1、新概念英语第四册课文1Lesson1We can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the Near East, where peoplefirst learned to write. But there are some parts of the world where even now peoplecannot write. The only way that they can preserve their history is to recount it assagas-legends handed down from one
2、 generation of story-tellers to another. Theselegends are useful because they can tell us something about migrations of people wholived long ago, but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists wonderedwhere the remote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples now living in the Pacific Islandscam
3、e from. The sagas of these people explain that some of them came from Indonesiaabout 2,000 years ago.But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even their sagas, ifthey had any, are forgotten. So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to helpthem to find out where t
4、he first modern men came from.Fortunately, however, ancient men made tools of stone, especially flint, because this iseasier to shape than other kinds. They may also have used wood and skins, but thesehave rotted away. Stone does not decay, and so the tools of long ago have remainedwhen even the bon
5、es of the men who made them have disappeared without trace.Lesson2Why, you may wonder, should spiders be our friends ? Because they destroy so manyinsects, and insects include some of the greatest enemies of the human race. Insectswould make it impossible for us to live in the world; they would devo
6、ur all our crops and新概念英语第四册课文2kill our flocks and herds, if it were not for the protection we get from insect-eatinganimals. We owe a lot to the birds and beasts who eat insects but all of them puttogether kill only a fraction of the number destroyed by spiders. Moreover, unlike someof the other in
7、sect eaters, spiders never do the least harm to us or our belongings.Spiders are not insects, as many people think, nor even nearly related to them. One cantell the difference almost at a glance for a spider always has eight legs and an insectnever more than six.How many spiders are engaged in this
8、work on our behalf ? One authority on spidersmade a census of the spiders in a grass field in the south of England, and he estimatedthat there were more than 2,250,000 in one acre, that is something like 6,000,000 spidersof different kinds on a football pitch. Spiders are busy for at least half the
9、year in killinginsects. It is impossible to make more than the wildest guess at how many they kill, butthey are hungry creatures, not content with only three meals a day. It has beenestimated that the weight of all the insects destroyed by spiders in Britain in one yearwould be greater than the tota
10、l weight of all the human beings in the country.Lesson3Modern alpinists try to climb mountains by a route which will give them good sport, andthe more difficult it is, the more highly it is regarded. In the pioneering days, however,this was not the case at all. The early climbers were looking for th
11、e easiest way to the topbecause the summit was the prize they sought, especially if it had never been attainedbefore. It is true that during their explorations they often faced difficulties and dangers新概念英语第四册课文3of the most perilous nature, equipped in a manner which would make a modern climbershudd
12、er at the thought, but they did not go out of their way to court such excitement.They had a single aim, a solitary goal-the top!It is hard for us to realize nowadays how difficult it was for the pioneers. Except for oneor two places such as Zermatt and Chamonix, which had rapidly become popular, Alp
13、inevillages tended to be impoverished settlements cut off from civilization by the highmountains. Such inns as there were were generally dirty and flea-ridden; the food simplylocal cheese accompanied by bread often twelve months old, all washed down withcoarse wine. Often a valley boasted no inn at
14、all, and climbers found shelter whereverthey could-sometimes with the local priest (who was usually as poor as his parishioners),sometimes with shepherds or cheese-makers. Invariably the background was the same:dirt and poverty, and very uncomfortable. For men accustomed to eating seven-coursedinner
15、s and sleeping between fine linen sheets at home, the change to the Alpsmust have been very hard indeed.Lesson4In the Soviet Union several cases have been reported recently of people who can readand detect colours with their fingers, and even see through solid doors and walls. Onecase concerns an el
16、even-year-old schoolgirl, Vera Petrova, who has normal vision butwho can also perceive things with different parts of her skin, and through solid walls.This ability was first noticed by her father. One day she came into his office andhappened to put her hands on the door of a locked safe. Suddenly s
