Reading Part A

War is the worst of all evils of human civilization. It is an ancient institution that has existed for at least six thousand years. It was always wicked and usually foolish, but in the past, the human race managed to live with it. Modern ingenuity has changed this drastically. Either man will abolish war, or war will abolish him. At present, nuclear weapons cause the gravest danger, but bacteriological or chemical weapons may soon offer an even greater threat. If we succeed in abolishing nuclear weapons, our work will not be complete. It will never be completed until we succeed in abolishing war forever. To do this, we need to persuade mankind to look upon international questions in a new intellectual and mutual way, not as a contest of force or power, but by arbitration according to agreed principles of law. It is not easy to change age-old mental habits, but this must be attempted. Destructive war must be checked for the existence of life on earth.

You may be surprised to learn that there are carnivorous plants as well as carnivorous animals. Carnivorous plants grow in poor soil and need other food to make up for the lack of food in the soil. They use ingenious devices to trap insects for food. The pitcher plant is a common carnivorous plant in tropical forests. Its trap is shaped like a pitcher or jug and has a lid to keep out rain. The mouth of the pitcher is covered with a sweet, sticky substance like honey or nectar. Insects come to feed on this substance. The inner wall of the pitcher is covered with downward-pointing fine hairs. As a result, the insects cannot climb out. They are trapped, digested by the plant and absorbed as food.

Men have travelled since they first appeared on the earth. In primitive times, they did not travel for pleasure but to find new places where their herds could be fed, to escape from hostile neighbours or to find a more favourable climate. Their journeys were long, tiring and often dangerous. They travelled on foot and protected themselves with simple weapons such as wooden sticks and stone clubs. They also lit fires at night and stayed together. Being intelligent and creative, they soon discovered easier ways of travelling. They rode domesticated animals, hollowed out tree trunks and used bits of wood as paddles to travel across water. Later, they travelled for the joy and excitement of seeing new things. Today, trains, ships and aeroplanes provide comfort and security. A passenger travelling abroad needs a passport, a visa, tickets, luggage and many other things.

During the day, the boats were a pretty and friendly sight. At night, they became something more mysterious. They themselves could be seen only as blurred masses, for their little kerosene lamps could never break the nearly solid darkness around them. However, the reflections of the lamps seemed to set the fringes of the river on fire. When the water was still, an illumination appeared two or three feet below the surface. With breezes and ripples, swaying ladders, spirals and festoons of amber-coloured light appeared. The writer was sorry to hear that thousands of these boats had been ruthlessly destroyed during the Japanese invasion scare of 1942.

The story of English began more than two thousand years ago in Britannia, the country known today as England. At that time, the Roman Empire, under Julius Caesar, began a series of invasions of the island. Eventually, the Romans conquered the Celts, the native people of Britannia. The Celts and Romans lived side by side for several hundred years, but in A.D. 410 the Romans abandoned the colony. Without Rome’s protection, the Celts felt helpless against attacks by tribes from nearby Scotland and Ireland. For assistance, they looked across the North Sea to present-day Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands. Those countries were inhabited by three Germanic tribes—the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. These tribes sailed across the North Sea to help the Celts but never returned. Instead, they drove out the Celts and took Britannia. Each tribe spoke a dialect of a Germanic language. After the Celts were conquered, those dialects became the language of Britannia. Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, resulted from the merging of these dialects.

The French word ‘Renaissance’ comes from the Latin word ‘renasci’, which means ‘to be born again’. In English, Renaissance means the rebirth or revival of ancient Greek and Roman learning and culture. This rebirth was caused by a historical event. In 1453, after the fall of Constantinople, scholars fled to different countries of Europe, especially Italy. They took ancient Greek and Roman literature with them. Gradually, this literature became the centre of people’s interest. Ancient learning was rediscovered, and this rediscovery or rebirth came to be called the Renaissance. It broadened literary, philosophical and intellectual horizons and encouraged a spirit of adventure, inquiry and doubt. Writers such as Spenser, Bacon, Shakespeare and Marlowe wrote in this new literary atmosphere. The Renaissance resulted from a series of events from the fourteenth to the beginning of the sixteenth century.

An intellectual is an enlightened person who gives light to others in need of it. Philosophers, scientists, scholars, writers and critics are examples of intellectuals. As enlightened people, they have a great responsibility towards society. Those who are intellectuals must guide others on the right path. Our civilization, culture, order and security have developed because intellectuals have guided humanity from time to time. An intellectual should come out of his ivory tower and try to elevate others to his level. He has the duty to see the truth and teach it to others. He contemplates the eternal laws of the universe to discover truth and beauty. His duty is to reveal truth or beauty to others.

When the writer was a small boy, his ankles were weak and he was slow in learning to walk. As a result, he learned to read earlier than most children. His grandmother read many school stories to him. These stories were morally virtuous. Their heroes and favourite teachers were incredibly brave, while the bad characters were terribly wicked and met a suitable end in the second-to-last chapter. Later, he read Eric and St Winifred’s, which had a similar moral tone but were better written. As he grew older, he chose comic papers and penny-bloods. That was a golden age of thrillers, and he read all of them. He still had a few penny-bloods in his bookcase and treasured them.

Is it possible to persuade mankind to live without war? War is an ancient institution that has existed for at least six thousand years. It was always wicked and usually foolish, but in the past, the human race managed to live with it. Modern ingenuity has changed this. Either man will abolish war, or war will abolish man. At present, nuclear weapons cause the gravest danger, but bacteriological or chemical weapons may soon offer an even greater threat. If nuclear weapons are abolished, the work will still not be complete. It will not be complete until mankind learns to look upon international questions in a new way. International problems should not be settled by force or massacre but by arbitration according to agreed principles of law. It is difficult to change age-old mental habits, but this must be attempted.