Writeanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthefollowingpicture.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethepicturebriefly,2)interpretitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.YoushouldwriteneatlyontheANSWERSHEET.

Scholars and students have always been great travellers. The official case for "academic mobility" is now often stated in impressive terms as a fundamental necessity for economic and social progress in the world, and debated in the corridors of Europe, but it is certainly nothing new. Serious students were always ready to go abroad in search of the most stimulating teachers and the most famous academies; in search of the purest philosophy, the most effective medicine, the likeliest road to gold. Mobility of this kind meant also mobility of ideas, their transference across frontiers, their simultaneous impact upon many groups of people. The point of learning is to share it, whether with students or with colleagues; one presumes that only eccentrics have no interest in being credited with a startling discovery, or a new technique. It must also have been reassuring to know that other people in other parts of the world were about to make the same discovery or were thinking along the same lines, and that one was not quite alone, confronted by inquisition, ridicule or neglect. In the twentieth century, and particularly in the last 20 years, the old footpaths of the wandering scholars have become vast highways. The vehicle which has made this possible has of course been the aeroplane, making contact between scholars even in the most distant places immediately feasible, and providing for the very rapid transmission of knowledge. Apart from the vehicle itself, it is fairly easy to identify the main factors which have brought about the recent explosion in academic movement. Some of these are purely quantitative and require no further mention: there are far more centres of learning, and a far greater number of scholars and students. In addition one must recognise the very considerable multiplication of disciplines, particularly in the sciences, which by widening the total area of advanced studies has produced an enormous number of specialists whose particular interests are precisely defined. These people would work in some isolation if they were not able to keep in touch with similar isolated groups in other countries. Frequently these specializations lie in areas where very rapid developments are taking place, and also where the research needed for developments is extremely costly and takes a long time. It is precisely in these areas that the advantages of collaboration and sharing of expertise appear most evident. Associated with this is the growth of specialist periodicals, which enable scholars to become aware of what is happening in different centres of research and to meet each other in conferences and symposia. From these meetings come the personal relationships which are at the bottom of almost all formalized schemes of cooperation, and provide them with their most satisfactory stimulus. But as the specialisations have increased in number and narrowed in range, there had been an opposite movement towards interdisciplinary studies. These owe much to the belief that one cannot properly investigate the incredibly complex problems thrown up by the modern world, and by recent advances in our knowledge along the narrow front of a single discipline. This trend has led to a great deal of academic contact between disciplines, and a far greater emphasis on the pooling of specialist knowledge, reflected in the broad subjects chosen in many international conferences.

BSection I Use of EnglishDirections: Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D./B