17、he asked her father新概念英语第四册课文4why he kept so many old newspapers locked away there, and even described the waythey were done up in bundles.Veras curious talent was brought to the notice of a scientific research institute in thetown of UIyanovsk, near where she lives, and in April she was given a ser
18、ies of tests bya special commission of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federal Republic. Duringthese tests she was able to read a newspaper through an opaque screen and, strangerstill, by moving her elbow over a childs game of Lotto she was able to describe thefigures and colours printed on it
19、; and, in another instance, wearing stockings andslippers, to make out with her foot the outlines and colours of a picture hidden under acarpet. Other experiments showed that her knees and shoulders had a similar sensitivity.During all these tests Vera was blindfold; and, indeed, except when blindfo
20、ld she lackedthe ability to perceive things with her skin. It was also found that although she couldperceive things with her fingers this ability ceased the moment her hands were wet.Lesson5The gorilla is something of a paradox in the African scene. One thinks one knows himvery well. For a hundred y
21、ears or more he has been killed, captured, and imprisoned, inzoos. His bones have been mounted in natural history museums everywhere, and he hasalways exerted a strong fascination upon scientists and romantics alike. He is thestereotyped monster of the horror films and the adventure books, and an ob
22、vious(though not perhaps strictly scientific) linkwith our ancestral past.新概念英语第四册课文5Yet the fact is we know very little about gorillas. No really satisfactory photograph hasever been taken of one in a wild state, no zoologist, however intrepid, has been able tokeep the animal under close and consta
23、nt observation in the dark jungles in which helives. Carl Akeley, the American naturalist, led two expeditions in the nineteen-twenties,and now lies buried among the animals heloved so well. But even he was unable to discover how long the gorilla lives, or how orwhy it dies, nor was he able to defin
24、e the exact social pattern of the family groups, orindicate the final extent of their intelligence. All this and many other things remainalmost as much a mystery as they were when the French explorer Du Chaillu firstdescribed the animal to the civilized world a century ago. The Abominable Snowmanwho
25、 haunts the imagination of climbers in the Himalayas is hardly more elusive.Lesson6People are always talking about the problem of youth . If there is onewhich I takeleave to doubt-then it is older people who create it, not the young themselves. Let usget down to fundamentals and agree that the young
26、 are after all human beings-peoplejust like their elders. There is only one difference between an old man and a young one:the young man has a glorious future before him and the old one has a splendid futurebehind him: and maybe that is where the rub is.When I was a teenager, I felt that I was just y
27、oung and uncertain-that I was a new boyin a huge school, and I would have been very pleased to be regarded as something so新概念英语第四册课文6interesting as a problem. For one thing, being a problem gives you a certain identity, andthat is one of the things the young are busily engaged in seeking.I find youn
28、g people exciting. They have an air of freedom, and they have not a drearycommitment to mean ambitions or love of comfort. They are not anxious social climbers,and they have no devotion to material things. All this seems to me to link them with life,and the origins of things. Its as if they were in
29、some sense cosmic beings in violent anlovely contrast with us suburban creatures. All that is in my mind when I meet a youngperson. He may be conceited, ill- mannered, presumptuous of fatuous, but I do not turnfor protection to dreary cliches about respect for elders-as if mere age were a reasonfor
30、respect. I accept that we are equals, and I will argue with him, as an equal, if I thinkhe is wrong.Lesson7I am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport creates goodwill between thenations, and that if only the common peoples of the world could meet one another atfootball or cricket, they
31、would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield. Even if onedidnt know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance) thatinternational sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it fromgeneral principles.Nearly all the sports practised nowadays are competitive.
