THE whole of the preceding inquiry3 has been concerned with a particular kind of experience, namely, the experience of things or events as good and bad. We have tried to discover what it is that is implied in our diverse uses of these words, what is their common essential meaning; and further, we have tried to elaborate this meaning into a logically coherent concept. Having reached some conclusion on this subject, we considered the meaning and implications of moral obligation. And finally, we came to some very tentative conclusions as to certain characteristics that seemed to be required in the objective ideal. This discussion entailed4 a very speculative5 exploration of the relations between subject and object in the act of admiration6.
There remains7 to be considered another type of experience, in which ethical8 experience seems to be in a manner transcended9. I will first try to describe the kind of experience that I mean, and will then close this whole survey with a very tentative speculation11 as to its significance.
There seem to be at least three moods which the mind may experience with regard to good and evil. I will call them the mood of moral zeal, the mood of disillusion, and the mood of ecstasy12. It is ecstasy that I will venture to discuss; but, first, it will be well to distinguish the three moods from one another. They do not necessarily exclude one another. It is possible to have various blends of them in which now one and now another is more prominent. Or perhaps I should rather say that we may attend at once to those diverse aspects of experience which conduce to each of these three moods, and that we may be concerned now chiefly with one, now with another aspect. The mood of ecstasy, indeed, seems in some sense to involve and to transform both the others.
In our customary daily life we seldom experience any of these moods, for we are too closely engaged by the successive strokes of the game of living, to contemplate13 it as a whole. With little thought as to what it really is that we are doing, we fulfil our private needs and the habitually14 recognized claims of our neighbours; or we brood upon our defeats, or build castles in the air. Now and again, however, the mind is shocked into a poignant15 realization16 of the stark17 difference between good and bad, and perhaps into some gesture of allegiance to the good.
This mood of moral zeal may sometimes spring from an unusually intense and indignant experience of private need, or from a self-forgetful espousal of the needs of another, or others, or from the spectacle of animal suffering. Or, again, it may arise from the discovery of some inconsistency or insincerity in oneself or another. But. whatever the origin of the moral mood, it consists in a white-hot indignation against all that is conceived as bad, and in particular against all that is conceived as conflicting with the free activities of human beings and perhaps of animals, or (as some would put it) against all that is thought of as ‘contrary to the will of God’. The universe is regarded single-mindedly in relation to the ethical distinction, the great struggle between the powers of light and the powers of darkness, or between life and death, or spirit’s activity and the inertia18 of matter. We are so impressed by the urgent needs of living things, and perhaps by the needs of a world regarded as itself alive, that the ethical distinction seems to be an absolute distinction between characters of the real itself, and no mere19 accidental result of our sensitivity. If the stars are indifferent to this vast crusade for the good, so much the worse for them. If they be not themselves alive or seats of life, we may ignore them; unless indeed they can be made somehow instrumental to the achievement of the ideal. If, as some believe, the great enterprise of life on this planet must sooner or later end in defeat, then the universe is contemptible20, a brute-mother devouring21 her divine foster-child. For nothing, in this mood, matters but the abolition22 of evils and the achievement of goods.
From this zealous23 mood we may fall into disillusion.96 This is experienced as a definite contraction24 of the spirit, or a collapse25 from a more alive to a less alive mode of being. Our headlong ethical enthusiasm is perhaps suddenly and mysteriously checked, as though by a change of weather. As though by spongy ground, we are reduced suddenly from a gallop26 to a hang-dog walk. Perhaps we have been exhausted27 by some hidden physiological28 change, and have projected our jaundiced mood upon the environment. Perhaps, on the other hand, it is mere thought that has fatigued29 us and projected its pale cast upon the world.