In the following text, some sentences have been removed. For Questions 41-45, choose the most suitable one from the list (A、B、C、D、E、F、G……) to fit into each of the numbered blank. There are several extra choices, which do not fit in any of the gaps. (10 points) It comes as a surprise, given Microsoft"s notorious tenacity, but the software giant is definitely out to clear its antitrust plate. After its settlement with the Justice Department, the company has now struck an agreement to end more than 100 private class-action suits and signaled that it wants to do the same for the case brought against it by the European Commission. (41)______. Yet recent events suggest that it will not be that easy for Microsoft to shrug off its legal woes. For a start, the nine state attorneys-general opposing the federal settlement have asked the trial judge to Impose tougher remedies. (42)______. And this week, a Senate committee hearing was dominated by criticism of the federal settlement. The least of Microsoft"s problems are the class-action suits, filed on behalf of consumers who say they were harmed by the company"s behaviour. Giving money to schools is a good idea. But half of the gift would be in the form of free Microsoft software, costing the company almost nothing, and hurting competitors in the education market, mainly Apple. So worried is Steve Jobs, Apple"s boss, that he has publicly criticised the deal—after haying kept quiet during the entire antitrust trial. (43)______. The proposal of the dissenting states is more serious. (44)______. Central to the plan are remedies concerning Microsoft"s browser software and the Java programming language: the company would be forced to license the source code m its browser, and to make sure that Java programs can run on Windows. Microsoft would also be required m offer a stripped-down version of Windows so that PC makers could choose add-ons other than its own. Microsoft says that the proposed remedies are "extreme and not commensurate with what is left of the case". Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the trial judge, will decide next spring. She has put the case on two parallel tracks. One is a review of the existing Justice Department settlement (under the Tunney act) to determine if it is in the public interest. The other is litigation over the newly proposed remedies. The European Commission for its part, will probably wait and see what transpires m America before proceeding. It is unlikely simply to rubber-stamp the outcome as Microsoft has suggested. For one thing, European regulators have disagreements of their own with the company, chiefly that it is trying to extend its monopoly into the server and media-player markets. But competitors and critics of the software giant, who have heavily lobbied both the states and Brussels, should not get their hopes up. Given the economic and political environment, it is still unlikely that Microsoft will get more than a slap on the wrist, even if it hurts more than the company would like. (45)______. To some extent this is already happening. The "Liberty Alliance", for example, is gaining momentum. American Express and AOL Time Warner recently joined this coalition, whose goal is to provide an alternative to Microsoft"s online authentication service, called Passport. Similarly, if the entertainment industry got its act together, it might be able to stop Microsoft defining the standard for digital copy-protection. Perhaps this time around, such alliances will prove a better match for Microsoft"s determination.A. Businesses and consumers want benefits of being connected anytime, anyplace—without compromising security or control of personal information.B. Its rivals would perhaps do better to concentrate their energies on forming alliances that could help to keep Microsoft in check.C. About 12,500 schools—many of which are among the nation"s poorest—would be eligible to receive software from Microsoft under the proposal.D. Another judge supervising the class-action suits has questioned Microsoft"s plan to settle all of the eases by donating $1 billion to poor schools.E. As if to underline this new approach, Microsoft recently announced that William Neukom, its long-serving general counsel, will soon be replaced by Brad Smith, his more convivial deputy,F. Their suggested remedies do more than just plug the loopholes in the main settlement and provide for tougher enforcement. They would take back much of what Microsoft has won by abusing its monopoly power.G. The judge"s remarks suggest that Microsoft will have to pay cash in full if it wants him m approve the agreement.

Most young people enjoy some form of physical activity. It may be a game of some【B1】______—football, hockey, golf, or tennis. It may be mountaineering. Those who have a(n) 【B2】______for climbing mountains are often【B3】______with astonishment. Why are men and women willing to【B4】______cold and hardship, and to take risks in high mountains? This astonishment is caused,【B5】______, by the difference between mountaineering and other forms of activity. Mountaineering is a sport and not a game. There are no man-made rules,【B6】______there are for such games as golf and football. There are, 【B7】______, rules of a different kind which it would be dangerous to【B8】______, but it is this freedom from man-made rules that makes mountaineering【B9】______to many people. Those who climb mountains are【B10】______to use their own methods. If we compare mountaineering and other more【B11】______sports, we might think that one big【B12】______is that mountaineering is not a "team game". We should be mistaken【B13】______this. There are, it is true, no "matches" between "teams" of climbers, but when climbers are on a rock face【B14】______by a rope on which their lives may depend, there is【B15】______teamwork. The mountain climber knows that he may have to【B16】______forces that are stronger and more powerful than man. His sport requires high mental and physical【B17】______. A skier is probably past his【B18】______by the age of thirty, and most international tennis champions are in their early twenties. But it is not【B19】______for men of fifty or sixty to climb the highest mountains in the Alps. They may take more time than younger men, but they probably climb with more skill and less【B20】______of effort, and they certainly experience equal enjoyment.

Marriage may improve your sleep, and better sleep may improve your marriage, two new studies suggest Women who are married or who have stable partners【C1】______to sleep better than women who have【C2】______a partner, according to research from an eight-year study【C3】______at the Associated Professional Sleep Societies annual meeting. They also found that marital【C4】______lowers the risk of sleep problems,【C5】______marital disharmony heightens the risk and women who were single at the start of the study but gained a partner had more【C6】______sleep than women who were【C7】______married. The study included 360 middle-aged women. Researchers used in-home sleep studies, activity monitors to【C8】______sleep-wake patterns and relationship histories to look at the【C9】______of stable marriages, unstable marriages and marital changes, such as a【C10】______had on sleep. Another small study of 29 couples found that on a【C11】______basis, the quality of a couple's relationship and the quality of their sleep are closely linked. In that study, from the University of Arizona, 29 couples who【C12】______a bed and did not have children【C13】______sleep and relationship diaries for fifteen days. The results showed that【C14】______men get better sleep, they are more likely to feel【C15】______about their relationship the next day.【C16】______for women, problems in the relationship were strongly【C17】______with poor sleep for both themselves and their partner. The【C18】______from both studies suggest that sleep and relationship happiness are closely linked. The lesson for couples,【C19】______those who are struggling with problems, is that paying attention to sleep habits may help【C20】______other issues in the relationship.

