• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

•each of which the souls are absolved in their ascent up the Mountain of Purgatory. 9. Virgil, in the poem, is the symbol of all human knowledge and virtue. But, as a pagan who died before the birth of Christ, he cannot accompany Dante into Paradise. 10. The Franciscans and the Dominicans were the two great monastic orders of the Middle Ages. The Franciscans were contemplatives, the Dominicans were scholars and teachers. Dante here symbolizes the heavenly resolution of all differences between the two orders by having St.

Thomas, the greatest representative of the Dominicans, narrate the life of St. Francis, the founder of the Franciscans; Appendix B 41 5

while St. Bonaventura, the representative of the Franciscans, narrates the life of St. Dominic, the founder of the Dominicans.

TEST E ( P. 399 )

I. False 2. ( b ) 3. False. In fact, the statement is meaningless. 4. ( a ) 5. False 6. False 7. False 8. Huxley defended Darwin. 9. ( c ) 10 ( d ) To lovers of Darwin, this is one of the most charming facts about the man.

TEST F ( P. 400 )

I. ( b ) 2. ( a ) 3. True. In fact, this comes close to being the definition of a species. 4. True. Members of a genus can interbreed and reproduce their kind only if they are also members of the same species. 5. ( a ) , ( b ) , and ( c ) all play rna jor roles in natural selection. 6. Natural selection. Would Darwin change his mind if he were alive today, in the face of the evidence of man's destructive effect on the environment?

Perhaps. But he might still continue to insist that in the long run, nature is more powerful than man. And then, too, man is himself a part of nature. 7. The phrase can be translated

"Nature makes no jumps"-that is, sudden, great and abrupt variations do not occur naturally, but only small and gradual ones. Even if you were not able to translate the Latin, was the sense of this statement clear from the table of contents? The idea is significant because Darwin, taking it as true, explains the fact that there is great differentiation between species by the hypothesis of gaps in the geological record-so-called missing links-instead of by the hypothesis of created differences between species. 8. According to Darwin, if two varieties of a single species are widely separated over a considerable period of time so that they are physically hindered from interbreeding, the varieties tend to become separate species-that is, become incapable of interbreeding. It was his discovery of quite distinct species of birds on the oceanic islands during his service on the Beagle that first led him to see this fundamental point. 9. There are probably many ways to state the problem, but one way to do it is to ask two apparently simple questions.

41 6 HOW TO READ A BOOK

First, why are there many kinds of living things, instead of just one or a few? Second, how does a species come into existence, and how does it pass away-which, Darwin and his contemporaries knew from the geological record, had happened many times? It may be necessary to think about these questions for a while to realize why they are so very difficult and so very mysterious-but they are well worth thinking about. 10. We are not sure that an adequate answer to this question can be arrived at on the basis of a mere perusal, however intensive, of the table of contents of The Origin of Species. If you were able to state the theory in a hundred words without having read the book, you are an extraordinary reader. Indeed, the question is not easy to answer briefly even if one has read the book; you might refer to our attempt to summarize the theory in Chapter 7. In a short passage in his own Introduction to the work, Darwin may have done it himself, and we quote the passage in its entirety here for what it is worth:

As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however