Anyhow, from whatever cause, we find ourselves disillusioned30 about all values, save probably the fierce negative value of sensory31 pain. The normal mind seldom sinks so far as to be disillusioned about the badness of pain stimuli32. It may indeed transcend10 their badness, rise to some degree of emancipation33 from their tyranny, through the experience of higher values; but this transcendence is no mere disillusionment. In disillusion all values above the sensory level simply escape our apprehension34. No longer is the world a theatre of intense personal dramas, or of the cosmical epic35 of good and evil; it is just a tedious and chaotic36 accident, a foul37 tangle38 of thorns and marshes39 wherein one has somehow to find a tolerable resting place. Of course there are sweets, a few rare berries to be captured now and then. But mostly they turn sour in trte mouth, and always after them comes colic. The prudent40 man takes as little as possible of the hostile world into his system. He loves as mildly and as rarely as possible. He eschews41 all loyalties42. He exerts his will only to keep reality at arm’s length. For life, in this mood, seems a long and sleepless43 night in an uncomfortable bed. We toss and yawn, and stop our ears against the clamour of the world, and construct a defence of pleasant fantasies, or hypnotize ourselves with mildly laborious44 and aimless antics, to entice45 sleep.
When we succeed to some extent in this attempt to keep ourselves from being implicated46 in the world that is over against us, our disillusion may achieve a certain cynical47 complacency of triumph. And this may sometimes be so intense that, buttressed48 by a little confused thinking, it may persuade us that we have attained49 a sublime50 detachment from ephemeral values and have found the goal that transcends51 good and evil. When, on the other hand, the demands of the body, or of other persons to whose needs we happen to be sensitive, are so insistent52 that we cannot disengage ourselves from them, or again when we contemplate the insecurity of all our defences, we may taste abject53 terror on account of our vulnerability. And this terror, so long as it is experienced only in imagination, may sometimes exalt54 itself into a kind of pseudo-tragic55 ecstasy. For we are all capable of masochism — at a safe distance from the actual.
But these moods of triumph and terror are in truth mere phases of the disillusioned flight from the enticing56 and wounding object of experience. And in defence of this withdrawal57 we may construct or accept all sorts of theories, the gist58 of which is always that the difference between good and bad is illusory, and that obligation is a meaningless concept; and indeed that the preference for pleasure rather than pain is itself a fortuitous and crazy bias59, which the prudent man will seek to escape as far as possible.
B. The Rise to Ecstasy
The third mood, which I venture to call ‘ecstasy’, is less easy to describe. Some would perhaps identify it with the more triumphant60 kind of disillusion; for in some sense it certainly involves both triumph and detachment from all desire. Others may refuse to distinguish it from disillusion of the more tortured type; for it is not wholly unlike masochism. Some may claim that it is essentially61 moral, though it is emancipated62 from every particular moral bias and every moral code; for certainly it is an experience in which a supreme63 duty seems to be fulfilled by the stripped and cleansed64 spirit. Others may think of it as the highest reach of that kind of experience which we call aesthetic65; for they perhaps know it best in contemplation of works of art. Some, however, would insist that what is under discussion is simply the religious experience, since it is essentially the contemplation of supreme excellence66, and the spiritual gesture which we call worship.
Many, of course, would simply deny that there is any such experience as that which I wish to describe. They suspect that anyone who thinks he has, or did have, such experiences is merely mistaken. Some precious dogma or other (they suggest) demands that there should be the possibility of intuitive apprehension of occult reality, or of value other than teleological67 values; and so in certain moods of zest68 a believer may persuade himself that he is face to face with the supreme excellence, when, as a matter of fact, he is merely rather excited. It is so easy to believe that an experience has the character that we want it to have, and even easier is it to assume that a past experience: did have the desired character.
In all these spheres there is indeed grave danger of self-deception and faulty introspection. But in the last resort it is only by more rigorous introspection that our error is to be discovered. We cannot afford to discard introspection altogether merely because it sometimes fails us. No doubt many have deceived themselves into believing that they have had definitely super-normal experience. Possibly others, however, really have had such experience, and have been unable to describe it intelligibly69 to the mystically blind. Indeed, the literature of mysticism is so vast and detailed70, and so much in agreement, that the existence, as opposed to the interpretation71, of unique mystical experiences may be considered publicly established by the testimony72 of many persons who, claiming to have had it, have established also their own honesty and their accuracy of introspection. But, alas73, it is almost impossible to disentangle their data from their interpretations74. The professed75 mystics may have seen the truth, but they fail to describe it intelligibly, and their interpretations are often na?ve.