32、 You play to win, and the gamehas little meaning unless you do your utmost to win. On the village green, where youpick up sides and no feeling of local patriotism is involved, it is possible to play simply新概念英语第四册课文7for the fun and exercise: but as soon as the question of prestige arises, as soon as
33、 youfeel that you and some larger unit will be disgraced if you lose, the most savagecombative instincts are aroused. Anyone who has played even in a school football matchknows this. At the international level sport is frankly mimic warfare. But the significantthing is not the behaviour of the playe
34、rs but the attitude of the spectators: and, behindthe spectators, of the nations. who work themselves into furies over these absurdcontests, and seriously believe-at any rate for short periods-that running, jumping andkicking a ball are tests of national virtue.Lesson8Parents have to do much less fo
35、r their children today than they used to do, and homehas become much less of a workshop. Clothes can be bought ready made, washing cango to the laundry, food can be bought cooked, canned or preserved, bread is baked anddelivered by the baker, milk arrives on the doorstep, meals can be had at the res
36、taurant,the works canteen, and the school dining-room.It is unusual now for father to pursue his trade or other employment at home, and hischildren rarely, if ever, see him at his place of work. Boys are therefore seldom trained tofollow their fathers occupation, and in many towns they have a fairly
37、 wide choice ofemployment and so do girls. The young wage-earner often earns good money, andsoon acquires a feeling of economic independence. In textile areas it has long beencustomary for mothers to go out to work, but this新概念英语第四册课文8practice has become so widespread that the working mother is now
38、a not unusual factorin a childs home life, the number of married women in employment having more thandoubled in the last twenty-five years. With mother earning and his older childrendrawing substantial wages father is seldom the dominant figure that he still was at thebeginning of the century. When
39、mother workseconomic advantages accrue, but children lose something of great value if mothersemployment prevents her from being home to greet them when they return fromschool.Lesson9Not all sounds made by animals serve as language, and we have only to turn to thatextraordinary discovery of echo-loca
40、tion in bats to see a case in which the voice plays astrictly utilitarian role.To get a full appreciation of what this means we must turn first to some recenthuman inventions. Everyone knows that if he shouts in the vicinity of a wall or amountainside, an echo will come back. The further off this so
41、lid obstruction the longertime will elapse for the return of the echo. A sound made by tapping on the hull of a shipwill be reflected from the sea bottom, and by measuring the time interval between thetaps and the receipt of the echoes the depth of the sea at that point can be calculated.So was born
42、 the echo-sounding apparatus, now in general use in ships. Every solidobject will reflect a sound, varying ac- cording to the size and nature of the object. Ashoal of fish will do this. So it is a comparatively simple step from locating the sea新概念英语第四册课文9bottom to locating a shoal of fish. With expe
43、rience, and with improved apparatus, it isnow possible not only to locate a shoal but to tell if it is herring, cod, or otherwell-known fish, by the pattern of its echo .A few years ago it was found that certain bats emit squeaks and by receiving theechoes they could locate and steer clear of obstac
44、les-or locate flying insects on whichthey feed. This echo-location in bats is often compared with radar, the principle of whichis similar.Lesson10In our new society there is a growing dislike of original, creative men. The manipulateddo not understand them; the manipulators fear them. The tidy commi
45、ttee men regardthem with horror, knowing that no pigeonholes can be found for them. We could dowith a few original, creative men in our political lifeif only to create some enthusiasm,release some energy-but where are they? We are asked to choose between variousshades of the negative. The engine is
46、falling to pieces while the joint owners of the carargue whether the footbrake or the handbrake should be applied. Notice how the cold,colourless men, without ideas and with no other passion but a craving for success, geton in this society, capturing one plum after another and taking the juice and t
47、aste out ofthem. Sometimes you might think the machines we worship make all the chiefappointments, promoting the human beings who seem closest to them. Betweenmid-night and dawn, when sleep will not come and all the old wounds begin to ache, Ioften have a nightmare vision of a future world in which
48、there are billions of people, all新概念英语第四册课文10numbered and registered, with not a gleam of genius anywhere, not an original mind, arich personality, on the whole packed globe. The twin ideals of our time, organizationand quantity, will have won for ever.Lesson11Alfred the Great acted as his own spy,
49、visiting Danish camps disguised as a minstrel. Inthose days wandering minstrels were welcome everywhere. They were not fighting men,and their harp was their passport. Alfred had learned many of their ballads in his youth,and could vary his programme with acrobatic tricks and simple conjuring.While Alfreds little army slowly began to gather at Athelney, the king himself setout to penetrate the camp of Guthrum, the commander of the Danish invaders. Thesehad settled down for the winter at Chippenham: thither Alfred went. He noticed at oncethat discipline was slack: the
