单选题
Change—or the ability to adapt oneself to a changing environment—is essential to evolution. The farmer whose land is required for housing or industry must adapt himself: He can move to another place and master the problems peculiar to it; he can change his occupation, perhaps after a period of training; or he can starve to death. A nation which can not adapt its trade or defense requirements to meet world conditions faces economic or military disaster. Nothing is fixed and permanently stable. There must be movement forward, which is progress of a sort, or movement backwards, which is decay and deterioration. In this context, tradition can be a force for good or for evil. As long as it offers a guide(without insisting that its path is the only one), it helps the ignorant and the uninformed to take a step forward, and thereby, to adapt themselves to changed circumstances. Tradition, or custom, can guide the hunter as effectively as it can influence the nervous hostess. But if we make an idol(偶像、崇拜)of tradition, it ceases to become a guide and becomes an obstacle lying across the path of change and progress. If we insist on trying to plot the future by the past, we clearly handicap ourselves and invite failure. The better course is to adopt the help which tradition can give but, realizing that it necessarily has its roots in the past, to be well aware of its limitations in a changing world.
单选题
The author maintains that if we want to get along with the world______.