Here, however, I am concerned with something less remote than the experience of the great mystics, namely, a mood which may happen to very many of us if not to all. Perhaps I am not entitled to use the term ‘ecstasy’ to signify experiences which, it may be, are wholly unlike the alleged76 mystical ecstasy. Yet I adopt this magniloquent word to mark the fact that the experience under discussion is strikingly different from all our ordinary value-experiences; and that it involves a sense of exaltation; and further, that the excellence which it claims to apprehend77 is conceived as the attribute not of a part but of the whole universe, or of the whole universe as it is presented to the individual. It is an experience which, though it may occur but rarely in the life of any particular person, is not properly called super-normal. I would hazard the guess that, though many might disown the experience entirely78, they have as a matter of fact had it, but have failed to distinguish it from other experiences somewhat like it, or have perhaps simply failed to notice it when it has occurred. For it is an experience which must be very carefully introspected if we would neither overlook it entirely nor mistake it for something else. To careful introspection it appears to be neither an enjoyment79 of teleological fulfilment nor a mystical apprehension of the reality behind familiar appearances. It is essentially, I should say, the appreciation80 of an unfamiliar81 and surpassing excellence in the total object of familiar experience. It is not insight into the ‘reality’ behind ‘appearances’, but discovery of a hitherto unappreciated excellence of the familiar world itself.
As with disillusion, so also the mood which I have called ecstasy is very possibly conditioned by the state of the body. As in the one case certain physiological changes seem to diminish our capacity for intuiting value, so in the other case it may well be that other physiological changes induce in us a more delicate sensitivity, or a shrewder percipience. However this be, the mood comes to us with an enjoyment of intensified82 psychical83 activity, a kind of unusual wide-awakeness. This, perhaps, means simply that we find ourselves at grips with a more stimulating84, more vivid, or more complex objective field than usual; or, since this much is also characteristic of the intense ethical zeal, it were better to say that in the mood that I am describing we seem to discover in the urgent struggle between goods and bads a more serene85 and hitherto neglected aspect. We glimpse the same reality from a fresh angle. Or, to use an imperfect but perhaps helpful image, from seeing things single-mindedly, with monocular ethical vision we pass to a stereoscopic, binocular, or argus-eyed vision, in which the ethical is but one factor. What we see is what we saw before, but we see it solid. Whereas before we could appreciate only the good of victory, now we salute86 a higher kind of excellence which embraces impartially87 both victory and defeat.
Very diverse situations may afford occasion for this enlightenment, situations so diverse that it seems at first impossible to find any feature common to them all. Fleeting88 sense-objects are sometimes potent89 symbols that evoke90 the experience. A breath of fresh air may be enough, or an odour, or a clash of colours or of sounds, or such more complex objects as a gesture or the curve of a limb. On the other hand, objects of a very different kind may effect the change in us, for instance, a supreme work of art, especially if it be tragic, or a subtle matter of intellectual study which taxes our powers of comprehension and affords the illusion of emancipating91 us from our human limitations.
In fact, almost any kind of object may afford the stimulus92 for this mood of ecstasy, or on the other hand may never do so. One kind of situation, however, is perhaps peculiarly significant for an understanding of the experience. Grave personal danger, or conviction of final defeat in some most cherished enterprise, or the danger or final downfall of some dearest object of loyalty95 — it is perhaps in these situations that the precise content of the mood is best seen.
It is possible, for instance, to be on the verge96 of panic, to be reduced to quivering incapacity and terror, and yet all the while to be an exultant97 onlooker98, rapt in observation of the spectacle, yet in a queer way aloof99. It is possible even in the compulsive reaction to pain in one’s own flesh, and even while helplessly watching a beloved’s pain, to be, precisely100, in the very act of frantic101 revulsion, coldly, brilliantly, enlightened, not as to the excellence of pain, but as to the excellence of the universe.
