Adapted from a text by Benjamin Franklin in The Oxford Book of American Essays (1914)

I received my dear friend’s two letters, one for Wednesday and one for Saturday. This is again Wednesday. I do not deserve one for today, because I have not answered the former. But, indolent as I am, and averse to writing, the fear of having no more of your pleasing epistles, if I do not contribute to the correspondence, obliges me to take up my pen.

I am charmed with your description of Paradise, and with your plan of living there; and I approve much of your conclusion, that, in the meantime, we should draw all the good we can from this world. In my opinion we might all draw more good from it than we do, and suffer less evil, if we would take care not to give too much for whistles. For to me it seems that most of the unhappy people we meet with are become so by neglect of that caution.

You ask what I mean? You love stories, and will excuse my telling one of myself.

When I was a child of seven years old, my friends, on a holiday, filled my pocket with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children, and being charmed with the sound of a whistle that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered and gave all my money for one. I then came home, and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my whistle, but disturbing all the family. My brothers, sisters, and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth, put me in mind what good things I might have bought with the rest of the money, and laughed at me so much for my folly that I cried with vexation, and the reflection gave me more chagrin than the whistle gave me pleasure.

This, however, was afterwards of use to me, the impression continuing on my mind, so that often, when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, I said to myself, Don’t give too much for the whistle, and I saved my money.

As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the actions of men, I thought I met with many, very many, who gave too much for the whistle.

When I saw one too ambitious of court favor, sacrificing his time in attendance on levees, his repose, his liberty, his virtue, and perhaps his friends, to attain it, I have said to myself, This man gives too much for his whistle.

If I knew a miser, who gave up every kind of comfortable living, all the pleasure of doing good to others, all the esteem of his fellow-citizens, and the joys of benevolent friendship, for the sake of accumulating wealth, Poor man, said I, you pay too much for your whistle.

When I met with a man of pleasure, sacrificing every laudable improvement of the mind, or of his fortune, to mere corporeal sensations, and ruining his health in their pursuit, Mistaken man, said I, you are providing pain for yourself, instead of pleasure; you give too much for your whistle.

When I see a beautiful sweet-tempered girl married to an ill-natured brute of a husband, What a pity, say I, that she should pay so much for a whistle!

In short, I conceive that great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by the false estimates they have made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their whistles.

Yet I ought to have charity for these unhappy people, when I consider that, with all this wisdom of which I am boasting, there are certain things in the world so tempting, for example, the apples of King John, which happily are not to be bought; for if they were put to sale by auction, I might very easily be led to ruin myself in the purchase, and find that I had once more given too much for the whistle.

Which one of the following is most central to the passage?

Adapted from Mysticism, Logic, and Other Essays by Bertrand Russell (1917)

When we try to ascertain the motives which have led men to the investigation of philosophical questions, we find that, broadly speaking, they can be divided into two groups, often antagonistic, and leading to very divergent systems. These two groups of motives are, on the one hand, those derived from religion and ethics, and, on the other hand, those derived from science. Plato, Spinoza, and Hegel may be taken as typical of the philosophers whose interests are mainly religious and ethical, while Leibniz, Locke, and Hume may be taken as representatives of the scientific wing. In Aristotle, Descartes, Berkeley, and Kant we find both groups of motives strongly present.

Herbert Spencer, in whose honor we are assembled today, would naturally be classed among scientific philosophers; it was mainly from science that he drew his data, his formulation of problems, and his conception of method. But his strong religious sense is obvious in much of his writing, and his ethical preoccupations are what make him value the conception of evolution—that conception in which, as a whole generation has believed, science and morals are to be united in fruitful and indissoluble marriage.

It is my belief that the ethical and religious motives, in spite of the splendidly imaginative systems to which they have given rise, have been, on the whole, a hindrance to the progress of philosophy, and ought now to be consciously thrust aside by those who wish to discover philosophical truth. Science, originally, was entangled in similar motives, and was thereby hindered in its advances. It is, I maintain, from science, rather than from ethics and religion, that philosophy should draw its inspiration.

