded⁴³⁴ by the study of laws; and the new method of physical science moved in perfect harmony with the phenomenism of Locke. One most important consequence of this revolution was to place the new Critical philosophy on a footing quite different from that occupied by the ancient sceptics. Both restricted certain knowledge to our own states of consciousness; but it now appeared that this might be done without impeaching⁴³⁵ the value of accepted scientific conclusions, which was more than the Academic philosophy would have admitted. In other words, granting that we were limited to phenomena, it was shown that science consisted in ascertaining the relations of these phenomena to one another, instead of to a problematic reality lying behind them; while, that such relations existed and were, in fact, part of the phenomena themselves, was what no sceptic could easily deny.

Nevertheless, in each case, subjective idealism had the effect of concentrating speculation, properly so called, on ethical and practical interests. Locke struck the keynote of eighteenth century philosophy when he pronounced morality to be ‘the proper science and business of mankind in general.’574 And no sooner had morality come to the front than the significance of ancient thought again made itself apparent. Whether through conscious imitation, or because the same causes brought about the same effects, ethical enquiries moved along the lines originally laid down in the schools of Athens. When rules of conduct were not directly referred to a divine revelation, they were based either on a supposed law of Nature, or on the necessities of human happiness, or on some combination of the two. Nothing is more characteristic of422 the eighteenth century than its worship of Nature. Even the theology of the age is deeply coloured by it; and with the majority of those who rejected theology it became a new religion. But this sentiment is demonstrably of Greek origin, and found its most elaborate, though not its most absolute, expression in Stoicism. The Stoics had inherited it from the Cynics, who held the faith in greater purity; and these, again, so far as we can judge, from a certain Sophistic school, some fragments of whose teaching have been preserved by Xenophon and Plato; while the first who gave wide currency to this famous abstraction was, in all probability, Heracleitus. To the Stoics, however, is due that intimate association of naturalism with teleology⁴³⁶ which meets us again in the philosophy of the last century, and even now wherever the doctrine of evolution has not been thoroughly accepted. It was assumed, in the teeth of all evidence, that Nature bears the marks of a uniformly beneficent design, that evil is exclusively of human origin, and that even human nature is essentially good when unspoiled by artificial restrictions⁴³⁷.

Yet if teleology was, in some respects, a falling-off from the rigid⁴¹⁶ mechanicism first taught by the pre-Socratic schools and then again by the Cartesian school, in at least one respect it marked a comparative progress. For the first attempts made both by ancient and modern philosophy to explain vital phenomena on purely mechanical principles were altogether premature⁴³⁸; and the immense extension of biological knowledge which took place subsequently to both, could not but bring about an irresistible movement in the opposite direction. The first to revive teleology was Leibniz, who furnished a transition from the seventeenth to the eighteenth century by his monadology. In this, Atomism is combined with Aristotelian ideas, just as it had previously⁴³⁹ been combined with Platonic ideas by Descartes. The movement of the atoms is explained by their aspiration⁴⁴⁰ after a more perfect state instead of by mechanical pressure. But while Leibniz still relies on423 the ontological argument of Descartes to prove the existence of God, this was soon abandoned, along with the cosmological argument, for the argument from design, which was also that used by the Stoics; while in ethics the fitness of things was substituted for the more mechanical law of self-preservation, as the rule of conduct; and the subjection of all impulse to reason was replaced by the milder principle of a control exercised by the benevolent⁴⁴¹ over the malevolent⁴⁴² instincts. This was a very distinct departure from the Stoic method, yet those who made it were more faithful to teleology than Stoicism had been; for to condemn⁴⁴³ human feeling altogether was implicitly⁴⁴⁴ to condemn the work of Nature or of God.

The other great ethical method of the eighteenth century, its hedonism, was closely connected with the sceptical movement in speculative philosophy, and, like that, received an entirely new significance by becoming associated with the idea of law. Those who isolate man from the universe are necessarily led to seek in his interests as such the sole regulator of his actions, and their sole sanction in the opinion of his fellows. Protagoras went already so far, notwithstanding his unwillingness to recognise pleasure as the supreme end; and in the system of his true successor, Aristippus, the most extreme hedonism goes hand in hand with the most extreme idealism; while with Epicurus, again, both are tempered by the influence of naturalism, imposing⁴⁴⁵ on him its conceptions of objective law alike in science and in practice. Still his system leaned heavily to the side of self-gratification pure and simple; and it was reserved for modern thought to establish a complete equilibrium between the two competing tendencies of Greek ethics. This has been effected in Utilitarianism; and those critics are entirely mistaken who, like M. Guyau, regard that system as a mere reproduction of Epicureanism. It might with full as much reason be called a modern version of Stoicism. The idea of humanity is essentially Stoic; to work for the good of humanity was a424 Stoic precept; and to sacrifice one’s own pleasure for that higher good is a virtue which would have satisfied the most rigorous demands of a Cleanthes, an Epictêtus, or an Aurelius.

Utilitarianism agrees with the ancient hedonism in holding pleasure to be the sole good and pain the sole evil. Its adherents⁴⁴⁶ also, for the most part, admit that the desire of the one and the dread⁴⁴⁷ of the other are the sole motives⁴⁴⁹ to action; but, while making the end absolutely universal and impersonal⁴⁵⁰, they make the motive⁴⁴⁸ into a momentary⁴⁵¹ impulse, without any necessary relation to the future happiness of the agent himself. The good man does his duty because doing it gives him pleasure, or because the failure to do it would give him pain, at the moment; although he knows that a contrary course would save him from greater pain or win him greater pleasure hereafter. No accurate thinker would call this acting from a selfish or interested motive; nor does it agree with the teaching of Epicurus. Were all sensitive beings to be united in a single organism, then, on utilitarian principles, self-interest, interpreted in the sense of seeking its own preservation and pleasure, would be the only law that the individualised aggregate could rationally obey. But the good of each part would be rigorously subordinated to the good of the whole; and utilitarian morality desires that we should act as if this hypothesis were realised, at least in reference to our own particular interests. Now, the idea of humanity as forming such a consolidated⁴⁵² whole is not Epicurean. It belongs to the philosophy which always reprobated pleasure, precisely because its pursuit is associated with the dereliction of public duty and with bitter rivalry for the possession of what, by its very nature, exists only in limited quantities, while the demand for it is unlimited or, at any rate, far exceeds the supply. According to the Stoics, there was only one way in which the individual could study his private425 interest without abandoning his position as a social being, and this was to find it exclusively in the practice of virtue.575 But virtue and public interest remained mere forms scantily⁴⁵³ supplemented by appeals to the traditional morality, until the idea of generalised happiness, of pleasure diffused⁴⁵⁴ through the whole community, came to fill them with substance and life.

It has also to be observed that the idea of utility as a test of moral goodness is quite distinct from hedonism. Plato proclaims, in the most unequivocal terms, that actions must be estimated by their consequences instead of by the feelings of sympathy or antipathy⁴⁵⁵ which they excite; yet no one could object more strongly to making pleasure the end of action. Thus, three distinct doctrines seem to converge²⁸⁴ in modern English ethics, of which all are traceable to Greek philosophy, but only one to Epicureanism in particular, and not ultimately to that but to the older systems whence it sprang.

And here we unexpectedly find ourselves confronted by a new relation between ancient and modern thought. Each acts as a powerful precipitant on the other, dissolving what might otherwise have passed for inseparable associations, and combining elements which a less complete experience might have led us to regard as necessarily incompatible with one another. The instance just analysed is highly significant; nor does it stand alone. Modern spiritualists often talk as if morality was impossible apart from their peculiar metaphysics. But the Stoics, confessedly the purest moralists of antiquity⁴⁵⁶, were uncompromising materialists; while the spiritualist Aristotle taught what is not easily distinguishable from a very refined sort of egoism. Again, the doctrine of free-will is now commonly connected with a belief in the separability of consciousness from matter, and, like that, is declared to be an indispensable condition of morality. Among the Greeks,426 however, it was held by the materialist²⁵¹ Epicureans more distinctly than by any other school; while the Stoics did not find necessarianism inconsistent with self-sacrificing virtue. The partial derivation of knowledge from an activity in our own minds is another supposed concomitant of spiritualism; although Aristotle traces every idea to an external source, while at the same time holding some cognitions to be necessarily true—a theory repudiated by modern experientialists. To Plato, the spirituality of the soul seemed to involve its pre-existence no less than its immortality⁴⁵⁷, a consequence not accepted by his modern imitators. Teleology is now commonly opposed to pantheism; the two were closely combined in Stoicism; while Aristotle, although he believed in a personal God, attributed the marks of design in Nature to purely unconscious agencies.
IX.

The naturalism and utilitarianism of the eighteenth century are the last conceptions directly inherited from ancient philosophy by modern thought. Henceforward, whatever light the study of the former can throw on the vicissitudes⁴⁵⁸ of the latter is due either to their partial parallelism, or to an influence becoming every day fainter and more difficult to trace amid the multitude of factors involved. The progress of analytical criticism was continually deflected⁴⁵⁹ or arrested by the still powerful resistance of scholasticism, just as the sceptical tendencies of the New Academy had been before, though happily with less permanent success; and as, in antiquity, this had happened within no less than without the critical school, so also do we find Locke clinging to the theology of Descartes; Berkeley lapsing⁴⁶⁰ into Platonism; Hume playing fast and loose with his own principles; and Kant leaving it doubtful to which side he belongs, so evenly are the two opposing tendencies balanced in his mind, so427 dexterously⁴⁶¹ does he adapt the new criticism to the framework of scholastic logic and metaphysics.

Meanwhile the strength of the analytical method was doubled by its extension to the phenomena of growth and change; for, as applied to these, it became the famous theory of Development or Evolution. No idea belongs so completely to modern philosophy; for even the ancient thinkers who threw their cosmology into a historical form had never attempted to explain the present by the past. If anything, they explained the past by the present, assuming a rough analogy to exist between the formation of the universe as a whole and the genesis of those natural or artificial bodies which were continually growing or being built up before their eyes. Their cosmology was, in fact, nothing but the old mythology⁴⁶² stripped of its personal or conscious element; and, like it, was a hypothesis unsupported by any external evidence;—a criticism not inconsistent with the admission that to eliminate the supernatural element from speculation was, even in the absence of any solid addition to human knowledge, an achievement of inestimable value. The evolutionary⁴⁶³ method is also an elimination of the supernatural, but it is a great deal more. By tracing the history of compound structures to their first origin, and noting the successive increments⁴⁶⁴ to which their gradual growth is due, it reveals, as no statical analysis ever could, the actual order of synthesis, and the meaning of the separate constituents by whose joint³⁷⁴ action their movements are determined; while, conversely, their dissolution supplies us with a number of ready-made experiments in which the influence of each particular factor in the sum total may be detected by watching the changes that ensue on its removal. In a word, the method of evolution is the atomistic method, extended from matter to motion, and viewed under the form of succession instead of under the form of co-existence.

As a universal philosophy, the theory of Development,428 like every other modern idea, has only been permitted to manifest itself in combination with different forms of the old scholasticism. The whole speculative movement of our century is made up of such hybrid⁴⁶⁵ systems; and three, in particular, still divide the suffrages⁴⁶⁶ of many thinking men who have not been able entirely to shake off the influence of reactionary⁴⁶⁷ ideas. These are the systems of Hegel, of Comte, and of Mr. Herbert Spencer. In each, the logic and metaphysics inherited from Greek thought are variously compounded with the new science. And each, for that very reason, serves to facilitate the transition from one to the other; a part analogous to that played among the Greeks themselves by the vast constructions of Plato and Aristotle, or, in an age of less productivity, by the Stoic and Alexandrian philosophies.

The influence of Aristotle has, indeed, continued to make itself felt not only through the teaching of his modern imitators, but more directly as a living tradition in literature, or through the renewed study of his writings at first hand. Even in the pure sciences, it survived until a comparatively recent period, and, so far as the French intellect goes, it is not yet entirely extinct. From Abélard on, Paris was the headquarters of that soberer scholasticism which took its cue from the Peripatetic logic; and the resulting direction of thought, deeply impressed as it became on the French character and the French language, was interrupted rather than permanently⁴⁶⁸ altered by the Cartesian revolution, and, with the fall of Cartesianism, gradually recovered its old predominance. The Aristotelian philosophy is remarkable above all others for clear definitions, full descriptions, comprehensive classifications, lucid³⁶⁵ reasoning, encyclopaedic science, and disinterested²⁷³ love of knowledge; along with a certain incapacity for ethical speculation,576 strong conservative leanings, and a general tendency towards the rigid demarcation rather than the fruitful commingling⁴⁶⁹ of ideas. And it will probably be admitted429 that these are also traits characteristic of French thinking as opposed to English or German thinking. For instance, widely different as is the Mécanique Céleste from the astronomy of Aristotle’s treatise On the Heavens, both agree in being attempts to prove the eternal stability of the celestial system.577 The destructive deluges⁴⁷⁰ by which Aristotle supposes civilisation to be periodically interrupted, reappear on a larger scale in the theory of catastrophes⁴⁷¹ still held by French geologists⁴⁷². Another Aristotelian dogma, the fixity of organic species, though vigorously assailed⁴⁷³ by eminent⁴⁷⁴ French naturalists⁴⁷⁵, has, on the whole, triumphed over the opposite doctrine of transformism in France, and now impedes⁴⁷⁶ the acceptance of Darwin’s teaching even in circles where theological prepossessions are extinct. The accepted classifications in botany and zoology⁴⁷⁷ are the work of Frenchmen following in the footsteps of Aristotle, whose genius for methodical arrangement was signally exemplified in at least one of these departments; the division of animals into vertebrate and invertebrate⁴⁷⁸ being originally due to him. Bichat’s distinction between the animal and the vegetable functions recalls Aristotle’s distinction between the sensitive and nutritive souls; while his method of studying the tissues before the organs is prefigured in the treatise on the Parts of Animals. For a long time, the ruling of Aristotle’s Poetics was undisputed in French criticism; and if anything could disentitle Montesquieu’s Esprit des Lois to the proud motto, Prolem sine matre creatam, it would be its close relationship to the Politics of the same universal master. Finally, if it be granted that the enthusiasm for knowledge, irrespective of its utilitarian applications, exists to a greater degree among the educated classes of France than in any other modern society, we may plausibly⁴⁷⁹ attribute this honourable⁴⁸⁰ characteristic to the fostering influence of one who has430 proclaimed more eloquently⁴⁸¹ than any other philosopher that theoretical activity is the highest good of human life, the ideal of all Nature, and the sole beatitude of God.

It remains to add a few words on the position which ancient and modern philosophy respectively occupy towards theology. Here their relation is one of contrast rather than of resemblance. The Greek thinkers start at an immense distance from religious belief, and their first allusions⁴⁸² to it are marked by a scornful denial of its validity. Gradually, with the transition from physical to ethical enquiries, an approximation between the two is brought about, though not without occasional returns to their former attitude of hostility⁴⁸³. Finally, in presence of a common danger they become interwoven and almost identified with one another; while the new religion against which they make common cause, itself presents the same spectacle of metaphysical and moral ideas entering into combination with the spontaneous products of popular mythology. And be it observed that throughout the whole of this process action and reaction were equal and contrary. The decline and corruption of philosophy was the price paid for the elevation⁴⁸⁴ and purification of religion. While the one was constantly sinking, the other was constantly rising, until they converged on the plane of dogmatic theology. By the very circumstances of the case, an opposite course has been imposed on the development of modern philosophy. Starting from an intimate union with religion, it slowly disengages itself from the compromising alliance; and, although, here also, the normal course of ideas has been interrupted by frequent reactions, the general movement of European thought has been no less decidedly towards a complete emancipation⁴⁸⁵ from the popular beliefs than the movement of Greek thought had been towards their conciliation⁴⁸⁶ and support.

Spottiswoode & Co., Printers, New-street Square, London.