There seem to be two factors common to these experiences. They all involve the vigorous espousal of some need or other, great or small; and they are all experiences of the defeat of the espoused102 need. They are all occasions of intense psychical activity, and all occasions of defeat. From unusually intense and thwarted103 desire we seem to wake, without any disillusionment from the ends at stake. into apprehension of value or excellence of an entirely different order. Not that we pierce beyond illusory appearances to reality itself, or contemptuously turn from the shadow to the substance, but rather, as I have said, we appreciate something that was presented before but was hitherto beyond our appreciation. Not even that we ‘re-value’; for re-valuation implies some denial of the urgency of former values. Rather we prize these even more than formerly104; and, just because of this new apprehension, just because experience of this other order of excellence irradiates even the familiar valuations that it transcends, we may be even more active in their defence than we were before our enlightenment. For. paradoxically, the familiar values, even with their new poignancy105, are perceived as members in that higher excellence which does indeed both eclipse them and enhance them.
C. Emancipation From Teleology106
Well may we call this mood ecstasy, even though perhaps it is profoundly different from the ecstasy of the mystics. For it is essentially a standing94 outside oneself, and an aloofness107 from all the familiar objects of the will, a detachment not merely from the private person but equally from the world and its claims, not indeed to deny them, but to appreciate them with a new serenity108. To speak almost in the same breath of detachment and of enhanced appreciativeness may seem inconsistent. But anyone who has ever attempted any work of art must understand this description. For it is only when we stand aloof from our work, that we most justly and most keenly appreciate whatever is good in it. Immersed no longer in the technical labour, with all its incidental but engrossing109 defeats and victories, we can value without distraction110 (and therefore with closer attention, and therefore more sharply), the aesthetic whole that we have devised.
I do not mean merely that in ecstasy our private desires may come to be regarded as unimportant and contemptible compared with the needs (say) of mankind as a community of interdependent minds; somewhat as, within the individual’s private economy, momentary111 impulses may be regarded as less worthy112 of consideration than permanent and deep-seated dispositions113. It is not this comparative evaluation114 of needs and their fulfilments that is in question. In this mood of ecstasy we seem in some manner to pass beyond the whole cramping115, limiting distinction between good and bad; we may even contemplate with a kind of cold fervour of acquiescence116 the possibility even that the whole enterprise of mind in the cosmos117 should fail, that the richest capacity of the universal active substance should never achieve expression in the supreme level of organism, and that all that has hitherto been achieved should be lost. For in this mood not only victory but also defeat, even final catastrophe118, is experienced as good. We seem to stand above the battle in which we ourselves are eager and hard-pressed fighters, and to admire it as a work of divine art, in which tragic aesthetic excellence overwhelmingly vindicates119 all the defeat and pain even of those who may never have access to this vision.
<>Evidently if this account of ecstasy be true, we have come upon a very serious difficulty for an ethical theory according to which we mean by ‘good’ simply fulfilment of activity or tendency. For if by ‘good’ we mean fulfilment, it is meaningless even to ask of a certain instance of ‘good’ whether it is an instance of fulfilment or not. Let us, however, put aside this difficulty for the present, and pursue our empirical investigation120 of ecstasy. It is this radical121 difference between the familiar values and the value glimpsed in ecstasy that leads some to suppose that in ecstasy the distinction between good and bad is seen to be abolished. This I believe to be an error. Detachment from lower values for the sake of higher is mistaken for emancipation from value itself. There is, no doubt, a sense in which the spiritual life involves a 'disintoxication' from the influence of all values,97 an aloofness even in the most exalted122 delights. But these negative phrases describe only the process of emancipation, not the end for the sake of which emancipation is attempted. And even so they misdescribe; for there is nothing in them to distinguish ecstasy from disillusion, the somnolent123 failure to value at all from the awakening124 into a new mode of valuation and a new sphere of values, unnoticed in familiar moods. It is true that in ecstasy we have peace, and that we are indeed emancipated from all desire, and can accept whatever befalls. This, however, does