We might be inclined to attribute to the act of thinking complete from language if the individual formed or were able to form. his concepts without the verbal guidance of his environment. Yet most likely the mental shape of an individual, growing up under such conditions, would be very poor. Thus we may conclude that the mental development of the individual and his way of forming concepts depend to a high degree upon language. This makes us realize to what extent the same language means the same mentality. In this sense thinking and language are linked together.
What distinguishes the language of science from languages, as we ordinarily understand the word？ How is it that scientific language is international？ What science strives for is an utmost acuteness and clarity of concepts as regards their mutual relation and their correspondence to sensory data. As an illustration, let us take the language of Euclidean geometry and algebra. They manipulate with a small number of independently introduced concepts, respectively symbols, such as the integral number, the straight line, the point, as well as with signs which designate the fundamental concepts. This is the basis for the construction, respectively definition of all other statements and concepts. The connection between concepts and statements on the one hand and the sensory data on the other hand is established through acts of counting and measuring whose performance is sufficiently well determined.
The super-national character of scientific concepts and scientific language is due to the fact that they have been set up by the best brains of all countries and all times. In solitude and yet in cooperative effort as regards the final effect they created the spiritual tools for the technical revolutions which have transformed the life of mankind in the last centuries. Their system of concepts has served as a guide in the bewildering chaos of perceptions so that we learned to grasp general truths from particular observations.What hopes and fears does the scientific method imply for mankind？ I do not think that this is the right way to put the question. Whatever this tool in the hand of man will produce depends entirely on the nature of the goals alive in this mankind. Once these goals exist, the scientific method furnishes means to realize them. Yet it cannot furnish the very goals. The scientific method itself would not have led anywhere. It would not even have been born without a passionate striving for clear understanding.Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem--in my opinion--to characterize our age. If we desire sincerely and passionately the safety, the welfare and the free development of the talents of all men, we shall not be in want of the means to approach such a state. Even if only a small part of mankind strives for such goals, their superiority will prove itself in the long run.(21)
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伟大艺术的美学鉴赏和伟大的科学观念的理解都需要智慧。但是，随后的感受升华和情感又是分开的。没有情感的因素，我们的智慧很难开创新道路；没有智慧，情感也无法达到完美成果。艺术和科学事实上是一个硬币的两面。它们源于人类活动最高尚的部分，都追求着深刻性、普遍性、永恒性和富有意义。
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In the spring of 1720, when all of London was clamoring for shares in the South Sea company, Sir Isaac Newton was asked what he thought about the market. "I can calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of the market," the scientist and master of the mint is reputed to have replied.
【B1】 Newton should have considered seriously his own wise words. Having sold his ￡7,000 of stock in the company, he later bought back in at the top of the boom and went down for ￡20,000. Like all the other mug punters in every bout of speculative fever, Newton was cleaned out when the crash came.
Little has changed in the intervening 280 years.
【B2】 Common to every bubble is the deeply-rooted belief that this time it will be different, that the rise in the price of an asset is rooted in the sound common sense rather than in recklessness, stupidity and greed.
Take the crash of 1929, for example. In his excellent book charting the sad history of bubbles, John Moody, the founder of the credit agency intoned in 1927 that "no one can examine the panorama (全貌) of business and finance in America during the past half-dozen years without realizing that we are living in a new era."
The Yale economist Irving Fisher declared a few weeks before the October crash that stock prices had reached a "permanently high plateau". Why was this？ Simple. The creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 had abolished the business cycle, while technological breakthroughs had created a "new economy" that was much more profitable than the old.
【B3】 As share prices continued their heady rise, traditional methods of stock market valuations were abandoned. It did not matter that many of the start-up companies of the late 1920s were not making any money: what counted was that some day they surely would. So share prices were justified by discounted future earnings.
【B1】
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A. Study the following picture carefully and write an essay of about 200 words.
B. Your essay should meet the requirements below:
(1)describe the picture and interpret its meaning.
(2)point out the problem and give your comments.
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To take advantage of the Internet, some impoverished (贫穷) countries will have to get their outdated anti-colonial prejudices with respect to foreign investment. Countries that still think foreign investment is an invasion of their sovereignty(主权) might well study the history of infrastructure (the basic structural foundations of a society) in the United States. When the United States built its industrial infrastructure, it didn't have the capital to do so. And that is why America's Second Wave infrastructure--including roads, harbors, highways, ports and so on--were built with foreign investment. The English, the Germans, the Dutch and the French were investing in Britain's former colony. They financed them. Immigrant Americans built them. Guess who owns them now？ The Americans.
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Directions: Read the following chart and write a composition of about 150 words. The main idea of each paragraph is given below in Chinese.
Various Energy Sources Transformed into Electricity in the U. S. A
1．分析图表所给信息；
2．评述目前美国环境污染与该图表的关系；
3．如何改善美国环境状况。