Karl Von Linne (or Linnaeus, as he is widely known) was a Swedish biologist who devised the system of Latinised scientific names for living things that biologists use to this day. When he came to (1)_____ people into his system, he put them into a group called Ho mo—and Linne"s hairless fellow humans are still known biologically as Homo sapiens. (2)_____ the group originally had a second member, Homo troglodytes. It lived in Africa, and the pictures show it to be covered (3)_____ hair. Modern (4)_____ are not as generous as Linne in welcoming other species into Man"s lofty (5)_____, and the chimpanzee is now referred to (6)_____ Pan troglodytes. But Pan or Homo, there is no (7)_____ that chimps are humans" nearest living relatives, and that if the secrets of what makes humanity special are ever to be (8)_____, understanding why chimps are not people, nor people chimps, is a crucial part of the process. That, in turn, means looking at the DNA of the two species, (9)_____ it is here that the (10)_____ must originate. One half of the puzzle has been (11)_____ for several years: the human genome was published in 2001. The second has now been added, with the announcement in this week"s Nature (12)_____ the chimpanzee genome has been sequenced as well. For those expecting (13)_____ answers to age-old questions (14)_____, the publication of the chimp genome may be something of an (15)_____ There are no immediately obvious genes—present in one, but not the other—that account for such characteristic human (16)_____ as intelligence or even hairlessness. And (17)_____ there is a gene connected with language, known as FOXP2, it had already been discovered. But although the preliminary comparison of the two genomes (18)_____ by the members of the Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium, the multinational team that generated the sequence, did not (19)_____ any obvious nuggets of genetic gold, it does at least show where to look for (20)_____.

The Earth"s daily clock, measured in a single revolution, is twenty-four hours. The human clock,【C1】______, is actually about twenty-five hours. That" s 【C2】______ scientists who study sleep have determined from human subjects who live for several weeks in observation chambers with no【C3】______of day or night. Sleep researchers have【C4】______other surprising discoveries as well.We spend about one-third of our lives asleep, a fact that suggests sleeping, 【C5】______eating and breathing, is a fundamental life process. Yet some people almost never sleep, getting by on as 【C6】______as fifteen minutes a day. And more than seventy years of【C7】______ into sleep deprivation, in which people have been kept 【C8】______for three to ten days, has【C9】______ only one certain finding: Sleep loss makes a person sleepy and that" s about all; it causes no lasting ill【C10】______ . Too much sleep, however, may be 【C11】______ for you. These findings【C12】______some long-held views of sleep, and they【C13】______questions about its fundamental purpose in our lives. In【C14】______, scientists don"t know just why sleep is necessary. Some scientists think sleep is more the result of evolutionary habit than【C15】______actual need, Animals sleep for some parts of the day perhaps because it is the 【C16】______thing for them to do: it keeps them【C17】______ and hidden from predators; it"s a survival tactic. Before the advent of electricity, humans had to spend at least some of each day in【C18】______and had little reason to question the reason or need for【C19】______. But the development of the electroencephalograph and the resulting discovery in 1937 of dramatic【C20】______ in brain activity between sleep and wakefulness opened the way for scientific inquiry in the subject.