not imply that we have transcended value, but rather that we have discovered, or seem to have discovered, that whatever befalls is good. We admire the issue of fate; we are not indifferent to it. Those who claim that the ‘spiritual life’ consists in an emancipation from value, admit that to the imperfectly spiritual the goal of spirituality constitutes a value, and the supreme value; but, they argue, the goal itself is a state in which value is seen to be illusory. In the spiritual view it matters not whether anyone attains125 to spirituality, still less whether the world’s enterprises succeed or fail. Therefore, we are told, in the spiritual view value is altogether escaped. But this is to overlook the fact, insisted upon often by the mystics themselves, and even by those who claim that value is transcended, that the spiritual life has its joys. It may be in a sense emancipated from desire, but only in the sense that it possesses what is most desirable, and has no occasion to desire more.</>
This dispute evidently does not turn on the propriety126 of the use of the words ‘good’ and ‘value’ with reference beyond the familiar plane of teleology. Rather the question is as to whether the experience is or is not affectively toned, and conatively active. Is it mere detachment, meredisintoxication, or is it definitely ‘ecstatic’ in the familiar sense? Surely it comes to us as essentially the contemplation of all object as good, though as good in a manner very different from the familiar manner. It is not mere contemplation, but admiring contemplation. There is a judgment127, implicit128 or explicit129, that the object of contemplation ought to be, that it is an end in itself and for itself, and further that when it is delivered to our contemplation we ought to salute it with that gesture of the spirit which we call admiration or worship. If anyone should ask what meaning there is in saying that an object is an end in and for itself, we must answer that in the final ethical analysis it turns out that in all value-judgments, an objective situation, such as organic fulfilment or personal fulfilment, is simply judged good in and for itself. We cannot analyse the experience further.
It is in defeat or tragedy that ecstasy, when it occurs, is most distinguishable; for in defeat it is most opposed to the teleological. In triumph also it is possible; but since it is itself a triumphant mood, we do not easily introspect it as other than the feel of victory. Nevertheless in our triumphs we may sometimes enter upon it, watching ourselves with almost derisive130 zest. But at such times ecstasy is apt to be mistaken for mere satiety131 and disillusion. For it is most obviously distinguished132 from triumph in its detachment and disintoxication from the fruits of victory even in a great cause.
It is perhaps in contemplation of aesthetic objects that) ecstasy is most often achieved. But normal aesthetic appreciation, even when it is intense, is distinct from the ecstasy to which it sometimes gives rise. For while aesthetic appreciation itself is essentially appreciation of a particular object, however complex that object be, ecstasy is appreciation of the whole experienced world, though it may be induced by the aesthetic object. In fact, while in pure aesthetic appreciation we admire the aesthetic object itself, in aesthetic ecstasy we admire the universe through the symbolism of the object.
Moreover, since in aesthetic experience ecstasy is so closely associated with the experience of the harmonious133 activity of our own powers of apprehension, it is not always distinguished therefrom. Again, since the aesthetic object itself is apt to be regarded as in a manner illusory, the aesthetic ecstasy is often confused and clouded by a certain scepticism. And so, though having it, we may have it without conviction, or cynically134 ‘explain it away’. The supreme aesthetic objects, however, and especially those which are tragic, can reveal most clearly the peculiar93 value which is the object of ecstasy. Not that the human significance of such works of art is essential. The most abstract art, it is said, even as the most abstract intellectual study, may enlighten us into ecstasy, may reveal that excellence which is different in kind from all familiar values. But it is in contemplation of those works of art in which human strivings are woven into a tragic aesthetic whole, that we achieve most richly the mood which paradoxically unites the single-minded espousal of needs with the spiritual aloofness consequent on apprehension of value of another order. And the aesthetic ecstasy is the more compelling in proportion as the aesthetic object is on the one hand poignant, through its inclusion of the triumphs and defeats of teleological beings, and on the other hand austere135 in its subjugation136 of this material under an abstract form. It is in this subjugation that dramatic art is creative. It evokes137 in a complex of teleological values and disvalues an excellence which, including them, is other than they.