The End

1 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

2 speculation   

n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机

参考例句：

• Her mind is occupied with speculation.她的头脑忙于思考。
• There is widespread speculation that he is going to resign.人们普遍推测他要辞职。

3 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

4 epoch   

n.(新)时代；历元

参考例句：

• The epoch of revolution creates great figures.革命时代造就伟大的人物。
• We're at the end of the historical epoch,and at the dawn of another.我们正处在一个历史时代的末期，另一个历史时代的开端。

5 predecessor   

n.前辈，前任

参考例句：

• It will share the fate of its predecessor.它将遭受与前者同样的命运。
• The new ambassador is more mature than his predecessor.新大使比他的前任更成熟一些。

6 predecessors   

n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身

参考例句：

• The new government set about dismantling their predecessors' legislation. 新政府正着手废除其前任所制定的法律。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Will new plan be any more acceptable than its predecessors? 新计划比原先的计划更能令人满意吗？ 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

8 aggregate   

adj.总计的，集合的；n.总数；v.合计；集合

参考例句：

• The football team had a low goal aggregate last season.这支足球队上个赛季的进球总数很少。
• The money collected will aggregate a thousand dollars.进帐总额将达一千美元。

9 den   

n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室

参考例句：

• There is a big fox den on the back hill.后山有一个很大的狐狸窝。
• The only way to catch tiger cubs is to go into tiger's den.不入虎穴焉得虎子。

10 revival   

n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振

参考例句：

• The period saw a great revival in the wine trade.这一时期葡萄酒业出现了很大的复苏。
• He claimed the housing market was showing signs of a revival.他指出房地产市场正出现复苏的迹象。

11 naturalist   

n.博物学家(尤指直接观察动植物者)

参考例句：

• He was a printer by trade and naturalist by avocation.他从事印刷业，同时是个博物学爱好者。
• The naturalist told us many stories about birds.博物学家给我们讲述了许多有关鸟儿的故事。

12 speculative   

adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的

参考例句：

• Much of our information is speculative.我们的许多信息是带推测性的。
• The report is highly speculative and should be ignored.那个报道推测的成分很大，不应理会。

13 reverted   

恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还

参考例句：

• After the settlers left, the area reverted to desert. 早期移民离开之后，这个地区又变成了一片沙漠。
• After his death the house reverted to its original owner. 他死后房子归还给了原先的主人。

14 abortive   

adj.不成功的，发育不全的

参考例句：

• We had to abandon our abortive attempts.我们的尝试没有成功，不得不放弃。
• Somehow the whole abortive affair got into the FBI files.这件早已夭折的案子不知怎么就进了联邦调查局的档案。

15 platonic   

adj.精神的；柏拉图（哲学）的

参考例句：

• Their friendship is based on platonic love.他们的友情是基于柏拉图式的爱情。
• Can Platonic love really exist in real life?柏拉图式的爱情，在现实世界里到底可能吗？

16 stoic   

n.坚忍克己之人，禁欲主义者

参考例句：

• A stoic person responds to hardship with imperturbation.坚忍克己之人经受苦难仍能泰然自若。
• On Rajiv's death a stoic journey began for Mrs Gandhi,supported by her husband's friends.拉吉夫死后，索尼亚在丈夫友人的支持下开始了一段坚忍的历程。

17 decadence   

n.衰落，颓废

参考例句：

• The decadence of morals is bad for a nation.道德的堕落对国家是不利的。
• His article has the power to turn decadence into legend.他的文章具有化破朽为神奇的力量。

18 epic   

n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的

参考例句：

• I gave up my epic and wrote this little tale instead.我放弃了写叙事诗，而写了这个小故事。
• They held a banquet of epic proportions.他们举行了盛大的宴会。

19 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

20 antagonism   

n.对抗，敌对，对立

参考例句：

• People did not feel a strong antagonism for established policy.人们没有对既定方针产生强烈反应。
• There is still much antagonism between trades unions and the oil companies.工会和石油公司之间仍然存在着相当大的敌意。

21 victorious   

adj.胜利的，得胜的

参考例句：

• We are certain to be victorious.我们定会胜利。
• The victorious army returned in triumph.获胜的部队凯旋而归。

22 materialism   

n.［哲］唯物主义，唯物论；物质至上

参考例句：

• Idealism is opposite to materialism.唯心论和唯物论是对立的。
• Crass materialism causes people to forget spiritual values.极端唯物主义使人忘掉精神价值。

23 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

24 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

25 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。

26 scholastic   

adj.学校的，学院的，学术上的

参考例句：

• There was a careful avoidance of the sensitive topic in the scholastic circles.学术界小心地避开那个敏感的话题。
• This would do harm to students' scholastic performance in the long run.这将对学生未来的学习成绩有害。

27 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

28 sufficiently   

adv.足够地，充分地

参考例句：

• It turned out he had not insured the house sufficiently.原来他没有给房屋投足保险。
• The new policy was sufficiently elastic to accommodate both views.新政策充分灵活地适用两种观点。

29 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

30 consultation   

n.咨询；商量；商议；会议

参考例句：

• The company has promised wide consultation on its expansion plans.该公司允诺就其扩展计划广泛征求意见。
• The scheme was developed in close consultation with the local community.该计划是在同当地社区密切磋商中逐渐形成的。

31 passionate   

adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的

参考例句：

• He is said to be the most passionate man.据说他是最有激情的人。
• He is very passionate about the project.他对那个项目非常热心。

32 tracts   

大片土地( tract的名词复数 )； 地带； （体内的）道； （尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的）短文

参考例句：

• vast tracts of forest 大片大片的森林
• There are tracts of desert in Australia. 澳大利亚有大片沙漠。

33 authoritative   

adj.有权威的，可相信的；命令式的；官方的

参考例句：

• David speaks in an authoritative tone.大卫以命令的口吻说话。
• Her smile was warm but authoritative.她的笑容很和蔼，同时又透着威严。

34 interfere   

v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰

参考例句：

• If we interfere, it may do more harm than good.如果我们干预的话，可能弊多利少。
• When others interfere in the affair,it always makes troubles. 别人一卷入这一事件，棘手的事情就来了。

35 adoption   

n.采用，采纳，通过；收养

参考例句：

• An adoption agency had sent the boys to two different families.一个收养机构把他们送给两个不同的家庭。
• The adoption of this policy would relieve them of a tremendous burden.采取这一政策会给他们解除一个巨大的负担。

36 sensuous   

adj.激发美感的；感官的，感觉上的

参考例句：

• Don't get the idea that value of music is commensurate with its sensuous appeal.不要以为音乐的价值与其美的感染力相等。
• The flowers that wreathed his parlor stifled him with their sensuous perfume.包围著客厅的花以其刺激人的香味使他窒息。

37 intelligible   

adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的

参考例句：

• This report would be intelligible only to an expert in computing.只有计算机运算专家才能看懂这份报告。
• His argument was barely intelligible.他的论点不易理解。

38 doctrine   

n.教义；主义；学说

参考例句：

• He was impelled to proclaim his doctrine.他不得不宣扬他的教义。
• The council met to consider changes to doctrine.宗教议会开会考虑更改教义。

39 prevailing   

adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的

参考例句：

• She wears a fashionable hair style prevailing in the city.她的发型是这个城市流行的款式。
• This reflects attitudes and values prevailing in society.这反映了社会上盛行的态度和价值观。

40 logic   

n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性

参考例句：

• What sort of logic is that?这是什么逻辑？
• I don't follow the logic of your argument.我不明白你的论点逻辑性何在。

41 treatise   

n.专著；(专题)论文

参考例句：

• The doctor wrote a treatise on alcoholism.那位医生写了一篇关于酗酒问题的论文。
• This is not a treatise on statistical theory.这不是一篇有关统计理论的论文。

42 treatises   

n.专题著作，专题论文，专著( treatise的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Many treatises in different languages have been published on pigeons. 关于鸽类的著作，用各种文字写的很多。 来自辞典例句
• Many other treatises incorporated the new rigor. 许多其它的专题论文体现了新的严密性。 来自辞典例句

43 concealed   

a.隐藏的，隐蔽的

参考例句：

• The paintings were concealed beneath a thick layer of plaster. 那些画被隐藏在厚厚的灰泥层下面。
• I think he had a gun concealed about his person. 我认为他当时身上藏有一支枪。

44 conceal   

v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽

参考例句：

• He had to conceal his identity to escape the police.为了躲避警方，他只好隐瞒身份。
• He could hardly conceal his joy at his departure.他几乎掩饰不住临行时的喜悦。

45 premises   

n.建筑物，房屋

参考例句：

• According to the rules,no alcohol can be consumed on the premises.按照规定，场内不准饮酒。
• All repairs are done on the premises and not put out.全部修缮都在家里进行，不用送到外面去做。

46 heresy   

n.异端邪说；异教

参考例句：

• We should denounce a heresy.我们应该公开指责异端邪说。
• It might be considered heresy to suggest such a notion.提出这样一个观点可能会被视为异端邪说。

47 persecution   

n. 迫害,烦扰

参考例句：

• He had fled from France at the time of the persecution. 他在大迫害时期逃离了法国。
• Their persecution only serves to arouse the opposition of the people. 他们的迫害只激起人民对他们的反抗。

48 arraigned   

v.告发( arraign的过去式和过去分词 )；控告；传讯；指责

参考例句：

• He was arraigned for murder. 他因谋杀罪而被提讯。
• She was arraigned for high treason. 她被控叛国罪。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

49 aggravation   

n.烦恼，恼火

参考例句：

• She stirred in aggravation as she said this. 她说这句话，激动得过分。
• Can't stand the aggravation, all day I get aggravation. You know how it is." 我整天都碰到令人发火的事，你可想而知这是什么滋味。” 来自教父部分

50 extenuation   

n.减轻罪孽的借口；酌情减轻；细

参考例句：

• Miss Glover could allow no extenuation of her crime. 格洛弗小姐是不允许袒护罪过的。 来自辞典例句
• It was a comfort to him, this extenuation. 这借口对他是种安慰。 来自辞典例句

51 peripatetic   

adj.漫游的，逍遥派的，巡回的

参考例句：

• Her father was in the army and the family led a peripatetic existence.她父亲是军人，所以全家人随军过着一种流动的生活。
• Peripatetic music teachers visit the school regularly.兼职音乐教师定期到校授课。

52 derive   

v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自

参考例句：

• We derive our sustenance from the land.我们从土地获取食物。
• We shall derive much benefit from reading good novels.我们将从优秀小说中获得很大好处。

53 derived   

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

参考例句：

• Many English words are derived from Latin and Greek. 英语很多词源出于拉丁文和希腊文。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He derived his enthusiasm for literature from his father. 他对文学的爱好是受他父亲的影响。 来自《简明英汉词典》

54 supervision   

n.监督，管理

参考例句：

• The work was done under my supervision.这项工作是在我的监督之下完成的。
• The old man's will was executed under the personal supervision of the lawyer.老人的遗嘱是在律师的亲自监督下执行的。

55 worthy   

adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的

参考例句：

• I did not esteem him to be worthy of trust.我认为他不值得信赖。
• There occurred nothing that was worthy to be mentioned.没有值得一提的事发生。

56 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

57 ethics   

n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准

参考例句：

• The ethics of his profession don't permit him to do that.他的职业道德不允许他那样做。
• Personal ethics and professional ethics sometimes conflict.个人道德和职业道德有时会相互抵触。

58 second-hand   

adj.用过的，旧的，二手的

参考例句：

• I got this book by chance at a second-hand bookshop.我赶巧在一家旧书店里买到这本书。
• They will put all these second-hand goods up for sale.他们将把这些旧货全部公开出售。

59 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

60 phenomena   

n.现象

参考例句：

• Ade couldn't relate the phenomena with any theory he knew.艾德无法用他所知道的任何理论来解释这种现象。
• The object of these experiments was to find the connection,if any,between the two phenomena.这些实验的目的就是探索这两种现象之间的联系，如果存在着任何联系的话。

61 systematic   

adj.有系统的，有计划的，有方法的

参考例句：

• The way he works isn't very systematic.他的工作不是很有条理。
• The teacher made a systematic work of teaching.这个教师进行系统的教学工作。

62 accustoming   

v.（使）习惯于( accustom的现在分词 )

参考例句：

63 indirectly   

adv.间接地，不直接了当地

参考例句：

• I heard the news indirectly.这消息我是间接听来的。
• They were approached indirectly through an intermediary.通过一位中间人，他们进行了间接接触。

64 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。

65 philosophic   

adj.哲学的，贤明的

参考例句：

• It was a most philosophic and jesuitical motorman.这是个十分善辩且狡猾的司机。
• The Irish are a philosophic as well as a practical race.爱尔兰人是既重实际又善于思想的民族。

66 philosophical   

adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的

参考例句：

• The teacher couldn't answer the philosophical problem.老师不能解答这个哲学问题。
• She is very philosophical about her bad luck.她对自己的不幸看得很开。

67 affiliated   

adj. 附属的, 有关连的

参考例句：

• The hospital is affiliated with the local university. 这家医院附属于当地大学。
• All affiliated members can vote. 所有隶属成员都有投票权。

68 renaissance   

n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴

参考例句：

• The Renaissance was an epoch of unparalleled cultural achievement.文艺复兴是一个文化上取得空前成就的时代。
• The theme of the conference is renaissance Europe.大会的主题是文艺复兴时期的欧洲。

69 illustrating   

给…加插图( illustrate的现在分词 )； 说明； 表明； （用示例、图画等）说明

参考例句：

• He upstaged the other speakers by illustrating his talk with slides. 他演讲中配上幻灯片，比其他演讲人更吸引听众。
• Material illustrating detailed structure of graptolites has been etched from limestone by means of hydrofluoric acid. 表明笔石详细构造的物质是利用氢氟酸从石灰岩中侵蚀出来。

70 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

71 purgatory   

n.炼狱；苦难；adj.净化的，清洗的

参考例句：

• Every step of the last three miles was purgatory.最后3英里时每一步都像是受罪。
• Marriage,with peace,is this world's paradise;with strife,this world's purgatory.和谐的婚姻是尘世的乐园，不和谐的婚姻则是人生的炼狱。

72 virtuous   

adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的

参考例句：

• She was such a virtuous woman that everybody respected her.她是个有道德的女性，人人都尊敬她。
• My uncle is always proud of having a virtuous wife.叔叔一直为娶到一位贤德的妻子而骄傲。

73 contiguity   

n.邻近，接壤

参考例句：

• The contiguity of the house and the garage was a convenience in bad weather.住宅和车库毗邻，这在天气不好的时候是很方便的。
• Scientists want to investigate the relation between xerophthalmia occurrence and smut contiguity.科学家们打算探讨干眼症与煤尘接触之间的关系。

74 thoroughly   

adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地

参考例句：

• The soil must be thoroughly turned over before planting.一定要先把土地深翻一遍再下种。
• The soldiers have been thoroughly instructed in the care of their weapons.士兵们都系统地接受过保护武器的训练。

75 utterly   

adv.完全地，绝对地

参考例句：

• Utterly devoted to the people,he gave his life in saving his patients.他忠于人民，把毕生精力用于挽救患者的生命。
• I was utterly ravished by the way she smiled.她的微笑使我完全陶醉了。

76 illustrate   

v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图

参考例句：

• The company's bank statements illustrate its success.这家公司的银行报表说明了它的成功。
• This diagram will illustrate what I mean.这个图表可说明我的意思。

77 illustrates   

给…加插图( illustrate的第三人称单数 )； 说明； 表明； （用示例、图画等）说明

参考例句：

• This historical novel illustrates the breaking up of feudal society in microcosm. 这部历史小说是走向崩溃的封建社会的缩影。
• Alfred Adler, a famous doctor, had an experience which illustrates this. 阿尔弗莱德 - 阿德勒是一位著名的医生，他有过可以说明这点的经历。 来自中级百科部分

78 discretion   

n.谨慎；随意处理

参考例句：

• You must show discretion in choosing your friend.你择友时必须慎重。
• Please use your best discretion to handle the matter.请慎重处理此事。

79 embodied   

v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含

参考例句：

• a politician who embodied the hopes of black youth 代表黑人青年希望的政治家
• The heroic deeds of him embodied the glorious tradition of the troops. 他的英雄事迹体现了军队的光荣传统。 来自《简明英汉词典》

80 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

81 deserted   

adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的

参考例句：

• The deserted village was filled with a deathly silence.这个荒废的村庄死一般的寂静。
• The enemy chieftain was opposed and deserted by his followers.敌人头目众叛亲离。