But there are two different ways in which a philosophy may seek to base itself upon science. It may emphasize the most general results of science, and seek to give even greater generality and unity to these results. Or it may study the methods of science, and seek to apply these methods, with the necessary adaptations, to its own peculiar province. Much philosophy inspired by science has gone astray through preoccupation with the results momentarily supposed to have been achieved. It is not results, but methods that can be transferred with profit from the sphere of the special sciences to the sphere of philosophy. What I wish to bring to your notice is the possibility and importance of applying to philosophical problems certain broad principles of method which have been found successful in the study of scientific questions.

The opposition between a philosophy guided by scientific method and a philosophy dominated by religious and ethical ideas may be illustrated by two notions which are very prevalent in the works of philosophers, namely the notion of the universe, and the notion of good and evil. A philosopher is expected to tell us something about the nature of the universe as a whole, and to give grounds for either optimism or pessimism. Both these expectations seem to me mistaken. I believe the conception of "the universe" to be, as its etymology indicates, a mere relic of pre-Copernican astronomy, and I believe the question of optimism and pessimism to be one which the philosopher will regard as outside his scope, except, possibly, to the extent of maintaining that it is insoluble.

What does the author believe has long hindered the progress of science?

Adapted from How to Tell a Story and Other Essays by Mark Twain (1897)

There are several kinds of stories, but only one difficult kind—the humorous. The humorous story is American, the comic story is English, the witty story is French. The humorous story depends for its effect upon the manner of the telling; the comic story and the witty story upon the matter.

The humorous story may be spun out to great length, and may wander around as much as it pleases, and arrive nowhere in particular; but the comic and witty stories must be brief and end with a point. The humorous story bubbles gently along, the others burst. The humorous story is strictly a work of art—high and delicate art—and only an artist can tell it; but no art is necessary in telling the comic and the witty story; anybody can do it. The art of telling a humorous story—understand, I mean by word of mouth, not print—was created in America, and has remained at home. The humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about it; but the teller of the comic story tells you beforehand that it is one of the funniest things he has ever heard. And sometimes he is so glad and happy that he will repeat the "nub" of it and glance around from face to face, collecting applause, and then repeat it again. It is a pathetic thing to see.

Let me set down an instance of the comic method, using an anecdote that has been popular all over the world for twelve or fifteen hundred years:

In the course of a certain battle, a soldier whose leg had been shot off appealed to another soldier who was hurrying by to carry him to the rear, informing him at the same time of his injury; whereupon the generous son of Mars, shouldering the unfortunate, proceeded to carry out the other’s desire. Bullets and cannon-balls were flying in all directions, and presently one of the latter took the wounded man's head off—without, however, his deliverer being aware of it. Soon he was hailed by an officer, who said:

"Where are you going with that carcass?"

"To the rear, sir—he's lost his leg!"

"His leg, forsooth?" responded the astonished officer; "you mean his head, you booby."

Whereupon the soldier dispossessed himself of his burden, and stood looking down upon it in great perplexity. At length he said:

"It is true, sir, just as you have said." Then after a pause he added, "But he TOLD me IT WAS HIS LEG—"

Here the narrator bursts into explosion after explosion of thunderous horse-laughter, repeating that nub from time to time. It takes only a minute and a half to tell that in its comic-story form; and isn't worth the telling, after all. Put into the humorous-story form it takes ten minutes, and is about the funniest thing I have ever listened to—as James Whitcomb Riley tells it.

He tells it in the character of a dull-witted old farmer who has just heard it for the first time, thinks it is unspeakably funny, and is trying to repeat it to a neighbor. But he can't remember it; so he gets all mixed up and wanders helplessly round and round, putting in tedious details that don't belong in the tale and only retard it; taking them out conscientiously and putting in others that are just as useless; stopping his narrative a good while in order to try to recall the name of the soldier that was hurt, and finally remembering that the soldier's name was not mentioned, and remarking placidly that the name is of no real importance, anyway—better, of course, if one knew it, but not essential, after all—and so on, and so on, and so on.