D. Summary
I would summarize this account of the ecstatic experience as follows. (a) The experient does not seem to himself to apprehend some hitherto hidden reality or occult substance. He seems to appreciate something presented in ordinary experience but not hitherto appreciated. (b) The object which he appreciates is not simply the particular object with which his attention has been engaged, whether an aesthetic object, an object of intellectual contemplation, a tragic or triumphant event, or what not. He appreciates rather the whole of existence as it is revealed to him in ordinary experience. But he appreciates it with the help of, or through the symbolism of, the particular object with which his attention has been engaged. (c) The excellence which he seems to discover in the familiar universe seems to be no ordinary value, no mere fulfilment of the activity of a teleologically138 active substance. In some sense it is indifferent to, because it is superior to, the ordinary distinction between good and evil. In ecstasy we seem to appreciate the universe for being — just whatever we believe it in fact to be, whether for mind a place of triumph or of defeat. And, if my account is correct, the difference between this excellence of fact, or of fate, and the familiar teleological goods is most obvious in those moments of ecstasy which occur when we are being forced to surrender our most cherished ends. (d) Although there is this striking difference between the excellence cognized in ecstasy and all familiar goods, it is not true that in ecstasy we transcend the sphere of value altogether. In all the ecstatic experiences we do definitely value the universe, which is the total object of contemplation. We admire it, worship it; and we do so because we judge it to be a value, not simply for us, but in and for itself. We are not disintoxicated from all values, but only from all values other than the intrinsic excellence of the universe. Nor, strictly139, are we disintoxicated from any values; for, though from our high look-out we can now regard all familiar values with complete detachment, we at the same time see them to be irradiated by the supreme excellence.
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zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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disillusion
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| vt.使不再抱幻想，使理想破灭 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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entailed
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| 使…成为必要( entail的过去式和过去分词 )； 需要； 限定继承； 使必需 | |
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speculative
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| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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transcended
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| 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… | |
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transcend
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| vt.超出，超越(理性等)的范围 | |
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speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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contemplate
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| vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视 | |
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habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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poignant
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| adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的 | |
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realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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stark
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| adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地 | |
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inertia
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| adj.惰性，惯性，懒惰，迟钝 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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contemptible
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| adj.可鄙的，可轻视的，卑劣的 | |
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devouring
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| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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abolition
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| n.废除，取消 | |
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zealous
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| adj.狂热的，热心的 | |
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contraction
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| n.缩略词，缩写式，害病 | |
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collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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gallop
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| v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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physiological
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| adj.生理学的，生理学上的 | |
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fatigued
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| adj. 疲乏的 | |
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disillusioned
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| a.不再抱幻想的，大失所望的，幻想破灭的 | |
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sensory
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| adj.知觉的，感觉的，知觉器官的 | |
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stimuli
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| n.刺激（物） | |
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emancipation
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| n.（从束缚、支配下）解放 | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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epic
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| n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的 | |
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chaotic
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| adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的 | |
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foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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38
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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39
marshes
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| n.沼泽，湿地( marsh的名词复数 ) | |
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40
prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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41
eschews
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| v.（尤指为道德或实际理由而）习惯性避开，回避( eschew的第三人称单数 ) | |
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42
loyalties
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| n.忠诚( loyalty的名词复数 )；忠心；忠于…感情；要忠于…的强烈感情 | |
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43
sleepless
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| adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的 | |
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44
laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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45
entice
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| v.诱骗，引诱，怂恿 | |
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46
implicated
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| adj.密切关联的；牵涉其中的 | |
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47
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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48
buttressed
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| v.用扶壁支撑，加固( buttress的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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49
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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50
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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51
transcends
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| 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… | |
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52
insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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53
abject
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| adj.极可怜的，卑屈的 | |
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54
exalt
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| v.赞扬，歌颂，晋升，提升 | |
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55
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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56
enticing
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| adj.迷人的；诱人的 | |
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57
withdrawal
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| n.取回，提款；撤退，撤军；收回，撤销 | |
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58
gist
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| n.要旨；梗概 | |
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59
bias
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| n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见 | |
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60
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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61
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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62
emancipated
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| adj.被解放的，不受约束的v.解放某人（尤指摆脱政治、法律或社会的束缚）( emancipate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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63
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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64
cleansed
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| 弄干净，清洗( cleanse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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65