82 prone   

adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的

参考例句：

• Some people are prone to jump to hasty conclusions.有些人往往作出轻率的结论。
• He is prone to lose his temper when people disagree with him.人家一不同意他的意见,他就发脾气。

83 parables   

n.（圣经中的）寓言故事( parable的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Jesus taught in parables. 耶酥以比喻讲道。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• In the New Testament are the parables and miracles. 《新约》则由寓言利奇闻趣事构成。 来自辞典例句

84 metaphors   

隐喻( metaphor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I can only represent it to you by metaphors. 我只能用隐喻来向你描述它。
• Thus, She's an angel and He's a lion in battle are metaphors. 因此她是天使，他是雄狮都是比喻说法。

85 continental   

adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的

参考例句：

• A continental climate is different from an insular one.大陆性气候不同于岛屿气候。
• The most ancient parts of the continental crust are 4000 million years old.大陆地壳最古老的部分有40亿年历史。

86 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

87 distinguished   

adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的

参考例句：

• Elephants are distinguished from other animals by their long noses.大象以其长长的鼻子显示出与其他动物的不同。
• A banquet was given in honor of the distinguished guests.宴会是为了向贵宾们致敬而举行的。

88 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

89 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

90 poetic   

adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的

参考例句：

• His poetic idiom is stamped with expressions describing group feeling and thought.他的诗中的措辞往往带有描写群体感情和思想的印记。
• His poetic novels have gone through three different historical stages.他的诗情小说创作经历了三个不同的历史阶段。

91 poetical   

adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的

参考例句：

• This is a poetical picture of the landscape. 这是一幅富有诗意的风景画。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• John is making a periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion. 约翰正在对陈腐的诗风做迂回冗长的研究。 来自辞典例句

92 saturated   

a.饱和的，充满的

参考例句：

• The continuous rain had saturated the soil. 连绵不断的雨把土地淋了个透。
• a saturated solution of sodium chloride 氯化钠饱和溶液

93 consistency   

n.一贯性，前后一致，稳定性；(液体的)浓度

参考例句：

• Your behaviour lacks consistency.你的行为缺乏一贯性。
• We appreciate the consistency and stability in China and in Chinese politics.我们赞赏中国及其政策的连续性和稳定性。

94 delusion   

n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑

参考例句：

• He is under the delusion that he is Napoleon.他患了妄想症，认为自己是拿破仑。
• I was under the delusion that he intended to marry me.我误认为他要娶我。

95 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

96 misgivings   

n.疑虑，担忧，害怕；疑虑，担心，恐惧( misgiving的名词复数 )；疑惧

参考例句：

• I had grave misgivings about making the trip. 对于这次旅行我有过极大的顾虑。
• Don't be overtaken by misgivings and fear. Just go full stream ahead! 不要瞻前顾后， 畏首畏尾。甩开膀子干吧！ 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

97 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

98 flux   

n.流动；不断的改变

参考例句：

• The market is in a constant state of flux.市场行情在不断变化。
• In most reactors,there is a significant flux of fast neutrons.在大部分反应堆中都有一定强度的快中子流。

99 conspired   

密谋( conspire的过去式和过去分词 )； 搞阴谋； （事件等）巧合； 共同导致

参考例句：

• They conspired to bring about the meeting of the two people. 他们共同促成了两人的会面。
• Bad weather and car trouble conspired to ruin our vacation. 恶劣的气候连同汽车故障断送了我们的假日。

100 overthrow   

v.推翻，打倒，颠覆；n.推翻，瓦解，颠覆

参考例句：

• After the overthrow of the government,the country was in chaos.政府被推翻后，这个国家处于混乱中。
• The overthrow of his plans left him much discouraged.他的计划的失败使得他很气馁。

101 supremacy   

n.至上；至高权力

参考例句：

• No one could challenge her supremacy in gymnastics.她是最优秀的体操运动员，无人能胜过她。
• Theoretically,she holds supremacy as the head of the state.从理论上说，她作为国家的最高元首拥有至高无上的权力。

102 adoration   

n.爱慕，崇拜

参考例句：

• He gazed at her with pure adoration.他一往情深地注视着她。
• The old lady fell down in adoration before Buddhist images.那老太太在佛像面前顶礼膜拜。

103 alienated   

adj.感到孤独的，不合群的v.使疏远( alienate的过去式和过去分词 )；使不友好；转让；让渡（财产等）

参考例句：

• His comments have alienated a lot of young voters. 他的言论使许多年轻选民离他而去。
• The Prime Minister's policy alienated many of her followers. 首相的政策使很多拥护她的人疏远了她。 来自《简明英汉词典》

104 discredited   

不足信的，不名誉的

参考例句：

• The reactionary authorities are between two fires and have been discredited. 反动当局弄得进退维谷，不得人心。
• Her honour was discredited in the newspapers. 她的名声被报纸败坏了。

105 decried   

v.公开反对，谴责( decry的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The measures were decried as useless. 这些措施受到指责，说是不起作用。
• The old poet decried the mediocrity of today's writing. 老诗人抨击了现代文体的平庸无奇。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

106 eluded   

v.（尤指机敏地）避开( elude的过去式和过去分词 )；逃避；躲避；使达不到

参考例句：

• The sly fox nimbly eluded the dogs. 那只狡猾的狐狸灵活地躲避开那群狗。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The criminal eluded the police. 那个罪犯甩掉了警察的追捕。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

107 immortal   

adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的

参考例句：

• The wild cocoa tree is effectively immortal.野生可可树实际上是不会死的。
• The heroes of the people are immortal!人民英雄永垂不朽！

108 vigour   

（=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力

参考例句：

• She is full of vigour and enthusiasm.她有热情，有朝气。
• At 40,he was in his prime and full of vigour.他40岁时正年富力强。

109 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

110 professed   

公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的

参考例句：

• These, at least, were their professed reasons for pulling out of the deal. 至少这些是他们自称退出这宗交易的理由。
• Her manner professed a gaiety that she did not feel. 她的神态显出一种她并未实际感受到的快乐。

111 adherent   

n.信徒，追随者，拥护者

参考例句：

• He was most liberal where money would bring him a powerful or necessary political adherent.在金钱能够收买一个干练的或者必需的政治拥护者的地方，他是最不惜花钱的。
• He's a pious adherent of Buddhism.他是一位虔诚的佛教徒。

112 homage   

n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬

参考例句：

• We pay homage to the genius of Shakespeare.我们对莎士比亚的天才表示敬仰。
• The soldiers swore to pay their homage to the Queen.士兵们宣誓效忠于女王陛下。

113 excerpts   

n.摘录，摘要( excerpt的名词复数 )；节选（音乐，电影）片段

参考例句：

• Some excerpts from a Renaissance mass are spatchcocked into Gluck's pallid Don Juan music. 一些文艺复光时期的弥撒的选节被不适当地加入到了格鲁克平淡无味的唐璜音乐中。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He is editing together excerpts of some of his films. 他正在将自己制作的一些电影的片断进行剪辑合成。 来自辞典例句

114 testimonies   

（法庭上证人的）证词( testimony的名词复数 )； 证明，证据

参考例句：

• Davie poured forth his eloquence upon the controversies and testimonies of the day. 戴维向他滔滔不绝地谈那些当时有争论的问题和上帝的箴言。
• Remove from me reproach and contempt; for I have kept thy testimonies. 22求你除掉我所受的羞辱和藐视，因我遵守你的法度。

115 paradox   

n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物)

参考例句：

• The story contains many levels of paradox.这个故事存在多重悖论。
• The paradox is that Japan does need serious education reform.矛盾的地方是日本确实需要教育改革。

116 appellation   

n.名称，称呼

参考例句：

• The emperor of Russia Peter I was given the appellation " the Great ".俄皇彼得一世被加上了“大帝”的称号。
• Kinsfolk appellation is the kinfolks system reflection in language.亲属称谓是亲属制度在语言中的反应。

117 formerly   

adv.从前，以前

参考例句：

• We now enjoy these comforts of which formerly we had only heard.我们现在享受到了过去只是听说过的那些舒适条件。
• This boat was formerly used on the rivers of China.这船从前航行在中国内河里。

118 bestowed   

赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• It was a title bestowed upon him by the king. 那是国王赐给他的头衔。
• He considered himself unworthy of the honour they had bestowed on him. 他认为自己不配得到大家赋予他的荣誉。

119 creed   

n.信条；信念，纲领

参考例句：

• They offended against every article of his creed.他们触犯了他的每一条戒律。
• Our creed has always been that business is business.我们的信条一直是公私分明。

120 coalition   

n.结合体，同盟，结合，联合

参考例句：

• The several parties formed a coalition.这几个政党组成了政治联盟。
• Coalition forces take great care to avoid civilian casualties.联盟军队竭尽全力避免造成平民伤亡。

121 physicist   

n.物理学家，研究物理学的人

参考例句：

• He is a physicist of the first rank.他是一流的物理学家。
• The successful physicist never puts on airs.这位卓有成就的物理学家从不摆架子。

122 physicists   

物理学家( physicist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• For many particle physicists, however, it was a year of frustration. 对于许多粒子物理学家来说，这是受挫折的一年。 来自英汉非文学 - 科技
• Physicists seek rules or patterns to provide a framework. 物理学家寻求用法则或图式来构成一个框架。

123 persistent   

adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的

参考例句：

• Albert had a persistent headache that lasted for three days.艾伯特连续头痛了三天。
• She felt embarrassed by his persistent attentions.他不时地向她大献殷勤，使她很难为情。

124 persistently   

ad.坚持地；固执地

参考例句：

• He persistently asserted his right to a share in the heritage. 他始终声称他有分享那笔遗产的权利。
• She persistently asserted her opinions. 她果断地说出了自己的意见。

125 formulated   

v.构想出( formulate的过去式和过去分词 )；规划；确切地阐述；用公式表示

参考例句：

• He claims that the writer never consciously formulated his own theoretical position. 他声称该作家从未有意识地阐明他自己的理论见解。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This idea can be formulated in two different ways. 这个意思可以有两种说法。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

126 dispelled   

v.驱散，赶跑( dispel的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• His speech dispelled any fears about his health. 他的发言消除了人们对他身体健康的担心。
• The sun soon dispelled the thick fog. 太阳很快驱散了浓雾。 来自《简明英汉词典》

127 investigations   

（正式的）调查( investigation的名词复数 )； 侦查； 科学研究； 学术研究

参考例句：

• His investigations were intensive and thorough but revealed nothing. 他进行了深入彻底的调查，但没有发现什么。
• He often sent them out to make investigations. 他常常派他们出去作调查。

128 incapable   

adj.无能力的，不能做某事的

参考例句：

• He would be incapable of committing such a cruel deed.他不会做出这么残忍的事。
• Computers are incapable of creative thought.计算机不会创造性地思维。

129 induction   

n.感应，感应现象

参考例句：

• His induction as a teacher was a turning point in his life.他就任教师工作是他一生的转折点。
• The magnetic signals are sensed by induction coils.磁信号由感应线圈所检测。

130 labyrinth   

n.迷宫；难解的事物；迷路

参考例句：

• He wandered through the labyrinth of the alleyways.他在迷宫似的小巷中闲逛。
• The human mind is a labyrinth.人的心灵是一座迷宫。

131 mazes   

迷宫( maze的名词复数 )； 纷繁复杂的规则； 复杂难懂的细节； 迷宫图

参考例句：

• The mazes of the dance were ecstatic. 跳舞那种错综曲折，叫人快乐得如登九天。
• For two hours did this singlehearted and simpleminded girl toil through the mazes of the forest. 这位心地单纯的傻姑娘在林间曲径中艰难地走了两个来小时。

132 aphoristic   

警句（似）的，格言（似）的

参考例句：

• Some parts are aphoristic and general, others will examine specific case studies in Unix development. 部分内容是箴言式的、概要性的，其余部分将分析Unix开发中的具体案例。

133 scattered   

adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的

参考例句：

• Gathering up his scattered papers,he pushed them into his case.他把散乱的文件收拾起来，塞进文件夹里。

134 unlimited   

adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的

参考例句：

• They flew over the unlimited reaches of the Arctic.他们飞过了茫茫无边的北极上空。
• There is no safety in unlimited technological hubris.在技术方面自以为是会很危险。

135 modification   

n.修改，改进，缓和，减轻

参考例句：

• The law,in its present form,is unjust;it needs modification.现行的法律是不公正的，它需要修改。
• The design requires considerable modification.这个设计需要作大的修改。

136 enumeration   

n.计数，列举；细目；详表；点查

参考例句：

• Predictive Categoriesinclude six categories of prediction, namely Enumeration, Advance Labeling, Reporting,Recapitulation, Hypotheticality, and Question. 其中预设种类又包括列举(Enumeration)、提前标示(Advance Labeling)、转述(Reporting)、回顾(Recapitulation)、假设(Hypotheticality)和提问(Question)。 来自互联网
• Here we describe a systematic procedure which is basically "enumeration" in nature. 这里介绍一个本质上是属于“枚举法”的系统程序。 来自辞典例句

137 encyclopaedia   

n.百科全书

参考例句：

• An encyclopaedia contains a lot of knowledge.百科全书包含很多知识。
• This is an encyclopaedia of philosophy.这是本哲学百科全书。

138 sundry   

adj.各式各样的，种种的

参考例句：

• This cream can be used to treat sundry minor injuries.这种药膏可用来治各种轻伤。
• We can see the rich man on sundry occasions.我们能在各种场合见到那个富豪。

139 enumerated   

v.列举，枚举，数( enumerate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• A spokesperson enumerated the strikers' demands. 发言人列数罢工者的要求。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He enumerated the capitals of the 50 states. 他列举了50个州的首府。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

140 blots   

污渍( blot的名词复数 )； 墨水渍； 错事； 污点

参考例句：

• The letter had many blots and blurs. 信上有许多墨水渍和污迹。
• It's all, all covered with blots the same as if she were crying on the paper. 到处，到处都是泪痕，像是她趴在信纸上哭过。 来自名作英译部分

141 aggregates   

数( aggregate的名词复数 )； 总计； 骨料； 集料（可成混凝土或修路等用的）

参考例句：

• Snowflakes are loose aggregates of ice crystals. 雪花是冰晶的松散凝结。
• Our airplanes based in Europe should be included in the aggregates. 我们驻欧飞机应包括在总数内。

142 discriminated   

分别，辨别，区分( discriminate的过去式和过去分词 )； 歧视，有差别地对待

参考例句：

• His great size discriminated him from his followers. 他的宽广身材使他不同于他的部下。
• Should be a person that has second liver virus discriminated against? 一个患有乙肝病毒的人是不是就应该被人歧视？

143 judgments   

判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判

参考例句：

• A peculiar austerity marked his judgments of modern life. 他对现代生活的批评带着一种特殊的苛刻。
• He is swift with his judgments. 他判断迅速。

144 annexing   

并吞( annex的现在分词 )； 兼并； 强占； 并吞（国家、地区等）

参考例句：

• In addition to annexing territory, they exacted huge indemnities. 割地之外，又索去了巨大的赔款。
• He succeeded in annexing all the property of Hindley's and the Linton's. 他成功的占有了亨得利和林顿的所有财产。

145 immediate   

adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的

参考例句：

• His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
• We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。

146 mediate   

vi.调解，斡旋；vt.经调解解决；经斡旋促成

参考例句：

• The state must mediate the struggle for water resources.政府必须通过调解来解决对水资源的争夺。
• They may be able to mediate between parties with different interests.他们也许能在不同利益政党之间进行斡旋。

147 reign   

n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势

参考例句：

• The reign of Queen Elizabeth lapped over into the seventeenth century.伊丽莎白王朝延至17世纪。
• The reign of Zhu Yuanzhang lasted about 31 years.朱元璋统治了大约三十一年。

148 reigns   

n.君主的统治( reign的名词复数 )；君主统治时期；任期；当政期

参考例句：

• In these valleys night reigns. 夜色笼罩着那些山谷。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The Queen of Britain reigns, but she does not rule or govern. 英国女王是国家元首，但不治国事。 来自辞典例句