The teller is innocent and happy and pleased with himself, and has to stop occasionally to keep from laughing outright, but his body quakes in a jelly-like way with interior chuckles; and at the end of the ten minutes the audience have laughed until they are exhausted, and the tears are running down their faces. The simplicity and innocence and sincerity and unconsciousness of the old farmer are perfectly simulated, and the result is a performance which is thoroughly charming and delicious. This is art and fine and beautiful, and only a master can compass it; but a machine could tell the other story.

What is the primary difference between a humorous story and a witty story?

Adapted from A Guide to Stoicism by George Stock (1915)

Among the Greeks and Romans of the classical age, philosophy occupied the place taken by religion in some later societies. Their appeal was to reason, not to revelation. To what, asks Cicero in his Offices, are we to look for training in virtue, if not to philosophy? Many people today are born into certain religions or religious denominations, but it was of his own free choice that the serious-minded young Greek or Roman embraced the tenets of one of the great sects which divided the world of philosophy. Conversions from one sect to another were of quite rare occurrence. A certain Dionysius of Heraclea, who went over from the Stoics to the Cyrenaics, was ever afterward known as "the deserter." It was as difficult to be independent in philosophy as it is with us to be independent in politics. When a young man joined a school, he committed himself to all its opinions, not only as to the end of life, which was the main point of division, but as to all questions on all subjects. The Stoic did not differ merely in his ethics from the Epicurean; he differed also in his theology and his physics and his metaphysics.

The life span of Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, was from B.C.E. 347 to 275. He did not begin teaching till 315, at the mature age of forty. Aristotle had passed away in 322, and with him closed the great constructive era of Greek thought. The Ionian philosophers had speculated on the physical constitution of the universe, the Pythagoreans on the mystical properties of numbers; Heraclitus had propounded his philosophy of fire, Democritus and Leucippus had struck out a rude form of the atomic theory, Socrates had raised questions relating to man, Plato had discussed them with all the freedom of the dialogue, while Aristotle had systematically worked them out. The later schools did not add much to the body of philosophy. What they did was to emphasize different sides of the doctrine of their predecessors and to drive views to their logical consequences. The great lesson of Greek philosophy is that it is worthwhile to do right irrespective of reward and punishment and regardless of the shortness of life. This lesson the Stoics so enforced by the earnestness of their lives and the influence of their moral teaching that it has become associated more particularly with them. 

The Greeks were all agreed that there was an end or aim of life, and that it was to be called "happiness," but at that point their agreement ended. As to the nature of happiness there was the utmost variety of opinion. Democritus had made it consist in mental serenity, Anaxagoras in speculation, Socrates in wisdom, Aristotle in the practice of virtue with some amount of favor from fortune, Aristippus simply in pleasure. Zeno's contribution to thought on the subject does not at first sight appear illuminating. He said that the end was "to live consistently," the implication doubtless being that no life but the passionless life of reason could ultimately be consistent with itself. Cleanthes, his immediate successor in the school, is credited with having added the words "with nature," thus completing the well-known Stoic formula that the end is "to live consistently with nature."

It was assumed by the Greeks that the ways of nature were "the ways of pleasantness," and that "all her paths" were "peace." This may seem to us a startling assumption, but that is because we do not mean by "nature" the same thing as they did. We connect the term with the origin of a thing, they connected it rather with the end; we mean by a thing's nature what it is or has been, they meant what it ought to become under the most favorable conditions. Hence we find Aristotle maintaining that the State is a natural product, because it is evolved out of social relations which exist by nature. Nature indeed was a highly ambiguous term to the Greeks no less than to ourselves, but in the sense with which we are now concerned, the nature of anything was defined by the Peripatetics as "the end of its becoming." Another definition of theirs puts the matter still more clearly. "What each thing is when its growth has been completed, that we declare to be the nature of each thing."