Concrete is probably used more widely than any other substance except water, yet it remains largely unappreciated. "Some people view the 20th century as the atomic age, the space age, the computer age — but an argument can be made that it was the concrete age, " says cement specialist Hendrik Van Oss. "It"s a miracle material." Indeed, more than a ton of concrete is produced each year for every man, woman and child on Earth. Yet concrete is generally ignored outside the engineering world, a victim of its own ubiquity and the industry"s conservative pace of development. Now, thanks to environmental pressures and entrepreneurial innovation, a new generation of concretes is emerging. This high-tech assortment of concrete confections promises to be stronger, lighter, and more environmentally friendly than ever before. Concrete is also a climate-change villain. It is made by mixing water with an aggregate, such as sand or gravel, and cement. Cement is usually made by heating limestone and clay to over 2, 500 degrees F. The resulting chemical reaction, along with fuel burned to heat the kiln, produces between 7% and 10% of global carbon-dioxide emissions. "When we have to repeatedly regenerate these materials because they"re not durable, we release more emissions, " says Victor Li who has created a kind of concrete suffused by synthetic fibers that make it stronger, more durable, and able to bend like a metal. Li"s creation does not require reinforcement, a property shared by other concretes that use chemical additives. Using less water makes concrete stronger, but until the development of plasticizers, it also made concrete sticky, dry, and hard to handle, says Christian Meyer, a civil engineering professor at Columbia University. Making stronger concretes, says Li, allows less to be used, reducing waste and giving architects more freedom. "You can have such futuristic designs if you don"t have to put rebar in there, or structural beams, " says Van Oss. A more directly "green" concrete has been developed by the Australian company TecEco. They add magnesium to their cement, forming a porous concrete that actually scrubs carbon dioxide from the air. While experts agree that these new concretes will someday be widely used, the timetable is uncertain. Concrete companies are responsive to environmental concerns and are always looking to stretch the utility of their product, but the construction industry is slow to change. "When you start monkeying around with materials, the governing bodies, the building departments, are very cautious before they let you use an unproven material," Meyer says. In the next few decades, says Van Oss, building codes will change, opening the way for innovative materials. But while new concretes may be stronger and more durable, they are also more expensive — and whether the tendency of developers and the public to focus on short-term rather than long-term costs will also change is another matter.

The idea is as audacious as it altruistic: provide a personal laptop computer to every schoolchild—particularly in the poorest parts of the world. The first step to making that happen is whittling the price down to $100. And that is the goal of a group of American techno-gurus led by Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the fabled MIT Media Lab. When he unveiled the idea at the World Economic Forum in January it seemed wildly ambitious. But surprisingly, it is starting to become a reality. Mr. Negroponte plans to display the first prototype in November at a UN summit. Four countries—Brazil, Egypt, Thailand and South Africa—have said they will buy over I m units each. Production is due to start in late 2006. How is the group, called One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), able to create a laptop so inexpensively? It is mainly a matter of cleverly combining existing technologies in new ways. The laptop will have a basic processor made by AMD, flash memory instead of a hard disk, will be powered by batteries or a hand-crank, and will run open-source software. The $100 laptop also puts all the components behind the screen, not under the keyboard, so there is no need for an expensive hinge. So far, OLPC has got the price down to around $130. But good news for the world"s poor, may not be such great news for the world"s computer manufacturers. The new machine is not simply of interest in the developing world. On September 22nd, Mitt Romney, the governor of Massachusetts, said the state should purchase one for every secondary-school student, when they become available. Sales to schools are just one way in which the $100 laptop could change the computer industry more broadly. By depressing prices and fuelling the trend for "good-enough computing", where customers upgrade less often, it could eventually put pressure on the world"s biggest PC-makers.

BPart BDirections: Write an essay of 160-200 words based on the following information./B

All around the world, lawyers generate more hostility than the members of any other profession—with the possible exception of journalism. But there are few places where clients have more grounds for complaint than America. During the decade before the economic crisis, spending on legal services in America grew twice as fast as inflation. The best lawyers made skyscrapers-full of money, tempting ever more students to pile into law schools. But most law graduates never get a big-firm job. Many of them instead become the kind of nuisance-lawsuit filer that makes the tort system a costly nightmare. There are many reasons for this. One is the excessive costs of a legal education. There is just one path for a lawyer in most American states: a four-year undergraduate degree in some unrelated subject, then a three-year law degree at one of 200 law schools authorized by the American Bar Association and an expensive preparation for the bar exam. This leaves today's average law-school graduate with $ 100, 000 of debt on top of undergraduate debts. Law-school debt means that they have to work fearsomely hard. Reforming the system would help both lawyers and their customers. Sensible ideas have been around for a long time, but the state-level bodies that govern the profession have been too conservative to implement them. One idea is to allow people to study law as an undergraduate degree. Another is to let students sit for the bar after only two years of law school. If the bar exam is truly a stern enough test for a would-be lawyer, those who can sit it earlier should be allowed to do so. Students who do not need the extra training could cut their debt mountain by a third. The other reason why costs are so high is the restrictive guild-like ownership structure of the business. Except in the District of Columbia, non-lawyers may not own any share of a law firm. This keeps fees high and innovation slow. There is pressure for change from within the profession, but opponents of change among the regulators insist that keeping outsiders out of a law firm isolates lawyers from the pressure to make money rather than serve clients ethically. In fact, allowing non-lawyers to own shares in law firms would reduce costs and improve services to customers, by encouraging law firms to use technology and to employ professional managers to focus on improving firms' efficiency. After all, other countries, such as Australia and Britain, have started liberalizing their legal professions. America should follow.