149 corruption   

n.腐败，堕落，贪污

参考例句：

• The people asked the government to hit out against corruption and theft.人民要求政府严惩贪污盗窃。
• The old man reviled against corruption.那老人痛斥了贪污舞弊。

150 constituents   

n.选民( constituent的名词复数 )；成分；构成部分；要素

参考例句：

• She has the full support of her constituents. 她得到本区选民的全力支持。
• Hydrogen and oxygen are the constituents of water. 氢和氧是水的主要成分。 来自《简明英汉词典》

151 inorganic   

adj.无生物的；无机的

参考例句：

• The fundamentals of inorganic chemistry are very important.无机化学的基础很重要。
• This chemical plant recently bought a large quantity of inorganic salt.这家化工厂又买进了大量的无机盐。

152 penetrating   

adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的

参考例句：

• He had an extraordinarily penetrating gaze. 他的目光有股异乎寻常的洞察力。
• He examined the man with a penetrating gaze. 他以锐利的目光仔细观察了那个人。

153 texture   

n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理

参考例句：

• We could feel the smooth texture of silk.我们能感觉出丝绸的光滑质地。
• Her skin has a fine texture.她的皮肤细腻。

154 dominion   

n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图

参考例句：

• Alexander held dominion over a vast area.亚历山大曾统治过辽阔的地域。
• In the affluent society,the authorities are hardly forced to justify their dominion.在富裕社会里，当局几乎无需证明其统治之合理。

155 admiration   

n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕

参考例句：

• He was lost in admiration of the beauty of the scene.他对风景之美赞不绝口。
• We have a great admiration for the gold medalists.我们对金牌获得者极为敬佩。

156 inveterate   

adj.积习已深的，根深蒂固的

参考例句：

• Hitler was not only an avid reader but also an inveterate underliner.希特勒不仅酷爱读书，还有写写划划的习惯。
• It is hard for an inveterate smoker to give up tobacco.要一位有多年烟瘾的烟民戒烟是困难的。

157 proclivities   

n.倾向，癖性( proclivity的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Raised by adoptive parents,Hill received early encouragement in her musical proclivities. 希尔由养父母带大，从小，她的音乐爱好就受到了鼓励。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Whatever his political connections and proclivities, he did not care to neglect so powerful a man. 无论他的政治关系和脾气如何，他并不愿怠慢这样有势力的人。 来自辞典例句

158 dependence   

n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属

参考例句：

• Doctors keep trying to break her dependence of the drug.医生们尽力使她戒除毒瘾。
• He was freed from financial dependence on his parents.他在经济上摆脱了对父母的依赖。

159 component   

n.组成部分，成分，元件；adj.组成的，合成的

参考例句：

• Each component is carefully checked before assembly.每个零件在装配前都经过仔细检查。
• Blade and handle are the component parts of a knife.刀身和刀柄是一把刀的组成部分。

160 deter   

vt.阻止，使不敢，吓住

参考例句：

• Failure did not deter us from trying it again.失败并没有能阻挡我们再次进行试验。
• Dogs can deter unwelcome intruders.狗能够阻拦不受欢迎的闯入者。

161 configuration   

n.结构，布局，形态，(计算机)配置

参考例句：

• Geographers study the configuration of the mountains.地理学家研究山脉的地形轮廓。
• Prices range from $119 to $199,depending on the particular configuration.价格因具体配置而异，从119美元至199美元不等。

162 emancipated   

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 )

参考例句：

• Slaves were not emancipated until 1863 in the United States. 美国奴隶直到1863年才获得自由。
• Women are still struggling to be fully emancipated. 妇女仍在为彻底解放而斗争。 来自《简明英汉词典》

163 prosecution   

n.起诉，告发，检举，执行，经营

参考例句：

• The Smiths brought a prosecution against the organizers.史密斯家对组织者们提出起诉。
• He attempts to rebut the assertion made by the prosecution witness.他试图反驳原告方证人所作的断言。

164 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

165 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

166 elimination   

n.排除，消除，消灭

参考例句：

• Their elimination from the competition was a great surprise.他们在比赛中遭到淘汰是个很大的意外。
• I was eliminated from the 400 metres in the semi-finals.我在400米半决赛中被淘汰。

167 ascertain   

vt.发现，确定，查明，弄清

参考例句：

• It's difficult to ascertain the coal deposits.煤储量很难探明。
• We must ascertain the responsibility in light of different situtations.我们必须根据不同情况判定责任。

168 ascertaining   

v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• I was ascertaining whether the cellar stretched out in front or behind. 我当时是要弄清楚地下室是朝前还是朝后延伸的。 来自辞典例句
• The design and ascertaining of permanent-magnet-biased magnetic bearing parameter are detailed introduced. 并对永磁偏置磁悬浮轴承参数的设计和确定进行了详细介绍。 来自互联网

169 residues   

n.剩余，余渣( residue的名词复数 )；剩余财产；剩数

参考例句：

• pesticide residues in fruit and vegetables 残留在水果和蔬菜中的杀虫剂
• All organic and metallic residues on the wafers must be removed. 片子上所有的有机和金属残留物均必须清除。 来自辞典例句

170 syllogism   

n.演绎法，三段论法

参考例句：

• The ramifications or the mystery of a syllogism can become a weariness and a bore.三段论证法的分歧或者神秘会变成一种无聊、一种麻烦。
• The unexpected bursts forth from the syllogism.三段论里常出岔子。

171 undoubtedly   

adv.确实地，无疑地

参考例句：

• It is undoubtedly she who has said that.这话明明是她说的。
• He is undoubtedly the pride of China.毫无疑问他是中国的骄傲。

172 specified   

adj.特定的

参考例句：

• The architect specified oak for the wood trim. 那位建筑师指定用橡木做木饰条。
• It is generated by some specified means. 这是由某些未加说明的方法产生的。

173 dubbed   

v.给…起绰号( dub的过去式和过去分词 )；把…称为；配音；复制

参考例句：

• Mathematics was once dubbed the handmaiden of the sciences. 数学曾一度被视为各门科学的基础。
• Is the movie dubbed or does it have subtitles? 这部电影是配音的还是打字幕的？ 来自《简明英汉词典》

174 scrutiny   

n.详细检查，仔细观察

参考例句：

• His work looks all right,but it will not bear scrutiny.他的工作似乎很好，但是经不起仔细检查。
• Few wives in their forties can weather such a scrutiny.很少年过四十的妻子经得起这么仔细的观察。

175 conditional   

adj.条件的，带有条件的

参考例句：

• My agreement is conditional on your help.你肯帮助我才同意。
• There are two forms of most-favored-nation treatment:conditional and unconditional.最惠国待遇有两种形式:有条件的和无条件的。

176 infancy   

n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期

参考例句：

• He came to England in his infancy.他幼年时期来到英国。
• Their research is only in its infancy.他们的研究处于初级阶段。

177 experimentation   

n.实验，试验，实验法

参考例句：

• Many people object to experimentation on animals.许多人反对用动物做实验。
• Study and analysis are likely to be far cheaper than experimentation.研究和分析的费用可能要比实验少得多。

178 prerogative   

n.特权

参考例句：

• It is within his prerogative to do so.他是有权这样做的。
• Making such decisions is not the sole prerogative of managers.作这类决定并不是管理者的专有特权。

179 countenanced   

v.支持，赞同，批准( countenance的过去式 )

参考例句：

180 chancellor   

n.(英)大臣；法官；(德、奥)总理；大学校长

参考例句：

• They submitted their reports to the Chancellor yesterday.他们昨天向财政大臣递交了报告。
• He was regarded as the most successful Chancellor of modern times.他被认为是现代最成功的财政大臣。

181 physiologist   

n.生理学家

参考例句：

• Russian physiologist who observed conditioned salivary responses in dogs (1849-1936). （1849-1936）苏联生理学家，在狗身上观察到唾液条件反射，曾获1904年诺贝尔生理学-医学奖。
• The physiologist recently studied indicated that evening exercises beneficially. 生理学家新近研究表明，傍晚锻炼最为有益。

182 treasury   

n.宝库；国库，金库；文库

参考例句：

• The Treasury was opposed in principle to the proposals.财政部原则上反对这些提案。
• This book is a treasury of useful information.这本书是有价值的信息宝库。

183 expenditure   

n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出；使用，消耗

参考例句：

• The entry of all expenditure is necessary.有必要把一切开支入账。
• The monthly expenditure of our family is four hundred dollars altogether.我们一家的开销每月共计四百元。

184 incurred   

[医]招致的，遭受的； incur的过去式

参考例句：

• She had incurred the wrath of her father by marrying without his consent 她未经父亲同意就结婚，使父亲震怒。
• We will reimburse any expenses incurred. 我们将付还所有相关费用。

185 wrested   

（用力）拧( wrest的过去式和过去分词 )； 费力取得； （从…）攫取； （ 从… ） 强行取去…

参考例句：

• The usurper wrested the power from the king. 篡位者从国王手里夺取了权力。
• But now it was all wrested from him. 可是现在，他却被剥夺了这一切。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

186 artifice   

n.妙计，高明的手段；狡诈，诡计

参考例句：

• The use of mirrors in a room is an artifice to make the room look larger.利用镜子装饰房间是使房间显得大一点的巧妙办法。
• He displayed a great deal of artifice in decorating his new house.他在布置新房子中表现出富有的技巧。

187 judicious   

adj.明智的，明断的，能作出明智决定的

参考例句：

• We should listen to the judicious opinion of that old man.我们应该听取那位老人明智的意见。
• A judicious parent encourages his children to make their own decisions.贤明的父亲鼓励儿女自作抉择。

188 affinity   

n.亲和力，密切关系

参考例句：

• I felt a great affinity with the people of the Highlands.我被苏格兰高地人民深深地吸引。
• It's important that you share an affinity with your husband.和丈夫有共同的爱好是十分重要的。

189 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

190 isolate   

vt.使孤立，隔离

参考例句：

• Do not isolate yourself from others.不要把自己孤立起来。
• We should never isolate ourselves from the masses.我们永远不能脱离群众。

191 sublime   

adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的

参考例句：

• We should take some time to enjoy the sublime beauty of nature.我们应该花些时间去欣赏大自然的壮丽景象。
• Olympic games play as an important arena to exhibit the sublime idea.奥运会，就是展示此崇高理念的重要舞台。

192 relegated   

v.使降级( relegate的过去式和过去分词 )；使降职；转移；把…归类

参考例句：

• She was then relegated to the role of assistant. 随后她被降级做助手了。
• I think that should be relegated to the garbage can of history. 我认为应该把它扔进历史的垃圾箱。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

193 terseness   

简洁，精练

参考例句：

• If the main purpose of menus were to execute commands, terseness would be a virtue. 如果菜单的主要目的是执行命令，那么就应该精练。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• What strikes at a first reading is its vividness and terseness. 初读时它给人的印象是生动和简洁。

194 precept   

n.戒律；格言

参考例句：

• It occurs to me that example is always more efficacious than precept.我想到身教重于言教。
• The son had well profited by the precept and example of the father.老太爷的言传身教早已使他儿子获益无穷。

195 amassing   

v.积累，积聚( amass的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The study of taxonomy must necessarily involve the amassing of an encyclopaedic knowledge of plants. 分类学研究一定要积累广博的植物知识。 来自辞典例句
• Build your trophy room while amassing awards and accolades. 建立您的奖杯积累奖项和荣誉。 来自互联网

196 radical   

n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的

参考例句：

• The patient got a radical cure in the hospital.病人在医院得到了根治。
• She is radical in her demands.她的要求十分偏激。

197 transformation   

n.变化；改造；转变

参考例句：

• Going to college brought about a dramatic transformation in her outlook.上大学使她的观念发生了巨大的变化。
• He was struggling to make the transformation from single man to responsible husband.他正在努力使自己由单身汉变为可靠的丈夫。

198 peculiar   

adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的

参考例句：

• He walks in a peculiar fashion.他走路的样子很奇特。
• He looked at me with a very peculiar expression.他用一种很奇怪的表情看着我。

199 partisans   

游击队员( partisan的名词复数 )； 党人； 党羽； 帮伙

参考例句：

• Every movement has its partisans. 每一运动都有热情的支持者。
• He was rescued by some Italian partisans. 他被几名意大利游击队员所救。

200 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

201 climax   

n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点

参考例句：

• The fifth scene was the climax of the play.第五场是全剧的高潮。
• His quarrel with his father brought matters to a climax.他与他父亲的争吵使得事态发展到了顶点。

202 incompatible   

adj.不相容的，不协调的，不相配的

参考例句：

• His plan is incompatible with my intent.他的计划与我的意图不相符。
• Speed and safety are not necessarily incompatible.速度和安全未必不相容。

203 picturesquely   

参考例句：

• In the building trade such a trader is picturesquely described as a "brass plate" merchant. 在建筑行业里，这样一个生意人可以被生动地描述为著名商人。

204 unwillingness   

n. 不愿意，不情愿

参考例句：

• Her unwillingness to answer questions undermined the strength of her position. 她不愿回答问题，这不利于她所处的形势。
• His apparent unwillingness would disappear if we paid him enough. 如果我们付足了钱，他露出的那副不乐意的神情就会消失。

205 idol   

n.偶像，红人，宠儿

参考例句：

• As an only child he was the idol of his parents.作为独子，他是父母的宠儿。
• Blind worship of this idol must be ended.对这个偶像的盲目崇拜应该结束了。

206 juncture   

n.时刻，关键时刻，紧要关头

参考例句：

• The project is situated at the juncture of the new and old urban districts.该项目位于新老城区交界处。
• It is very difficult at this juncture to predict the company's future.此时很难预料公司的前景。

207 dispersed   

adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的

参考例句：

• The clouds dispersed themselves. 云散了。
• After school the children dispersed to their homes. 放学后，孩子们四散回家了。

208 axis   

n.轴，轴线，中心线；坐标轴，基准线

参考例句：

• The earth's axis is the line between the North and South Poles.地轴是南北极之间的线。
• The axis of a circle is its diameter.圆的轴线是其直径。

209 collapses   

折叠( collapse的第三人称单数 )； 倒塌； 崩溃； （尤指工作劳累后）坐下

参考例句：

• This bridge table collapses. 这张桥牌桌子能折叠。
• Once Russia collapses, the last chance to stop Hitler will be gone. 一旦俄国垮台，抑止希特勒的最后机会就没有了。

210 regain   

vt.重新获得，收复，恢复

参考例句：

• He is making a bid to regain his World No.1 ranking.他正为重登世界排名第一位而努力。
• The government is desperate to regain credibility with the public.政府急于重新获取公众的信任。

211 regained   

复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地

参考例句：

• The majority of the people in the world have regained their liberty. 世界上大多数人已重获自由。
• She hesitated briefly but quickly regained her poise. 她犹豫片刻，但很快恢复了镇静。

212 invaders   

入侵者，侵略者，侵入物( invader的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They prepared to repel the invaders. 他们准备赶走侵略军。
• The family has traced its ancestry to the Norman invaders. 这个家族将自己的世系追溯到诺曼征服者。

213 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

214 mediator   

n.调解人，中介人

参考例句：

• He always takes the role of a mediator in any dispute.他总是在争论中充当调停人的角色。
• He will appear in the role of mediator.他将出演调停者。

215 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

216 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

217 pedantic   

adj.卖弄学问的；迂腐的

参考例句：

• He is learned,but neither stuffy nor pedantic.他很博学，但既不妄自尊大也不卖弄学问。
• Reading in a pedantic way may turn you into a bookworm or a bookcase,and has long been opposed.读死书会变成书呆子，甚至于成为书橱，早有人反对过了。

218 underlying   

adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的

参考例句：

• The underlying theme of the novel is very serious.小说隐含的主题是十分严肃的。
• This word has its underlying meaning.这个单词有它潜在的含义。

219 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

220 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

221 analytical   

adj.分析的；用分析法的

参考例句：

• I have an analytical approach to every survey.对每项调查我都采用分析方法。
• As a result,analytical data obtained by analysts were often in disagreement.结果各个分析家所得的分析数据常常不一致。