aesthetic
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| adj.美学的，审美的，有美感 | |
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66
excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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67
teleological
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| adj.目的论的 | |
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68
zest
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| n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣 | |
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69
intelligibly
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| adv.可理解地，明了地，清晰地 | |
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70
detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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71
interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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72
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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73
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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74
interpretations
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| n.解释( interpretation的名词复数 )；表演；演绎；理解 | |
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75
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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76
alleged
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| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
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77
apprehend
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| vt.理解，领悟，逮捕，拘捕，忧虑 | |
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78
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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79
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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80
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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81
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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82
intensified
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| v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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83
psychical
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| adj.有关特异功能现象的；有关特异功能官能的；灵魂的；心灵的 | |
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84
stimulating
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| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
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85
serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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86
salute
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| vi.行礼，致意，问候，放礼炮；vt.向…致意，迎接，赞扬；n.招呼，敬礼，礼炮 | |
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87
impartially
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| adv.公平地，无私地 | |
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88
fleeting
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| adj.短暂的，飞逝的 | |
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89
potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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90
evoke
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| vt.唤起，引起，使人想起 | |
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91
emancipating
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| v.解放某人（尤指摆脱政治、法律或社会的束缚）( emancipate的现在分词 ) | |
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92
stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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93
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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94
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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95
loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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96
verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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97
exultant
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| adj.欢腾的，狂欢的，大喜的 | |
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98
onlooker
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| n.旁观者，观众 | |
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99
aloof
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| adj.远离的；冷淡的，漠不关心的 | |
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100
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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101
frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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102
espoused
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| v.（决定）支持，拥护（目标、主张等）( espouse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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103
thwarted
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| 阻挠( thwart的过去式和过去分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过 | |
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104
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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105
poignancy
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| n.辛酸事，尖锐 | |
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106
teleology
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| n.目的论 | |
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107
aloofness
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| 超然态度 | |
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108
serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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109
engrossing
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| adj.使人全神贯注的，引人入胜的v.使全神贯注( engross的现在分词 ) | |
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110
distraction
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| n.精神涣散，精神不集中，消遣，娱乐 | |
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111
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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112
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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113
dispositions
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| 安排( disposition的名词复数 )； 倾向； （财产、金钱的）处置； 气质 | |
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114
evaluation
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| n.估价，评价；赋值 | |
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115
cramping
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| 图像压缩 | |
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116
acquiescence
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| n.默许；顺从 | |
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117
cosmos
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| n.宇宙；秩序，和谐 | |
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118
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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119
vindicates
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| n.澄清（某人/某事物）受到的责难或嫌疑( vindicate的名词复数 )；表明或证明（所争辩的事物）属实、正当、有效等；维护v.澄清（某人/某事物）受到的责难或嫌疑( vindicate的第三人称单数 )；表明或证明（所争辩的事物）属实、正当、有效等；维护 | |
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120
investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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121
radical
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| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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122
exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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123
somnolent
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| adj.想睡的，催眠的；adv.瞌睡地；昏昏欲睡地；使人瞌睡地 | |
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124
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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125
attains
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的第三人称单数 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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126
propriety
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| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
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127
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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128
implicit
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| a.暗示的，含蓄的，不明晰的，绝对的 | |
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129
explicit
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| adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的 | |
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130
derisive
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| adj.嘲弄的 | |
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131
satiety
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| n.饱和；(市场的)充分供应 | |
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132
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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133
harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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134
cynically
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| adv.爱嘲笑地，冷笑地 | |
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135
austere
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| adj.艰苦的；朴素的，朴实无华的；严峻的 | |
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136
subjugation
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| n.镇压，平息，征服 | |
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137
evokes
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| 产生，引起，唤起( evoke的第三人称单数 ) | |
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138
teleologically
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| adj.目的论的 | |
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139
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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