Following out this conception the Stoics identified a life in accordance with nature with a life in accordance with the highest perfection to which man could attain. Now, as man was essentially a rational animal, his work as man lay in living the rational life. And the perfection of reason was virtue. Hence the ways of nature were no other than the ways of virtue. And so it came about that the Stoic formula might be expressed in a number of different ways which yet all amounted to the same thing. The end was to live the virtuous life, or to live consistently, or to live in accordance with nature, or to live rationally.

Which of these statements best restates the underlined portion of text, “'What each thing is when its growth has been completed, that we declare to be the nature of each thing.'”

Adapted from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). Volume XIII. The Victorian Age, Part One

Matthew Arnold’s prose writings, mainly, were the work of his middle and later years. They deal with, practically, the entire fabric of English civilization and culture in his day; and they are all directed by one clear and consistent critical purpose. That purpose was to “cure the great vice of our intellect, manifesting itself in our incredible vagaries in literature, in art, in religion, in morals; namely, that it is fantastic, and wants sanity.”

The main body of his purely literary criticism, with the exception of a few scattered essays, is to be found in the lectures On Translating Homer (1861), and The Study of Celtic Literature (1867), and in the two volumes entitled Essays on Criticism (1865, 1889). The most notable of these books, as illustrating Arnold’s literary ideals and preferences—his critical method may be equally well studied in the others —is, undoubtedly, the first series of Essays on Criticism. Its appearance, in 1865, was something of a literary sensation, by reason of its style, the novelty and confidence of its opinions and the wide and curious range of its subjects. No volumes of critical essays had before appeared, in England at least, on a collection of subjects and authors so diverse as the literary influence of academies, pagan and medieval religious sentiment, a Persian passion-play, the Du Guerins, Joubert, Heine, Spinoza, Marcus Aurelius. And the first two essays, in particular, struck a note of challenge to all the popular critics of the day. They proclaimed the appearance of a paladin bent, above everything, upon piercing the armor of self-sufficiency and “provinciality,” in which the average English “authority in matters of taste” had been accustomed to strut with much confidence. Here, for the first time, we come across verbal weapons to be repeatedly used with devastating effect in a lifelong campaign against the hosts of Philistia. The famous nickname “Philistine,” borrowed from Heine, makes its first appearance in this book. We now first hear, also, of “the provincial spirit,” “the best that is known and thought in the world,” “the free play of the mind,” “flexibility of intelligence”—afterwards to be identified with Plato’s “prose of the center,” “the modern spirit,” “criticism of life,” and other phrases destined, by iterated use, to become familiar. Although the author’s weapons were mainly of his own making, his way of using them, his adroit and dexterous methods of attack, had been learnt from France. French prose, for Matthew Arnold, was the “prose of the center,” the nearest modern equivalent to “Attic prose,” and the two contemporary critics he admired most were Sainte-Beuve and Renan. In purely literary criticism, Sainte-Beuve is his chief model; but his methods in other critical fields were largely the results of his reading of Renan. As early as 1859, he speaks of Renan as one “between whose line of endeavour and my own I imagine there is considerable resemblance.” The two resembled each other not least in the adoption of a style, lenis, minimeque pertinax—“sinuous, easy, unpolemical”—very unlike the “highly-charged, heavy-shotted articles” of English newspaper critics.

Arnold’s knowledge and appreciation of French prose were wide and peculiarly sensitive, and stand in curious contrast to his lack of enthusiasm for, if not indifference to, French poetry. France, “famed in all great arts, in none supreme,” appeared to him to have achieved her most signal triumphs in prose, but his partiality to French prose led him to some strange vagaries of judgment in his estimates of individual writers. Sainte-Beuve and Renan, no doubt, deserved the flattery he paid both by imitating them, but he has given an exaggerated importance to such writers as the Du Gueacuterins, Joubert and Amiel.