222 ascertained   

v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The previously unidentified objects have now been definitely ascertained as being satellites. 原来所说的不明飞行物现在已证实是卫星。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I ascertained that she was dead. 我断定她已经死了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

223 velocity   

n.速度，速率

参考例句：

• Einstein's theory links energy with mass and velocity of light.爱因斯坦的理论把能量同质量和光速联系起来。
• The velocity of light is about 300000 kilometres per second.光速约为每秒300000公里。

224 intervals   

n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息

参考例句：

• The forecast said there would be sunny intervals and showers. 预报间晴，有阵雨。
• Meetings take place at fortnightly intervals. 每两周开一次会。

225 impulsive   

adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的

参考例句：

• She is impulsive in her actions.她的行为常出于冲动。
• He was neither an impulsive nor an emotional man,but a very honest and sincere one.他不是个一冲动就鲁莽行事的人，也不多愁善感.他为人十分正直、诚恳。

226 celestial   

adj.天体的；天上的

参考例句：

• The rosy light yet beamed like a celestial dawn.玫瑰色的红光依然象天上的朝霞一样绚丽。
• Gravity governs the motions of celestial bodies.万有引力控制着天体的运动。

227 astronomer   

n.天文学家

参考例句：

• A new star attracted the notice of the astronomer.新发现的一颗星引起了那位天文学家的注意。
• He is reputed to have been a good astronomer.他以一个优秀的天文学者闻名于世。

228 astronomers   

n.天文学者，天文学家( astronomer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Astronomers can accurately foretell the date,time,and length of future eclipses. 天文学家能精确地预告未来日食月食的日期、时刻和时长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Astronomers used to ask why only Saturn has rings. 天文学家们过去一直感到奇怪，为什么只有土星有光环。 来自《简明英汉词典》

229 centripetal   

adj.向心的

参考例句：

• After some treatment of centripetal force,he deduces Kepler's third law.在向心力的一些论述之后，他推出了开普勒的第三定律。
• It is called the centripetal acceleration.这叫做向心加速度。

230 tangential   

adj.离题的，切线的

参考例句：

• Too much time was spent discussing tangential issues.太多的时间花在了讨论那些无关紧要的问题上。
• They thought the whole thing was a side-show, tangential to the real world of business.他们认为整件事情只是一个插曲，和真正的商界没有多大关系。

231 inertia   

adj.惰性，惯性，懒惰，迟钝

参考例句：

• We had a feeling of inertia in the afternoon.下午我们感觉很懒。
• Inertia carried the plane onto the ground.飞机靠惯性着陆。

232 eternity   

n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷

参考例句：

• The dull play seemed to last an eternity.这场乏味的剧似乎演个没完没了。
• Finally,Ying Tai and Shan Bo could be together for all of eternity.英台和山伯终能双宿双飞，永世相随。

233 affinities   

n.密切关系( affinity的名词复数 )；亲近；（生性）喜爱；类同

参考例句：

• Cubism had affinities with the new European interest in Jazz. 主体派和欧洲新近的爵士音乐热有密切关系。 来自辞典例句
• The different isozymes bind calcium ions with different affinities. 不同的同功酶以不同的亲和力与钙离子相结合。 来自辞典例句

234 exhausted   

adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的

参考例句：

• It was a long haul home and we arrived exhausted.搬运回家的这段路程特别长，到家时我们已筋疲力尽。
• Jenny was exhausted by the hustle of city life.珍妮被城市生活的忙乱弄得筋疲力尽。

235 defiance   

n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗

参考例句：

• He climbed the ladder in defiance of the warning.他无视警告爬上了那架梯子。
• He slammed the door in a spirit of defiance.他以挑衅性的态度把门砰地一下关上。

236 conversational   

adj.对话的，会话的

参考例句：

• The article is written in a conversational style.该文是以对话的形式写成的。
• She values herself on her conversational powers.她常夸耀自己的能言善辩。

237 encomium   

n.赞颂；颂词

参考例句：

• He pronounced a splendid encomium upon her in the forum.他在广场上为她作了华丽的赞颂。
• We hear only encomiums to it.我们只听到对它的溢美之词。

238 vouched   

v.保证( vouch的过去式和过去分词 )；担保；确定；确定地说

参考例句：

• He vouched his words by his deeds. 他用自己的行动证明了自己的言辞。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Have all those present been vouched for? 那些到场的人都有担保吗？ 来自互联网

239 adventurous   

adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的　

参考例句：

• I was filled with envy at their adventurous lifestyle.我很羨慕他们敢于冒险的生活方式。
• He was predestined to lead an adventurous life.他注定要过冒险的生活。

240 doctrines   

n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明

参考例句：

• To modern eyes, such doctrines appear harsh, even cruel. 从现代的角度看，这样的教义显得苛刻，甚至残酷。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• His doctrines have seduced many into error. 他的学说把许多人诱入歧途。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

241 dynamics   

n.力学，动力学，动力，原动力；动态

参考例句：

• In order to succeed,you must master complicated knowledge of dynamics.要取得胜利，你必须掌握很复杂的动力学知识。
• Dynamics is a discipline that cannot be mastered without extensive practice.动力学是一门不做大量习题就不能掌握的学科。

242 mathematician   

n.数学家

参考例句：

• The man with his back to the camera is a mathematician.背对着照相机的人是位数学家。
• The mathematician analyzed his figures again.这位数学家再次分析研究了他的这些数字。

243 mathematicians   

数学家( mathematician的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? 你以为我们的数学家做不到这一点吗？ 来自英汉文学
• Mathematicians can solve problems with two variables. 数学家们可以用两个变数来解决问题。 来自哲学部分

244 discrete   

adj.个别的，分离的，不连续的

参考例句：

• The picture consists of a lot of discrete spots of colour.这幅画由许多不相连的色点组成。
• Most staple fibers are discrete,individual entities.大多数短纤维是不联系的单独实体。

245 calculus   

n.微积分；结石

参考例句：

• This is a problem where calculus won't help at all.对于这一题，微积分一点也用不上。
• After studying differential calculus you will be able to solve these mathematical problems.学了微积分之后，你们就能够解这些数学题了。

246 discourse   

n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述

参考例句：

• We'll discourse on the subject tonight.我们今晚要谈论这个问题。
• He fell into discourse with the customers who were drinking at the counter.他和站在柜台旁的酒客谈了起来。

247 meditations   

默想( meditation的名词复数 )； 默念； 沉思； 冥想

参考例句：

• Each sentence seems a quarry of rich meditations. 每一句话似乎都给人以许多冥思默想。
• I'm sorry to interrupt your meditations. 我很抱歉，打断你思考问题了。

248 subjective   

a.主观(上)的，个人的

参考例句：

• The way they interpreted their past was highly subjective. 他们解释其过去的方式太主观。
• A literary critic should not be too subjective in his approach. 文学评论家的看法不应太主观。

249 spatial   

adj.空间的，占据空间的

参考例句：

• This part of brain judges the spatial relationship between objects.大脑的这部分判断物体间的空间关系。
• They said that time is the feeling of spatial displacement.他们说时间是空间位移的感觉。

250 triangular   

adj.三角（形）的，三者间的

参考例句：

• It's more or less triangular plot of land.这块地略成三角形。
• One particular triangular relationship became the model of Simone's first novel.一段特殊的三角关系成了西蒙娜第一本小说的原型。

251 materialist   

n. 唯物主义者

参考例句：

• Promote materialist dialectics and oppose metaphysics and scholasticism. 要提倡唯物辩证法，反对形而上学和烦琐哲学。
• Whoever denies this is not a materialist. 谁要是否定这一点，就不是一个唯物主义者。

252 materialistic   

a.唯物主义的，物质享乐主义的

参考例句：

• She made him both soft and materialistic. 她把他变成女性化而又实际化。
• Materialistic dialectics is an important part of constituting Marxism. 唯物辩证法是马克思主义的重要组成部分。

253 demonstration   

n.表明，示范，论证，示威

参考例句：

• His new book is a demonstration of his patriotism.他写的新书是他的爱国精神的证明。
• He gave a demonstration of the new technique then and there.他当场表演了这种新的操作方法。

254 deduction   

n.减除，扣除，减除额；推论，推理，演绎

参考例句：

• No deduction in pay is made for absence due to illness.因病请假不扣工资。
• His deduction led him to the correct conclusion.他的推断使他得出正确的结论。

255 rejection   

n.拒绝，被拒，抛弃，被弃

参考例句：

• He decided not to approach her for fear of rejection.他因怕遭拒绝决定不再去找她。
• The rejection plunged her into the dark depths of despair.遭到拒绝使她陷入了绝望的深渊。

256 physiology   

n.生理学，生理机能

参考例句：

• He bought a book about physiology.他买了一本生理学方面的书。
• He was awarded the Nobel Prize for achievements in physiology.他因生理学方面的建树而被授予诺贝尔奖。

257 conjectures   

推测，猜想( conjecture的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• That's weighing remote military conjectures against the certain deaths of innocent people. 那不过是牵强附会的军事假设，而现在的事实却是无辜者正在惨遭杀害，这怎能同日而语！
• I was right in my conjectures. 我所猜测的都应验了。

258 unintelligible   

adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的

参考例句：

• If a computer is given unintelligible data, it returns unintelligible results.如果计算机得到的是难以理解的数据，它给出的也将是难以理解的结果。
• The terms were unintelligible to ordinary folk.这些术语一般人是不懂的。

259 wrought   

v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的

参考例句：

• Events in Paris wrought a change in British opinion towards France and Germany.巴黎发生的事件改变了英国对法国和德国的看法。
• It's a walking stick with a gold head wrought in the form of a flower.那是一个金质花形包头的拐杖。

260 corporeal   

adj.肉体的，身体的；物质的

参考例句：

• The body is the corporeal habitation of the soul.身体为灵魂之有形寓所。
• He is very religious;corporeal world has little interest for him.他虔信宗教，对物质上的享受不感兴趣。

261 liberated   

a.无拘束的，放纵的

参考例句：

• The city was liberated by the advancing army. 军队向前挺进，解放了那座城市。
• The heat brings about a chemical reaction, and oxygen is liberated. 热量引起化学反应，释放出氧气。

262 exclusion   

n.拒绝，排除，排斥，远足，远途旅行

参考例句：

• Don't revise a few topics to the exclusion of all others.不要修改少数论题以致排除所有其他的。
• He plays golf to the exclusion of all other sports.他专打高尔夫球，其他运动一概不参加。

263 virtue   

n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力

参考例句：

• He was considered to be a paragon of virtue.他被认为是品德尽善尽美的典范。
• You need to decorate your mind with virtue.你应该用德行美化心灵。

264 potent   

adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的

参考例句：

• The medicine had a potent effect on your disease.这药物对你的病疗效很大。
• We must account of his potent influence.我们必须考虑他的强有力的影响。

265 interpretation   

n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理

参考例句：

• His statement admits of one interpretation only.他的话只有一种解释。
• Analysis and interpretation is a very personal thing.分析与说明是个很主观的事情。

266 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

267 teleological   

adj.目的论的

参考例句：

• Teleological method of interpretation is a very important legal science method. 而作为法学方法的目的解释亦是一种十分重要的法学方法。 来自互联网
• Can evolution evolve its own teleological purpose? 进化能进化自己的目的吗？ 来自互联网

268 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

269 virgins   

处女，童男( virgin的名词复数 )； 童贞玛利亚（耶稣之母）

参考例句：

• They were both virgins when they met and married. 他们从相识到结婚前都未曾经历男女之事。
• Men want virgins as concubines. 人家买姨太太的要整货。 来自汉英文学 - 骆驼祥子

270 dedicated   

adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的

参考例句：

• He dedicated his life to the cause of education.他献身于教育事业。
• His whole energies are dedicated to improve the design.他的全部精力都放在改进这项设计上了。

271 alluded   

提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• In your remarks you alluded to a certain sinister design. 在你的谈话中，你提到了某个阴谋。
• She also alluded to her rival's past marital troubles. 她还影射了对手过去的婚姻问题。

272 utilitarian   

adj.实用的，功利的

参考例句：

• On the utilitarian side American education has outstridden the rest of the world.在实用方面美国教育已超越世界各国。
• A good cloth coat is more utilitarian than a fur one.一件优质的布外衣要比一件毛皮外衣更有用。

273 disinterested   

adj.不关心的，不感兴趣的

参考例句：

• He is impartial and disinterested.他公正无私。
• He's always on the make,I have never known him do a disinterested action.他这个人一贯都是唯利是图，我从来不知道他有什么无私的行动。

274 disinterestedness   

参考例句：

• Because it requires detachment, disinterestedness, it is the finest flower and test of a liberal civilization. 科学方法要求人们超然独立、公正无私，因而它是自由文明的最美之花和最佳试金石。 来自哲学部分
• His chief equipment seems to be disinterestedness. He moves in a void, without audience. 他主要的本事似乎是超然不群；生活在虚无缥缈中，没有听众。 来自辞典例句

275 severance   

n.离职金；切断

参考例句：

• Those laid off received their regular checks,plus vacation and severance pay.那些被裁的人都收到他们应得的薪金，再加上假期和解职的酬金。Kirchofer was terminated,effective immediately--without severance or warning.科奇弗被解雇了，立刻生效--而且没有辞退费或者警告。

276 celebrated   

adj.有名的，声誉卓著的

参考例句：

• He was soon one of the most celebrated young painters in England.不久他就成了英格兰最负盛名的年轻画家之一。
• The celebrated violinist was mobbed by the audience.观众团团围住了这位著名的小提琴演奏家。

277 ascending   

adj.上升的，向上的

参考例句：

• Now draw or trace ten dinosaurs in ascending order of size.现在按照体型由小到大的顺序画出或是临摹出10只恐龙。

278 manifestations   

n.表示，显示（manifestation的复数形式）

参考例句：

• These were manifestations of the darker side of his character. 这些是他性格阴暗面的表现。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• To be wordly-wise and play safe is one of the manifestations of liberalism. 明哲保身是自由主义的表现之一。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

279 manifestation   

n.表现形式；表明；现象

参考例句：

• Her smile is a manifestation of joy.她的微笑是她快乐的表现。
• What we call mass is only another manifestation of energy.我们称之为质量的东西只是能量的另一种表现形态。

280 brutes   

兽( brute的名词复数 )； 畜生； 残酷无情的人； 兽性

参考例句：

• They're not like dogs; they're hideous brutes. 它们不像狗，是丑陋的畜牲。
• Suddenly the foul musty odour of the brutes struck his nostrils. 突然，他的鼻尖闻到了老鼠的霉臭味。 来自英汉文学

281 physiological   

adj.生理学的，生理学上的

参考例句：

• He bought a physiological book.他买了一本生理学方面的书。
• Every individual has a physiological requirement for each nutrient.每个人对每种营养成分都有一种生理上的需要。

282 asunder   

adj.分离的，化为碎片

参考例句：

• The curtains had been drawn asunder.窗帘被拉向两边。
• Your conscience,conviction,integrity,and loyalties were torn asunder.你的良心、信念、正直和忠诚都被扯得粉碎了。

283 converged   

v.（线条、运动的物体等）会于一点( converge的过去式 )；（趋于）相似或相同；人或车辆汇集；聚集

参考例句：

• Thousands of supporters converged on London for the rally. 成千上万的支持者从四面八方汇聚伦敦举行集会。
• People converged on the political meeting from all parts of the city. 人们从城市的四面八方涌向这次政治集会。 来自《简明英汉词典》

284 converge   

vi.会合；聚集，集中；(思想、观点等)趋近

参考例句：

• The results converge towards this truth.其结果趋近于这个真理。
• Parallel lines converge at infinity.平行线永不相交。

285 precursor   

n.先驱者；前辈；前任；预兆；先兆

参考例句：

• Error is often the precursor of what is correct.错误常常是正确的先导。
• He said that the deal should not be seen as a precursor to a merger.他说该笔交易不应该被看作是合并的前兆。

286 recurs   

再发生，复发( recur的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• This theme recurs several times throughout the book. 这一主题在整部书里出现了好几次。
• Leap year recurs every four years. 每四年闰年一次。

287 conversion   

n.转化，转换，转变

参考例句：

• He underwent quite a conversion.他彻底变了。
• Waste conversion is a part of the production process.废物处理是生产过程的一个组成部分。