In the end, a degree of sanity prevailed. The militant Hindus who had vowed to breach a police cordon and start the work of building a temple to the god Ram at the disputed site of Ayodhya decided to respect a Supreme Court decision barring them from the are a. So charged have Hindu-Muslim relations in India become in recent weeks, as the declared deadline of March 15th neared, that a clash at Ram"s supposed birthplace might well have provoked bloodshed on an appalling scale across the nation. It has, unfortunately, happened often enough before. But the threat has not vanished. The court"s decision is only an interim one, and the main Hindu groups have not given up on their quest to build their temple. Extreme religious violence, which seemed in recent years to have faded after the Ayodhya-related explosion of 1992-93, is again a feature of the political landscape. Though faults lie on both sides (it was a Muslim attack on Hindus in a train in Gujarat that started the recent slaughter), the great bulk of victims were, as always, Muslims. Once again, educated Hindus are to be heard inveighing against the "appeasing" of Muslims through such concessions as separate constitutional status for Kashmir or the right to practice Islamic civil law. Once again, the police are being accused of doing little or nothing to help Muslim victims of rampaging Hindu mobs. Once again, India"s 130m Muslims feel unequal and unsafe in their own country. Far too many Hindus would refuse to accept that it is "their own country" at all. The wonder of it, perhaps, is that things are not worse. While the world applauds Pakistan for at last locking up the leaders of its extreme religious groups, in India the zealots still support, sustain and to a degree constitute the government. The BJP, which leads the ruling coalition, was founded as a political front for the Hindu movement. It is simply one, and by no means the dominant, member of what is called the Sangh Pariwar, the "family of organizations". Other members of the family are much less savoury. There is the VHP, the World Hindu Organization, which led the movement to build the Ram temple. There is the Bajrang Dal, the brutalist "youth wing" of the VHP. There is substantial evidence that members of the VHP and the Bajrang Dal helped to organize the slaughter of hundreds of Muslims in Gujarat after 58 Hindus were killed on a train as they returned from Ayodhya.

SaveWaterWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

I don"t know if there"s something in the water, but my town has exploded with tons of single people! Just last year, practically the only eligibles I knew were my divorced friend Patti, my bud Fulgencio, hubby Rick"s barfly pat Craig, and Jimmy the pizza delivery guy. But now, I find out that my cousin Michelle is leaving her second husband, and a recent chit-chat with my building"s manager Sandy revealed that she hasn"t had a serious relationship in almost five years! Besides that, at least five suspected singletons have moved into my building since June. Five! For an incurable romantic like me, this is heartbreaking. People are meant to have sweeties! I feel so sorry for single people. How can they bear going through life alone? I know a lot of them put up that "independent" front, or use that "I"m just waiting for the right person" defense, but they"re kidding themselves. Why would anyone turn up her nose at the prospect of a beautiful wedding, a gorgeous bridal gown, and a stunning rock on her finger? She wouldn"t. Why would anyone shake a stick at a warm dinner every night, a comfortable home, and a beautiful bride? It just isn"t rational. And I don"t like to be harsh, but frankly, it"s depressing to see singles out in public. When I see a girl shopping for groceries by herself, or a solitary guy reading while he waits for a bus, I can"t help but sense the hollowness that single person feels inside. I"m partially psychic, so I"m aware of other people"s inner feelings. Well, this Valentine"s Day, I"m not going to be selfish. People like me, people in successful, lasting relationships, are duty-bound to share their romantic wisdom with the less fortunate. Granted, it"s been a while since I"ve been on the dating Scene, so my chops are a bit rusty. In fact, hubby Rick is just about the only guy I"ve ever dated (Unless you count my pick for the Sadie Hawkins dance in seventh grade, Jordy DeVoe, who ditched me after about 15 minutes. Or this Oriental kid named Thant who wrapped love notes around lunchroom cookies and slipped them into my locker in ninth grade.) But Rick and I have been married nearly 20 years, so I must be doing something right. Dry those tears, Singletons! Pull your-selves together and listen to Wifey Jean. If you follow my advice, I"ll bet you dollars to donuts that you"ll find your Prince Charming, or Princess Enchanting, in no time!