When we turn from these eccentric preferences to the main principles of his literary criticism, we find, in his definitions of them, at any rate, much that is incontrovertible and a little that is open to question. “Disinterestedness,” he tells us, is the first requisite in a literary critic—“a disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world.” With this goes “knowledge”; and no English critic is adequately equipped who does not “possess one great literature, at least, besides his own.” Criticism in England was altogether too provincial. Nothing quite like this had been stated in English before, and no critic, in his practice, made so sedulous an effort as Arnold to convince his countrymen of their insularity, and to persuade them to acquire an European outlook in literature and art. When he becomes a little more particular in his definitions and says that “the end and aim of all literature” is “a criticism of life,” and, again, that “poetry is, at bottom, a criticism of life,” he provokes a debate which, at one time, was pursued with considerable spirit and some acerbity—especially, as Sir Leslie Stephen has put it, by critics who were “unable to distinguish between an epigram and a philosophical dogma.”

According to the authors, which of the following is NOT true about Matthew Arnold’s work?

Adapted from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). Volume XIII. The Victorian Age, Part One

Matthew Arnold’s prose writings, mainly, were the work of his middle and later years. They deal with, practically, the entire fabric of English civilization and culture in his day; and they are all directed by one clear and consistent critical purpose. That purpose was to “cure the great vice of our intellect, manifesting itself in our incredible vagaries in literature, in art, in religion, in morals; namely, that it is fantastic, and wants sanity.”

The main body of his purely literary criticism, with the exception of a few scattered essays, is to be found in the lectures On Translating Homer (1861), and The Study of Celtic Literature (1867), and in the two volumes entitled Essays on Criticism (1865, 1889). The most notable of these books, as illustrating Arnold’s literary ideals and preferences—his critical method may be equally well studied in the others —is, undoubtedly, the first series of Essays on Criticism. Its appearance, in 1865, was something of a literary sensation, by reason of its style, the novelty and confidence of its opinions and the wide and curious range of its subjects. No volumes of critical essays had before appeared, in England at least, on a collection of subjects and authors so diverse as the literary influence of academies, pagan and medieval religious sentiment, a Persian passion-play, the Du Guerins, Joubert, Heine, Spinoza, Marcus Aurelius. And the first two essays, in particular, struck a note of challenge to all the popular critics of the day. They proclaimed the appearance of a paladin bent, above everything, upon piercing the armor of self-sufficiency and “provinciality,” in which the average English “authority in matters of taste” had been accustomed to strut with much confidence. Here, for the first time, we come across verbal weapons to be repeatedly used with devastating effect in a lifelong campaign against the hosts of Philistia. The famous nickname “Philistine,” borrowed from Heine, makes its first appearance in this book. We now first hear, also, of “the provincial spirit,” “the best that is known and thought in the world,” “the free play of the mind,” “flexibility of intelligence”—afterwards to be identified with Plato’s “prose of the center,” “the modern spirit,” “criticism of life,” and other phrases destined, by iterated use, to become familiar. Although the author’s weapons were mainly of his own making, his way of using them, his adroit and dexterous methods of attack, had been learnt from France. French prose, for Matthew Arnold, was the “prose of the center,” the nearest modern equivalent to “Attic prose,” and the two contemporary critics he admired most were Sainte-Beuve and Renan. In purely literary criticism, Sainte-Beuve is his chief model; but his methods in other critical fields were largely the results of his reading of Renan. As early as 1859, he speaks of Renan as one “between whose line of endeavour and my own I imagine there is considerable resemblance.” The two resembled each other not least in the adoption of a style, lenis, minimeque pertinax—“sinuous, easy, unpolemical”—very unlike the “highly-charged, heavy-shotted articles” of English newspaper critics.