288 secondly   

adv.第二，其次

参考例句：

• Secondly,use your own head and present your point of view.第二，动脑筋提出自己的见解。
• Secondly it is necessary to define the applied load.其次，需要确定所作用的载荷。

289 unity   

n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调

参考例句：

• When we speak of unity,we do not mean unprincipled peace.所谓团结，并非一团和气。
• We must strengthen our unity in the face of powerful enemies.大敌当前，我们必须加强团结。

290 followers   

追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件

参考例句：

• the followers of Mahatma Gandhi 圣雄甘地的拥护者
• The reformer soon gathered a band of followers round him. 改革者很快就获得一群追随者支持他。

291 volition   

n.意志；决意

参考例句：

• We like to think that everything we do and everything we think is a product of our volition.我们常常认为我们所做和所想的一切都出自自己的意愿。
• Makin said Mr Coombes had gone to the police of his own volition.梅金说库姆斯先生是主动去投案的。

292 apprehension   

n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑

参考例句：

• There were still areas of doubt and her apprehension grew.有些地方仍然存疑，于是她越来越担心。
• She is a girl of weak apprehension.她是一个理解力很差的女孩。

293 antithesis   

n.对立；相对

参考例句：

• The style of his speech was in complete antithesis to mine.他和我的讲话方式完全相反。
• His creation was an antithesis to academic dogmatism of the time.他的创作与当时学院派的教条相对立。

294 deriving   

v.得到( derive的现在分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取

参考例句：

• I anticipate deriving much instruction from the lecture. 我期望从这演讲中获得很多教益。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He anticipated his deriving much instruction from the lecture. 他期望从这次演讲中得到很多教益。 来自辞典例句

295 solely   

adv.仅仅，唯一地

参考例句：

• Success should not be measured solely by educational achievement.成功与否不应只用学业成绩来衡量。
• The town depends almost solely on the tourist trade.这座城市几乎完全靠旅游业维持。

296 unanimity   

n.全体一致，一致同意

参考例句：

• These discussions have led to a remarkable unanimity.这些讨论导致引人注目的一致意见。
• There is no unanimity of opinion as to the best one.没有一个公认的最好意见。

297 negation   

n.否定；否认

参考例句：

• No reasonable negation can be offered.没有合理的反对意见可以提出。
• The author boxed the compass of negation in his article.该作者在文章中依次探讨了各种反面的意见。

298 disciple   

n.信徒，门徒，追随者

参考例句：

• Your disciple failed to welcome you.你的徒弟没能迎接你。
• He was an ardent disciple of Gandhi.他是甘地的忠实信徒。

299 disciples   

n.信徒( disciple的名词复数 )；门徒；耶稣的信徒；（尤指）耶稣十二门徒之一

参考例句：

• Judas was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. 犹大是耶稣十二门徒之一。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• "The names of the first two disciples were --" “最初的两个门徒的名字是——” 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险

300 innate   

adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的

参考例句：

• You obviously have an innate talent for music.你显然有天生的音乐才能。
• Correct ideas are not innate in the mind.人的正确思想不是自己头脑中固有的。

301 pulsating   

adj.搏动的，脉冲的v.有节奏地舒张及收缩( pulsate的现在分词 )；跳动；脉动；受（激情）震动

参考例句：

• Lights were pulsating in the sky. 天空有闪烁的光。
• Spindles and fingers moved so quickly that the workshop seemed to be one great nervously-pulsating machine. 工作很紧张，全车间是一个飞快的转轮。 来自子夜部分

302 paramount   

a.最重要的，最高权力的

参考例句：

• My paramount object is to save the Union and destroy slavery.我的最高目标是拯救美国，摧毁奴隶制度。
• Nitrogen is of paramount importance to life on earth.氮对地球上的生命至关重要。

303 pretensions   

自称( pretension的名词复数 )； 自命不凡； 要求； 权力

参考例句：

• The play mocks the pretensions of the new middle class. 这出戏讽刺了新中产阶级的装模作样。
• The city has unrealistic pretensions to world-class status. 这个城市不切实际地标榜自己为国际都市。

304 rebellious   

adj.造反的，反抗的，难控制的

参考例句：

• They will be in danger if they are rebellious.如果他们造反，他们就要发生危险。
• Her reply was mild enough,but her thoughts were rebellious.她的回答虽然很温和，但她的心里十分反感。

305 professing   

声称( profess的现在分词 )； 宣称； 公开表明； 信奉

参考例句：

• But( which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. 只要有善行。这才与自称是敬神的女人相宜。
• Professing Christianity, he had little compassion in his make-up. 他号称信奉基督教，却没有什么慈悲心肠。

306 superstitious   

adj.迷信的

参考例句：

• They aim to deliver the people who are in bondage to superstitious belief.他们的目的在于解脱那些受迷信束缚的人。
• These superstitious practices should be abolished as soon as possible.这些迷信做法应尽早取消。

307 pretext   

n.借口，托词

参考例句：

• He used his headache as a pretext for not going to school.他借口头疼而不去上学。
• He didn't attend that meeting under the pretext of sickness.他以生病为借口，没参加那个会议。

308 obedience   

n.服从，顺从

参考例句：

• Society has a right to expect obedience of the law.社会有权要求人人遵守法律。
• Soldiers act in obedience to the orders of their superior officers.士兵们遵照上级军官的命令行动。

309 syllogistic   

adj.三段论法的，演绎的，演绎性的

参考例句：

310 descending   

n. 下行 adj. 下降的

参考例句：

• The results are expressed in descending numerical order . 结果按数字降序列出。
• The climbers stopped to orient themselves before descending the mountain. 登山者先停下来确定所在的位置，然后再下山。

311 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

312 equilibrium   

n.平衡，均衡，相称，均势，平静

参考例句：

• Change in the world around us disturbs our inner equilibrium.我们周围世界的变化扰乱了我们内心的平静。
• This is best expressed in the form of an equilibrium constant.这最好用平衡常数的形式来表示。

313 virtues   

美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处

参考例句：

• Doctors often extol the virtues of eating less fat. 医生常常宣扬少吃脂肪的好处。
• She delivered a homily on the virtues of family life. 她进行了一场家庭生活美德方面的说教。

314 tranquillity   

n. 平静, 安静

参考例句：

• The phenomenon was so striking and disturbing that his philosophical tranquillity vanished. 这个令人惶惑不安的现象，扰乱了他的旷达宁静的心境。
• My value for domestic tranquillity should much exceed theirs. 我应该远比他们重视家庭的平静生活。

315 repose   

v.(使)休息；n.安息

参考例句：

• Don't disturb her repose.不要打扰她休息。
• Her mouth seemed always to be smiling,even in repose.她的嘴角似乎总是挂着微笑，即使在睡眠时也是这样。

316 contented   

adj.满意的，安心的，知足的

参考例句：

• He won't be contented until he's upset everyone in the office.不把办公室里的每个人弄得心烦意乱他就不会满足。
• The people are making a good living and are contented,each in his station.人民安居乐业。

317 orator   

n.演说者，演讲者，雄辩家

参考例句：

• He was so eloquent that he cut down the finest orator.他能言善辩，胜过最好的演说家。
• The orator gestured vigorously while speaking.这位演讲者讲话时用力地做手势。

318 revels   

n.作乐( revel的名词复数 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉v.作乐( revel的第三人称单数 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉

参考例句：

• Christmas revels with feasting and dancing were common in England. 圣诞节的狂欢歌舞在英国是很常见的。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Dickens openly revels in the book's rich physical detail and high-hearted conflict. 狄更斯对该书中丰富多彩的具体细节描写和勇敢的争斗公开表示欣赏。 来自辞典例句

319 naught   

n.无，零 [=nought]

参考例句：

• He sets at naught every convention of society.他轻视所有的社会习俗。
• I hope that all your efforts won't go for naught.我希望你的努力不会毫无结果。

320 circumscribing   

v.在…周围划线( circumscribe的现在分词 )；划定…范围；限制；限定

参考例句：

• There are laws circumscribing the right of individual citizens to cause bodily harm to others. 有多项法律限制公民的权利，使其不得对他人进行人身伤害。 来自柯林斯例句

321 imprisoned   

下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was imprisoned for two concurrent terms of 30 months and 18 months. 他被判处30个月和18个月的监禁，合并执行。
• They were imprisoned for possession of drugs. 他们因拥有毒品而被监禁。

322 ERECTED   

adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立

参考例句：

• A monument to him was erected in St Paul's Cathedral. 在圣保罗大教堂为他修了一座纪念碑。
• A monument was erected to the memory of that great scientist. 树立了一块纪念碑纪念那位伟大的科学家。

323 speculations   

n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 )；思考；投机活动；推断

参考例句：

• Your speculations were all quite close to the truth. 你的揣测都很接近于事实。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• This possibility gives rise to interesting speculations. 这种可能性引起了有趣的推测。 来自《用法词典》

324 inversion   

n.反向，倒转，倒置

参考例句：

• But sometimes there is an unusual weather condition called a temperature inversion.但有时会有一种被称作“温度逆增”的不平常的天气状态。
• And finally,we made a discussion on the problems in the cooperative inversion.最后，对联合反演中存在的问题进行了讨论。

325 penetrate   

v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解

参考例句：

• Western ideas penetrate slowly through the East.西方观念逐渐传入东方。
• The sunshine could not penetrate where the trees were thickest.阳光不能透入树木最浓密的地方。

326 infinity   

n.无限，无穷，大量

参考例句：

• It is impossible to count up to infinity.不可能数到无穷大。
• Theoretically,a line can extend into infinity.从理论上来说直线可以无限地延伸。

327 enjoined   

v.命令( enjoin的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The embezzler was severely punished and enjoined to kick back a portion of the stolen money each month. 贪污犯受到了严厉惩罚，并被责令每月退还部分赃款。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She enjoined me strictly not to tell anyone else. 她严令我不准告诉其他任何人。 来自辞典例句

328 simultaneously   

adv.同时发生地，同时进行地

参考例句：

• The radar beam can track a number of targets almost simultaneously.雷达波几乎可以同时追着多个目标。
• The Windows allow a computer user to execute multiple programs simultaneously.Windows允许计算机用户同时运行多个程序。

329 overthrown   

adj. 打翻的，推倒的，倾覆的 动词overthrow的过去分词

参考例句：

• The president was overthrown in a military coup. 总统在军事政变中被赶下台。
• He has overthrown the basic standards of morality. 他已摒弃了基本的道德标准。

330 civilisation   

n.文明，文化，开化，教化

参考例句：

• Energy and ideas are the twin bases of our civilisation.能源和思想是我们文明的两大基石。
• This opera is one of the cultural totems of Western civilisation.这部歌剧是西方文明的文化标志物之一。

331 expatiated   

v.详述，细说( expatiate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The chairman expatiated for two hours on his plans for the company. 董事长用两小时阐述了公司的规划。 来自辞典例句
• In contrition she expatiated on the beauty of the garden. 在后悔中，她反复谈论着花园的美丽。 来自辞典例句

332 quench   

vt.熄灭，扑灭；压制

参考例句：

• The firemen were unable to quench the fire.消防人员无法扑灭这场大火。
• Having a bottle of soft drink is not enough to quench my thirst.喝一瓶汽水不够解渴。

333 mutation   

n.变化，变异，转变

参考例句：

• People who have this mutation need less sleep than others.有这种突变的人需要的睡眠比其他人少。
• So far the discussion has centered entirely around mutation in the strict sense.到目前为止，严格来讲，讨论完全集中于围绕突变问题上。

334 vicissitude   

n.变化，变迁，荣枯，盛衰

参考例句：

• It is indeed a strange vicissitude of our science.这确实是我们科学的一个奇怪变迁。
• The future is so uncertain that we cannot know all the vicissitude of our fortunes.未来是无法确定的，我们无法知道将来命运所有的变化。

335 delightful   

adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的

参考例句：

• We had a delightful time by the seashore last Sunday.上星期天我们在海滨玩得真痛快。
• Peter played a delightful melody on his flute.彼得用笛子吹奏了一支欢快的曲子。

336 enjoyment   

n.乐趣；享有；享用

参考例句：

• Your company adds to the enjoyment of our visit. 有您的陪同，我们这次访问更加愉快了。
• After each joke the old man cackled his enjoyment.每逢讲完一个笑话，这老人就呵呵笑着表示他的高兴。

337 longing   

n.（for）渴望

参考例句：

• Hearing the tune again sent waves of longing through her.再次听到那首曲子使她胸中充满了渴望。
• His heart burned with longing for revenge.他心中燃烧着急欲复仇的怒火。

338 sedater   

adj.镇定的( sedate的比较级 )；泰然的；不慌不忙的（常用于名词前）；宁静的

参考例句：

339 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

340 procure   

vt.获得，取得，促成；vi.拉皮条

参考例句：

• Can you procure some specimens for me?你能替我弄到一些标本吗？
• I'll try my best to procure you that original French novel.我将尽全力给你搞到那本原版法国小说。

341 serenity   

n.宁静，沉着，晴朗

参考例句：

• Her face,though sad,still evoked a feeling of serenity.她的脸色虽然悲伤，但仍使人感觉安详。
• She escaped to the comparative serenity of the kitchen.她逃到相对安静的厨房里。

342 decomposition   

n. 分解, 腐烂, 崩溃

参考例句：

• It is said that the magnetite was formed by a chemical process called thermal decomposition. 据说这枚陨星是在热分解的化学过程中形成的。
• The dehydration process leads to fairly extensive decomposition of the product. 脱水过程会导致产物相当程度的分解。

343 reconstruction   

n.重建，再现，复原

参考例句：

• The country faces a huge task of national reconstruction following the war.战后，该国面临着重建家园的艰巨任务。
• In the period of reconstruction,technique decides everything.在重建时期，技术决定一切。

344 ethical   

adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的

参考例句：

• It is necessary to get the youth to have a high ethical concept.必须使青年具有高度的道德观念。
• It was a debate which aroused fervent ethical arguments.那是一场引发强烈的伦理道德争论的辩论。

345 edifice   

n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿，教室)

参考例句：

• The American consulate was a magnificent edifice in the centre of Bordeaux.美国领事馆是位于波尔多市中心的一座宏伟的大厦。
• There is a huge Victorian edifice in the area.该地区有一幢维多利亚式的庞大建筑物。

346 attains   

（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）

参考例句：

• This is the period at which the body attains maturity. 这是身体发育成熟的时期。
• The temperature a star attains is determined by its mass. 恒星所达到的温度取决于它的质量。

347 descends   

v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 )；下去；下降；下斜

参考例句：

• This festival descends from a religious rite. 这个节日起源于宗教仪式。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The path descends steeply to the village. 小路陡直而下直到村子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

348 accomplished   

adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的

参考例句：

• Thanks to your help,we accomplished the task ahead of schedule.亏得你们帮忙,我们才提前完成了任务。
• Removal of excess heat is accomplished by means of a radiator.通过散热器完成多余热量的排出。

349 extremity   

n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度

参考例句：

• I hope you will help them in their extremity.我希望你能帮助在穷途末路的他们。
• What shall we do in this extremity?在这种极其困难的情况下我们该怎么办呢？

350 transcended   

超出或超越（经验、信念、描写能力等）的范围( transcend的过去式和过去分词 )； 优于或胜过…

参考例句：

• He wanted assurance that he had transcended what was inherently ambiguous. 他要证明，他已经超越了本来就是混淆不清的事情。
• It transcended site to speak to universal human concerns. 它超越了场所的局限，表达了人类共同的心声。

351 distinctive   

adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的

参考例句：

• She has a very distinctive way of walking.她走路的样子与别人很不相同。
• This bird has several distinctive features.这个鸟具有几种突出的特征。

352 mooted   

adj.未决定的，有争议的，有疑问的v.提出…供讨论( moot的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The is sue was mooted on the Senate floor. 该问题在参院被提出讨论。 来自辞典例句
• The question mooted in the board meeting is still a moot point. 那个在董事会上（提出讨论）的问题仍（未决的）。 来自互联网