Passive Wait Means Failure

DilemmaWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,andthen3)giveyourcomments.

For me, scientific knowledge is divided into mathematical sciences, natural sciences or sciences dealing with the natural world (physical and biological sciences), and sciences dealing with mankind (psychology, sociology, all the sciences of cultural achievements, every kind of historical knowledge). Apart from these sciences is philosophy, about which we will talk later. In the first place, all this is pure of theoretical knowledge, sought only for the purpose of understanding, in order to fulfill the need to understand what is intrinsic and consubstantial to man. What distinguishes man from animal is that he knows and needs to know. If man did not know that the world existed, and that the world was of a certain kind, that he was in the world and that he himself was of a certain kind, he wouldn"t be man. The technical aspects or applications of knowledge are equally necessary for man and are of the greatest importance because they also contribute to defining him as man and permit him to pursue a life increasingly more truly human. But even while enjoying the results of technical progress, he must defend the primacy and autonomy of pure knowledge. Knowledge sought directly for its practical applications will have immediate and foreseeable success, but not the kind of important result whose revolutionary scope is in large part unforeseen, except by the imagination of the Utopians. Let me recall a well-known example. If the Greek mathematicians had not applied themselves to the investigation of conic sections, zealously and without the least suspicion that it might someday be useful, it would not have been possible centuries later to navigate far from shore. The first man to study nature of electricity could not imagine that their experiments, carried on because of mere intellectual curiosity, would eventually lead to modern electrical technology, without which we can scarcely conceive of contemporary life. Pure knowledge is valuable for its own sake, because the human spirit cannot resign itself to ignorance. But, in addition, it is the foundation for practical results that would not have been reached if this knowledge had not been sought disinterestedly.

请按下列提纲写一篇《青春》杂志编辑部的征稿启事 (Contribution Wanted): 1) 征稿原因； 2) 稿件内容； 3) 截稿日期。 You should write about 100 words. Do not sign your own name. Use "Li Ming" instead. You do not need to write the address.

Freedom is one of the most difficult things to define, yet wars are fought to secure it. Pres. George W. Bush wants freedom for the entire world, but the question remains whether some might not want it and, if they do, cannot handle it. Many desire to be "free of their freedom", for the latter requires assuming responsibility for one"s actions. It is easier to have others choose for us. Freedom has many meanings arid applications. There is political freedom, involving the ability to choose one"s own form of government, hold elections, etc. Professors are concerned with academic freedom, namely to teach and publish in accord with their scholarly findings. These, though, are secondary meanings and presumably are grounded in something fundamental to the nature of humans. This is called moral freedom—but there"s the rub of it. Is such freedom an illusion? One cannot ignore Sigmund Freud"s massive unconscious as a factor in why we act the way we do. Moreover, psychological literature suggests" obsessive-compulsive" acts as more commonplace than we realize. Alcoholics and drug addicts are told they cannot help themselves; instead, they need others to help them break their habit. Let"s face it, we seem to be evolving into a "no fault" society in which freedom is an empty term. It certainly is easy to rationalize that this or that action really was not free, as one can say we are the product of our genes, passions, and culture. But Jean-Paul Sartre disagreed that freedom is an illusion, claiming instead that it is the very essence of man. Freedom is a human"s distinguishing mark. Essentially, a human is nothing, and therein lies his freedom. Although freedom may not be an illusion, in many cases it is illusory. Is it true to say piously (虔诚地) that the cure for any ills in democracy is more democracy, i.e. freedom? The Patriot Act certainly raises many hackles as an infringement(侵犯) on freedom; trading civil liberties for security—part of a seemingly continuing trend in society. How strong is the argument that if we are not free, then laws and prohibitions make no sense? Does knowledge, a seemingly necessary component involved in free acts, restrict or enlarge our freedom? The Socratic position is that, if one really knew what was right, one would do what was right. Moslems maintain that it is the "will of Allah" that governs all things and we only can hope to conform to it. This is not entirely foreign to Christian theology. The problem of predestination is a formidable one challenging freedom, maintaining as it does that, even before creation. Like most dilemmas posed by philosophy, perhaps it should be taken with reserve: "All arguments", concluded 19th-century philosopher and psychologist William James, "are against freedom; all experience is for it".