353 faculty   

n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员

参考例句：

• He has a great faculty for learning foreign languages.他有学习外语的天赋。
• He has the faculty of saying the right thing at the right time.他有在恰当的时候说恰当的话的才智。

354 abiding   

adj.永久的，持久的，不变的

参考例句：

• He had an abiding love of the English countryside.他永远热爱英国的乡村。
• He has a genuine and abiding love of the craft.他对这门手艺有着真挚持久的热爱。

355 juxtaposition   

n.毗邻，并置，并列

参考例句：

• The juxtaposition of these two remarks was startling.这两句话连在一起使人听了震惊。
• It is the result of the juxtaposition of contrasting colors.这是并列对比色的结果。

356 exempt   

adj.免除的；v.使免除；n.免税者，被免除义务者

参考例句：

• These goods are exempt from customs duties.这些货物免征关税。
• He is exempt from punishment about this thing.关于此事对他已免于处分。

357 circumscribed   

adj.[医]局限的：受限制或限于有限空间的v.在…周围划线( circumscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；划定…范围；限制；限定

参考例句：

• The power of the monarchy was circumscribed by the new law. 君主统治的权力受到了新法律的制约。
• His activities have been severely circumscribed since his illness. 自生病以来他的行动一直受到严格的限制。 来自《简明英汉词典》

358 accounting   

n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表

参考例句：

• A job fell vacant in the accounting department.财会部出现了一个空缺。
• There's an accounting error in this entry.这笔账目里有差错。

359 decomposed   

已分解的，已腐烂的

参考例句：

• A liquid is decomposed when an electric current passes through it. 当电流通过时，液体就分解。
• Water can be resolved [decomposed] into hydrogen and oxygen. 水可分解为氢和氧。

360 unemployed   

adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的

参考例句：

• There are now over four million unemployed workers in this country.这个国家现有四百万失业人员。
• The unemployed hunger for jobs.失业者渴望得到工作。

361 prospects   

n.希望，前途(恒为复数)

参考例句：

• There is a mood of pessimism in the company about future job prospects. 公司中有一种对工作前景悲观的情绪。
• They are less sanguine about the company's long-term prospects. 他们对公司的远景不那么乐观。

362 invoked   

v.援引( invoke的过去式和过去分词 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求

参考例句：

• It is unlikely that libel laws will be invoked. 不大可能诉诸诽谤法。
• She had invoked the law in her own defence. 她援引法律为自己辩护。 来自《简明英汉词典》

363 legitimately   

ad.合法地；正当地，合理地

参考例句：

• The radio is legitimately owned by the company. 该电台为这家公司所合法拥有。
• She looked for nothing save what might come legitimately and without the appearance of special favour. 她要的并不是男人们的额外恩赐，而是合法正当地得到的工作。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

364 elucidation   

n.说明，阐明

参考例句：

• The advertising copy is the elucidation text,which must be written according to the formula of AIDA. 文案是说明文，应基本遵照AIDA公式来写作。 来自互联网
• Fourth, a worm hole, elucidation space-time can stretch, compression, rent, also is deduced time-travel this idea. 第四，有了虫洞，就说明时空可以被拉伸、压缩、撕裂，也就推导出了时空旅行这个想法。 来自互联网

365 lucid   

adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的

参考例句：

• His explanation was lucid and to the point.他的解释扼要易懂。
• He wasn't very lucid,he didn't quite know where he was.他神志不是很清醒，不太知道自己在哪里。

366 collateral   

adj.平行的；旁系的；n.担保品

参考例句：

• Many people use personal assets as collateral for small business loans.很多人把个人财产用作小额商业贷款的抵押品。
• Most people here cannot borrow from banks because they lack collateral.由于拿不出东西作为抵押，这里大部分人无法从银行贷款。

367 transcending   

超出或超越（经验、信念、描写能力等）的范围( transcend的现在分词 )； 优于或胜过…

参考例句：

• She felt herself transcending time and space. 她感到自己正在穿越时空。
• It'serves as a skeptical critic of the self-transcending element. 它对于超越自身因素起着一个怀疑论批评家的作用。

368 transcends   

超出或超越（经验、信念、描写能力等）的范围( transcend的第三人称单数 )； 优于或胜过…

参考例句：

• The chemical dilution technique transcends most of the difficulties. 化学稀释法能克服大部分困难。
• The genius of Shakespeare transcends that of all other English poets. 莎士比亚的才华胜过所有的其他英国诗人。

369 parity   

n.平价，等价，比价，对等

参考例句：

• The two currencies have now reached parity.这两种货币现已达到同等价值。
• Women have yet to achieve wage or occupational parity in many fields.女性在很多领域还没能争取到薪金、职位方面的平等。

370 elastic   

n.橡皮圈，松紧带；adj.有弹性的；灵活的

参考例句：

• Rubber is an elastic material.橡胶是一种弹性材料。
• These regulations are elastic.这些规定是有弹性的。

371 ambiguity   

n.模棱两可；意义不明确

参考例句：

• The telegram was misunderstood because of its ambiguity.由于电文意义不明确而造成了误解。
• Her answer was above all ambiguity.她的回答毫不含糊。

372 versatility   

n.多才多艺，多样性，多功能

参考例句：

• Versatility is another of your strong points,but don't overdo it by having too many irons in the fire.你还有一个长处是多才多艺，但不要揽事太多而太露锋芒。
• This versatility comes from a dual weather influence.这种多样性是由于双重的气候影响而形成的。

373 jointly   

ad.联合地，共同地

参考例句：

• Tenants are jointly and severally liable for payment of the rent. 租金由承租人共同且分别承担。
• She owns the house jointly with her husband. 她和丈夫共同拥有这所房子。

374 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

375 nexus   

n.联系；关系

参考例句：

• Shared ambition is the vital nexus between them.共同的志向是把他们联结在一起的重要纽带。
• Either way,the nexus between the consumer and consumer prices is important.无论那个方面，消费者与消费价格之间的关系是至关重要的。

376 deference   

n.尊重，顺从；敬意

参考例句：

• Do you treat your parents and teachers with deference?你对父母师长尊敬吗？
• The major defect of their work was deference to authority.他们的主要缺陷是趋从权威。

377 subjectivity   

n.主观性（主观主义）

参考例句：

• In studying a problem,we must shun subjectivity.研究问题，忌带主观性。
• 'Cause there's a certain amount of subjectivity involved in recreating a face.因为在重建面部的过程中融入了太多的主观因素？

378 lesser   

adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地

参考例句：

• Kept some of the lesser players out.不让那些次要的球员参加联赛。
• She has also been affected,but to a lesser degree.她也受到波及，但程度较轻。

379 imbued   

v.使（某人/某事）充满或激起（感情等）( imbue的过去式和过去分词 )；使充满；灌输；激发（强烈感情或品质等）

参考例句：

• Her voice was imbued with an unusual seriousness. 她的声音里充满着一种不寻常的严肃语气。
• These cultivated individuals have been imbued with a sense of social purpose. 这些有教养的人满怀着社会责任感。 来自《简明英汉词典》

380 originality   

n.创造力，独创性；新颖

参考例句：

• The name of the game in pop music is originality.流行音乐的本质是独创性。
• He displayed an originality amounting almost to genius.他显示出近乎天才的创造性。

381 animation   

n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作

参考例句：

• They are full of animation as they talked about their childhood.当他们谈及童年的往事时都非常兴奋。
• The animation of China made a great progress.中国的卡通片制作取得很大发展。

382 repudiated   

v.（正式地）否认( repudiate的过去式和过去分词 )；拒绝接受；拒绝与…往来；拒不履行（法律义务）

参考例句：

• All slanders and libels should be repudiated. 一切诬蔑不实之词，应予推倒。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The Prime Minister has repudiated racist remarks made by a member of the Conservative Party. 首相已经驳斥了一个保守党成员的种族主义言论。 来自辞典例句

383 mosaic   

n./adj.镶嵌细工的，镶嵌工艺品的，嵌花式的

参考例句：

• The sky this morning is a mosaic of blue and white.今天早上的天空是幅蓝白相间的画面。
• The image mosaic is a troublesome work.图象镶嵌是个麻烦的工作。

384 masonry   

n.砖土建筑；砖石

参考例句：

• Masonry is a careful skill.砖石工艺是一种精心的技艺。
• The masonry of the old building began to crumble.旧楼房的砖石结构开始崩落。

385 contingent   

adj.视条件而定的；n.一组，代表团，分遣队

参考例句：

• The contingent marched in the direction of the Western Hills.队伍朝西山的方向前进。
• Whether or not we arrive on time is contingent on the weather.我们是否按时到达要视天气情况而定。

386 stoics   

禁欲主义者，恬淡寡欲的人，不以苦乐为意的人( stoic的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Stoics I can handle this shit. 斯多葛：我能掌握这大便。
• The most famous exercise of meditation is the premeditatio mallorum as practiced by the Stoics. 冥思最著名的练习是禁欲学派所实行的[消灾冥思]。

387 apprehend   

vt.理解，领悟，逮捕，拘捕，忧虑

参考例句：

• I apprehend no worsening of the situation.我不担心局势会恶化。
• Police have not apprehended her killer.警察还未抓获谋杀她的凶手。

388 strictly   

adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地

参考例句：

• His doctor is dieting him strictly.他的医生严格规定他的饮食。
• The guests were seated strictly in order of precedence.客人严格按照地位高低就座。

389 recherche   

adj.精选的；罕有的

参考例句：

• Applicants should have good PC skills with common office software,email and internet recherche.在办公软件、电子邮件、网络检索等个人电脑应用方面，申请人应具备良好的操作技能。
• The restaurant prides itself on its recherche menu.饭店以其精美的菜单自豪。

390 impede   

v.妨碍，阻碍，阻止

参考例句：

• One shouldn't impede other's progress.一个人不应该妨碍他人进步。
• The muddy roads impede our journey.我们的旅游被泥泞的道路阻挠了。

391 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

392 embodies   

v.表现( embody的第三人称单数 )；象征；包括；包含

参考例句：

• The new treaty embodies the aspirations of most nonaligned countries. 新条约体现了大多数不结盟国家的愿望。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This document embodies the concern of the government for the deformity. 这个文件体现了政府对残疾人的关怀。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

393 perverted   

adj.不正当的v.滥用( pervert的过去式和过去分词 )；腐蚀；败坏；使堕落

参考例句：

• Some scientific discoveries have been perverted to create weapons of destruction. 某些科学发明被滥用来生产毁灭性武器。
• sexual acts, normal and perverted 正常的和变态的性行为

394 sedulously   

ad.孜孜不倦地

参考例句：

• In this view they were sedulously abetted by their mother, aunts and other elderly female relatives. 在这方面，他们得到了他们的母亲，婶婶以及其它年长的女亲戚们孜孜不倦的怂恿。
• The clerk laid the two sheets of paper alongside and sedulously compared their contents. 那职员把两张纸并排放在前面，仔细比较。

395 ridicules   

n.嘲笑( ridicule的名词复数 )；奚落；嘲弄；戏弄v.嘲笑，嘲弄，奚落( ridicule的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

396 sketched   

v.草拟（sketch的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• The historical article sketched the major events of the decade. 这篇有关历史的文章概述了这十年中的重大事件。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He sketched the situation in a few vivid words. 他用几句生动的语言简述了局势。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

397 perennial   

adj.终年的；长久的

参考例句：

• I wonder at her perennial youthfulness.我对她青春常驻感到惊讶。
• There's a perennial shortage of teachers with science qualifications.有理科教学资格的老师一直都很短缺。

398 fables   

n.寓言( fable的名词复数 )；神话，传说

参考例句：

• Some of Aesop's Fables are satires. 《伊索寓言》中有一些是讽刺作品。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Little Mexican boys also breathe the American fables. 墨西哥族的小孩子对美国神话也都耳濡目染。 来自辞典例句

399 homely   

adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的

参考例句：

• We had a homely meal of bread and cheese.我们吃了一顿面包加乳酪的家常便餐。
• Come and have a homely meal with us,will you?来和我们一起吃顿家常便饭，好吗？

400 maligned   

vt.污蔑，诽谤（malign的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• She feels she has been much maligned by the press. 她觉得她遭到了新闻界的恣意诽谤。
• We maligned him dreadfully when you come to think of it. 回头想想，我们狠狠地中伤了他。 来自辞典例句

401 unnatural   

adj.不自然的；反常的

参考例句：

• Did her behaviour seem unnatural in any way?她有任何反常表现吗？
• She has an unnatural smile on her face.她脸上挂着做作的微笑。

402 habitually   

ad.习惯地，通常地

参考例句：

• The pain of the disease caused him habitually to furrow his brow. 病痛使他习惯性地紧皱眉头。
• Habitually obedient to John, I came up to his chair. 我已经习惯于服从约翰，我来到他的椅子跟前。

403 intensified   

v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Violence intensified during the night. 在夜间暴力活动加剧了。
• The drought has intensified. 旱情加剧了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

404 rivalry   

n.竞争，竞赛，对抗

参考例句：

• The quarrel originated in rivalry between the two families.这次争吵是两家不和引起的。
• He had a lot of rivalry with his brothers and sisters.他和兄弟姐妹间经常较劲。

405 infinitely   

adv.无限地，无穷地

参考例句：

• There is an infinitely bright future ahead of us.我们有无限光明的前途。
• The universe is infinitely large.宇宙是无限大的。

406 mutual   

adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的

参考例句：

• We must pull together for mutual interest.我们必须为相互的利益而通力合作。
• Mutual interests tied us together.相互的利害关系把我们联系在一起。

407 rectification   

n. 改正, 改订, 矫正

参考例句：

• The process of producing a shift of the average value is called rectification. 产生平均值移动的过程叫做整流。
• This effect, in analogy to its radiofrequency counterpart, is known as optical rectification. 同它的射频对应物相仿，这种现象称为光学整流。

408 preservation   

n.保护，维护，保存，保留，保持

参考例句：

• The police are responsible for the preservation of law and order.警察负责维持法律与秩序。
• The picture is in an excellent state of preservation.这幅画保存得极为完好。

409 redress   

n.赔偿，救济，矫正；v.纠正，匡正，革除

参考例句：

• He did all that he possibly could to redress the wrongs.他尽了一切努力革除弊端。
• Any man deserves redress if he has been injured unfairly.任何人若蒙受不公平的损害都应获得赔偿。

410 vindication   

n.洗冤，证实

参考例句：

• There is much to be said in vindication of his claim.有很多理由可以提出来为他的要求作辩护。
• The result was a vindication of all our efforts.这一结果表明我们的一切努力是必要的。

411 dominant   

adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因

参考例句：

• The British were formerly dominant in India.英国人从前统治印度。
• She was a dominant figure in the French film industry.她在法国电影界是个举足轻重的人物。

412 sterility   

n.不生育，不结果，贫瘠，消毒，无菌

参考例句：

• A major barrier to interspecific hybridization is sterility in the F1 progeny.种间杂交的主要障碍是F1代的不育性。
• Sterility is some permanent factor preventing procreation.不育是阻碍生殖的一种永久性因素。

413 possessed   

adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的

参考例句：

• He flew out of the room like a man possessed.他像着了魔似地猛然冲出房门。
• He behaved like someone possessed.他行为举止像是魔怔了。

414 modifications   

n.缓和( modification的名词复数 )；限制；更改；改变

参考例句：

• The engine was pulled apart for modifications and then reassembled. 发动机被拆开改型，然后再组装起来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The original plan had undergone fairly extensive modifications. 原计划已经作了相当大的修改。 来自《简明英汉词典》

415 eclecticism   

n.折衷主义

参考例句：

• Eclecticism is good,that they keeped the style and avoided the defects.兼收并蓄是好，避免了很多中国传统样式的问题，却依然古色古香。
• All of the groups moved towards a broader eclecticism and synthesis.所有的乐队都朝着更广泛的折衷主义和结合主义的方向前进。

416 rigid   

adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的

参考例句：

• She became as rigid as adamant.她变得如顽石般的固执。
• The examination was so rigid that nearly all aspirants were ruled out.考试很严，几乎所有的考生都被淘汰了。

417 rigidly   

adv.刻板地，僵化地

参考例句：

• Life today is rigidly compartmentalized into work and leisure. 当今的生活被严格划分为工作和休闲两部分。
• The curriculum is rigidly prescribed from an early age. 自儿童时起即已开始有严格的课程设置。

418 pregnancy   

n.怀孕，怀孕期

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕早期常有恶心的现象。
• Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage.怀孕期吸烟会增加流产的危险。

419 remodelling   

v.改变…的结构[形状]( remodel的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• That shabby street needs remodelling. 那条陋街需要重建。 来自辞典例句
• Function-forming and remodelling collagen, reticular and elastic fibres and the ground substances. 合成蛋白质，构成疏松结缔组织的纤维和基质成分。 来自互联网

420 tersely   

adv. 简捷地, 简要地

参考例句：

• Nixon proceeded to respond, mercifully more tersely than Brezhnev. 尼克松开始作出回答了。幸运的是，他讲的比勃列日涅夫简练。
• Hafiz Issail tersely informed me that Israel force had broken the young cease-fire. 哈菲兹·伊斯梅尔的来电简洁扼要，他说以色列部队破坏了刚刚生效的停火。

421 illustrated   

adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• His lecture was illustrated with slides taken during the expedition. 他在讲演中使用了探险时拍摄到的幻灯片。
• The manufacturing Methods: Will be illustrated in the next chapter. 制作方法将在下一章说明。

422 irresistible   

adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的

参考例句：

• The wheel of history rolls forward with an irresistible force.历史车轮滚滚向前，势不可挡。
• She saw an irresistible skirt in the store window.她看见商店的橱窗里有一条叫人着迷的裙子。

423 solvent   

n.溶剂；adj.有偿付能力的

参考例句：

• Gasoline is a solvent liquid which removes grease spots.汽油是一种能去掉油污的有溶解力的液体。
• A bankrupt company is not solvent.一个破产的公司是没有偿还债务的能力的。

424 propounder   

n.提议者，建议者，[法] 提出遗嘱者

参考例句：

425 analogous   

adj.相似的；类似的

参考例句：

• The two situations are roughly analogous.两种情況大致相似。
• The company is in a position closely analogous to that of its main rival.该公司与主要竞争对手的处境极为相似。

426 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

427 destined   

adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的

参考例句：

• It was destined that they would marry.他们结婚是缘分。
• The shipment is destined for America.这批货物将运往美国。

428 resuscitation   

n.复活

参考例句：

• Despite attempts at resuscitation,Mr Lynch died a week later in hospital.虽经全力抢救，但林奇先生一周以后还是在医院去世了。
• We gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and heart massage.我们对他进行了口对口复苏救治和心脏按摩。

429 foe   

n.敌人，仇敌

参考例句：

• He knew that Karl could be an implacable foe.他明白卡尔可能会成为他的死敌。
• A friend is a friend;a foe is a foe;one must be clearly distinguished from the other.敌是敌，友是友，必须分清界限。

430 dissection   

n.分析；解剖

参考例句：

• A dissection of your argument shows several inconsistencies.对你论点作仔细分析后发现一些前后矛盾之处。
• Researchers need a growing supply of corpses for dissection.研究人员需要更多的供解剖用的尸体。

431 concurrence   

n.同意；并发

参考例句：

• There is a concurrence of opinion between them.他们的想法一致。
• The concurrence of their disappearances had to be more than coincidental.他们同时失踪肯定不仅仅是巧合。

432 secular   

n.牧师，凡人；adj.世俗的，现世的，不朽的

参考例句：

• We live in an increasingly secular society.我们生活在一个日益非宗教的社会。
• Britain is a plural society in which the secular predominates.英国是个世俗主导的多元社会。

433 inexplicably   

adv.无法说明地，难以理解地，令人难以理解的是

参考例句：

• Inexplicably, Mary said she loved John. 真是不可思议，玛丽说她爱约翰。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Inexplicably, she never turned up. 令人不解的是，她从未露面。 来自辞典例句

434 superseded   

[医]被代替的，废弃的

参考例句：

• The theory has been superseded by more recent research. 这一理论已为新近的研究所取代。
• The use of machinery has superseded manual labour. 机器的使用已经取代了手工劳动。

435 impeaching   

v.控告（某人）犯罪( impeach的现在分词 )；弹劾；对（某事物）怀疑；提出异议

参考例句：

436 teleology   

n.目的论

参考例句：

• Kant identifies with this view deeply,but he believes teleology finally.康德深以这一观点为是，但他最终相信目的论。
• In general it's hard to do without teleology when we're thinking about ethics,justice,and moral argument.当我们思考伦理、正义和道德时，一般很难不用到目的论。

437 restrictions   

约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则）

参考例句：

• I found the restrictions irksome. 我对那些限制感到很烦。
• a snaggle of restrictions 杂乱无章的种种限制

438 premature   

adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的

参考例句：

• It is yet premature to predict the possible outcome of the dialogue.预言这次对话可能有什么结果为时尚早。
• The premature baby is doing well.那个早产的婴儿很健康。

439 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

440 aspiration   

n.志向，志趣抱负；渴望；(语)送气音；吸出

参考例句：

• Man's aspiration should be as lofty as the stars.人的志气应当象天上的星星那么高。
• Young Addison had a strong aspiration to be an inventor.年幼的爱迪生渴望成为一名发明家。

441 benevolent   

adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的

参考例句：

• His benevolent nature prevented him from refusing any beggar who accosted him.他乐善好施的本性使他不会拒绝走上前向他行乞的任何一个乞丐。
• He was a benevolent old man and he wouldn't hurt a fly.他是一个仁慈的老人，连只苍蝇都不愿伤害。

442 malevolent   

adj.有恶意的，恶毒的

参考例句：

• Why are they so malevolent to me?他们为什么对我如此恶毒？
• We must thwart his malevolent schemes.我们决不能让他的恶毒阴谋得逞。

443 condemn   

vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑

参考例句：

• Some praise him,whereas others condemn him.有些人赞扬他，而有些人谴责他。
• We mustn't condemn him on mere suppositions.我们不可全凭臆测来指责他。

444 implicitly   

adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地

参考例句：

• Many verbs and many words of other kinds are implicitly causal. 许多动词和许多其他类词都蕴涵着因果关系。
• I can trust Mr. Somerville implicitly, I suppose? 我想，我可以毫无保留地信任萨莫维尔先生吧？

445 imposing   

adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的

参考例句：

• The fortress is an imposing building.这座城堡是一座宏伟的建筑。
• He has lost his imposing appearance.他已失去堂堂仪表。

446 adherents   

n.支持者，拥护者( adherent的名词复数 )；党羽；徒子徒孙

参考例句：

• He is a leader with many adherents. 他是个有众多追随者的领袖。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The proposal is gaining more and more adherents. 该建议得到越来越多的支持者。 来自《简明英汉词典》

447 dread   

vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧

参考例句：

• We all dread to think what will happen if the company closes.我们都不敢去想一旦公司关门我们该怎么办。
• Her heart was relieved of its blankest dread.她极度恐惧的心理消除了。

448 motive   

n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的

参考例句：

• The police could not find a motive for the murder.警察不能找到谋杀的动机。
• He had some motive in telling this fable.他讲这寓言故事是有用意的。

449 motives   

n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• to impeach sb's motives 怀疑某人的动机
• His motives are unclear. 他的用意不明。

450 impersonal   

adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的

参考例句：

• Even his children found him strangely distant and impersonal.他的孩子们也认为他跟其他人很疏远，没有人情味。
• His manner seemed rather stiff and impersonal.他的态度似乎很生硬冷淡。

451 momentary   

adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的

参考例句：

• We are in momentary expectation of the arrival of you.我们无时无刻不在盼望你的到来。
• I caught a momentary glimpse of them.我瞥了他们一眼。

452 consolidated   

a.联合的

参考例句：

• With this new movie he has consolidated his position as the country's leading director. 他新执导的影片巩固了他作为全国最佳导演的地位。
• Those two banks have consolidated and formed a single large bank. 那两家银行已合并成一家大银行。

453 scantily   

adv.缺乏地；不充足地；吝啬地；狭窄地

参考例句：

• The bedroom was scantily furnished. 卧室里几乎没有什么家具。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• His room was scantily furnished. 他的房间陈设简陋。 来自互联网

454 diffused   

散布的，普及的，扩散的

参考例句：

• A drop of milk diffused in the water. 一滴牛奶在水中扩散开来。
• Gases and liquids diffused. 气体和液体慢慢混合了。

455 antipathy   

n.憎恶；反感，引起反感的人或事物

参考例句：

• I feel an antipathy against their behaviour.我对他们的行为很反感。
• Some people have an antipathy to cats.有的人讨厌猫。

456 antiquity   

n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹

参考例句：

• The museum contains the remains of Chinese antiquity.博物馆藏有中国古代的遗物。
• There are many legends about the heroes of antiquity.有许多关于古代英雄的传说。

457 immortality   

n.不死，不朽

参考例句：

• belief in the immortality of the soul 灵魂不灭的信念
• It was like having immortality while you were still alive. 仿佛是当你仍然活着的时候就得到了永生。

458 vicissitudes   

n.变迁，世事变化；变迁兴衰( vicissitude的名词复数 )；盛衰兴废

参考例句：

• He experienced several great social vicissitudes in his life. 他一生中经历了几次大的社会变迁。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected. 饱经沧桑，不易沮丧。 来自《简明英汉词典》

459 deflected   

偏离的

参考例句：

• The ball deflected off Reid's body into the goal. 球打在里德身上反弹进球门。
• Most of its particles are deflected. 此物质的料子大多是偏斜的。

460 lapsing   

v.退步( lapse的现在分词 )；陷入；倒退；丧失

参考例句：

• He tried to say, but his voice kept lapsing. 他是想说这句话，可已经抖得语不成声了。 来自辞典例句
• I saw the pavement lapsing beneath my feet. 我看到道路在我脚下滑过。 来自辞典例句

461 dexterously   

adv.巧妙地，敏捷地

参考例句：

• He operates the machine dexterously. 他操纵机器动作非常轻巧。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• How dexterously he handled the mite. 他伺候小家伙，有多么熟练。 来自辞典例句

462 mythology   

n.神话，神话学，神话集

参考例句：

• In Greek mythology,Zeus was the ruler of Gods and men.在希腊神话中，宙斯是众神和人类的统治者。
• He is the hero of Greek mythology.他是希腊民间传说中的英雄。

463 evolutionary   

adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的

参考例句：

• Life has its own evolutionary process.生命有其自身的进化过程。
• These are fascinating questions to be resolved by the evolutionary studies of plants.这些十分吸引人的问题将在研究植物进化过程中得以解决。

464 increments   

n.增长( increment的名词复数 )；增量；增额；定期的加薪

参考例句：

• These increments were mixed and looked into the 5.56mm catridge case. 将各种药粒进行混和，装在5．56毫米的弹壳中。 来自辞典例句
• The Rankine scale has scale increments equal to the FahrenheIt'scale. 兰氏温标的温度间距与华氏温标的相同。 来自辞典例句

465 hybrid   

n.(动，植）杂种，混合物

参考例句：

• That is a hybrid perpetual rose.那是一株杂交的四季开花的蔷薇。
• The hybrid was tall,handsome,and intelligent.那混血儿高大、英俊、又聪明。

466 suffrages   

（政治性选举的）选举权，投票权( suffrage的名词复数 )

参考例句：

467 reactionary   

n.反动者，反动主义者；adj.反动的，反动主义的，反对改革的

参考例句：

• They forced thousands of peasants into their reactionary armies.他们迫使成千上万的农民参加他们的反动军队。
• The reactionary ruling clique was torn by internal strife.反动统治集团内部勾心斗角，四分五裂。

468 permanently   

adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地

参考例句：

• The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
• The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。

469 commingling   

v.混合，掺和，合并( commingle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Sexual reproduction can bring about genetic commingling. 有性繁殖可取得杂交遗传。 来自辞典例句
• How do you prevent commingling of certified with non certified products after harvest? 如何避免收获后认证与非认证产品的混淆？ 来自互联网

470 deluges   

v.使淹没( deluge的第三人称单数 )；淹没；被洪水般涌来的事物所淹没；穷于应付

参考例句：

471 catastrophes   

n.灾祸( catastrophe的名词复数 )；灾难；不幸事件；困难

参考例句：

• Two of history's worst natural catastrophes occurred in 1970. 1970年发生了历史上最严重两次自然灾害。 来自辞典例句
• The Swiss deposits contain evidence of such catastrophes. 瑞士的遗址里还有这种灾难的证据。 来自辞典例句

472 geologists   

地质学家，地质学者( geologist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Geologists uncovered the hidden riches. 地质学家发现了地下的宝藏。
• Geologists study the structure of the rocks. 地质学家研究岩石结构。

473 assailed   

v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对

参考例句：

• He was assailed with fierce blows to the head. 他的头遭到猛烈殴打。
• He has been assailed by bad breaks all these years. 这些年来他接二连三地倒霉。 来自《用法词典》

474 eminent   

adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的

参考例句：

• We are expecting the arrival of an eminent scientist.我们正期待一位著名科学家的来访。
• He is an eminent citizen of China.他是一个杰出的中国公民。

475 naturalists   

n.博物学家( naturalist的名词复数 )；（文学艺术的）自然主义者

参考例句：

• Naturalists differ much in determining what characters are of generic value. 自然学者对于不同性状决定生物的属的含义上，各有各的见解。 来自辞典例句
• This fact has led naturalists to believe that the Isthmus was formerly open. 使许多自然学者相信这个地蛱在以前原是开通的。 来自辞典例句

476 impedes   

阻碍，妨碍，阻止( impede的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• High packing density greatly impedes the cooling of the array. 高存贮密度很不利于阵列的散热。
• The inflexibility of the country's labor market seriously impedes its economic recovery. 该国劳工市场缺乏灵活性，这严重阻碍了它的经济恢复。

477 zoology   

n.动物学，生态

参考例句：

• I would like to brush up my zoology.我想重新温习一下动物学。
• The library didn't stock zoology textbooks.这家图书馆没有动物学教科书。

478 invertebrate   

n.无脊椎动物

参考例句：

• Half of all invertebrate species live in tropical rain forests.一半的无脊椎动物物种生活在热带雨林中。
• Worms are an example of invertebrate animals.蠕虫是无脊椎动物的一个例子。

479 plausibly   

似真地

参考例句：

• The case was presented very plausibly. 案情的申述似很可信。
• He argued very plausibly for its acceptance. 他为使之认可辩解得头头是道。

480 honourable   

adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的

参考例句：

• I don't think I am worthy of such an honourable title.这样的光荣称号，我可担当不起。
• I hope to find an honourable way of settling difficulties.我希望设法找到一个体面的办法以摆脱困境。

481 eloquently   

adv. 雄辩地(有口才地, 富于表情地)

参考例句：

• I was toasted by him most eloquently at the dinner. 进餐时他口若悬河地向我祝酒。
• The poet eloquently expresses the sense of lost innocence. 诗人动人地表达了失去天真的感觉。

482 allusions   

暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• We should not use proverbs and allusions indiscriminately. 不要滥用成语典故。
• The background lent itself to allusions to European scenes. 眼前的情景容易使人联想到欧洲风光。

483 hostility   

n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争

参考例句：

• There is open hostility between the two leaders.两位领导人表现出公开的敌意。
• His hostility to your plan is well known.他对你的计划所持的敌意是众所周知的。

484 elevation   

n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高

参考例句：

• The house is at an elevation of 2,000 metres.那幢房子位于海拔两千米的高处。
• His elevation to the position of General Manager was announced yesterday.昨天宣布他晋升总经理职位。

485 emancipation   

n.（从束缚、支配下）解放

参考例句：

• We must arouse them to fight for their own emancipation. 我们必须唤起他们为其自身的解放而斗争。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They rejoiced over their own emancipation. 他们为自己的解放感到欢欣鼓舞。 来自《简明英汉词典》

486 conciliation   

n.调解，调停

参考例句：

• By conciliation,cooperation is established.通过调解，友好合作关系得以确立。
• Their attempts at conciliation had failed and both sides were once again in dispute.他们进行调停的努力失败了，双方再次陷入争吵。