Arnold’s knowledge and appreciation of French prose were wide and peculiarly sensitive, and stand in curious contrast to his lack of enthusiasm for, if not indifference to, French poetry. France, “famed in all great arts, in none supreme,” appeared to him to have achieved her most signal triumphs in prose, but his partiality to French prose led him to some strange vagaries of judgment in his estimates of individual writers. Sainte-Beuve and Renan, no doubt, deserved the flattery he paid both by imitating them, but he has given an exaggerated importance to such writers as the Du Gueacuterins, Joubert and Amiel.

When we turn from these eccentric preferences to the main principles of his literary criticism, we find, in his definitions of them, at any rate, much that is incontrovertible and a little that is open to question. “Disinterestedness,” he tells us, is the first requisite in a literary critic—“a disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world.” With this goes “knowledge”; and no English critic is adequately equipped who does not “possess one great literature, at least, besides his own.” Criticism in England was altogether too provincial. Nothing quite like this had been stated in English before, and no critic, in his practice, made so sedulous an effort as Arnold to convince his countrymen of their insularity, and to persuade them to acquire an European outlook in literature and art. When he becomes a little more particular in his definitions and says that “the end and aim of all literature” is “a criticism of life,” and, again, that “poetry is, at bottom, a criticism of life,” he provokes a debate which, at one time, was pursued with considerable spirit and some acerbity—especially, as Sir Leslie Stephen has put it, by critics who were “unable to distinguish between an epigram and a philosophical dogma.”

Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?

Adapted from Friedrich Max Müller’s translation of Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1896 ed.)

Translator’s Preface: Why I thought I might translate Kant’s Critique

"But how can you waste your time on a translation of Kant’s Critik der reinen Vernunft?" This question, which has been addressed to me by several friends, I think I shall best be able to answer in a preface to that translation itself. And I shall try to answer it point by point.

First, then, with regard to myself. Why should I waste my time on a translation of Kant’s Critik der reinen Vernunft? — that is, Were there not other persons more fitted for that task, or more specially called upon to undertake it?

It would be the height of presumption on my part to imagine that there were not many scholars who could have performed such a task as well as myself, or far better. All I can say is, that for nearly thirty years I have been waiting for someone really qualified, who would be willing to execute such a task, and have waited in vain. What I feel convinced of is that an adequate translation of Kant must be the work of a German scholar. That conviction was deeply impressed on my mind when reading, now many years ago, Kant’s great work with a small class of young students at Oxford—among whom I may mention the names of Appleton, Nettleship, and Wallace. Kant’s style is careless and involved, and no wonder that it should be so, if we consider that he wrote down the whole of the Critique in not quite five months. Now, beside the thread of the argument itself, the safest thread through the mazes of his sentences must be looked for in his adverbs and particles. They, and they only, indicate clearly the true articulation of his thoughts, and they alone impart to his phrases that peculiar intonation which tells those who are accustomed to that bye-play of language, what the author has really in his mind, and what he wants to express, if only he could find the right way to do it.

When reading and critically interpreting Kant’s text, I sometimes compared other translations, particularly the English translations by Haywood and Meiklejohn, and excellent as, in most places, I found their renderings, particularly the latter, I generally observed that, when the thread was lost, it was owing to a neglect of particles and adverbs, though sometimes also to a want of appreciation of the real, and not simply the dictionary meaning, of German words. It is not my intention to write here a criticism of previous translations; on the contrary, I should prefer to express my obligation to them for several useful suggestions which I have received from them in the course of what I know to be a most arduous task. But in order to give an idea of what I mean by the danger arising from a neglect of adverbs and particles in German, I shall mention at least a few of the passages of which I am thinking.

Which of the following would be most likely to immediately follow this passage?

Adapted from Friedrich Max Müller’s translation of Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1896 ed.)

Translator’s Preface: Why I thought I might translate Kant’s Critique

"But how can you waste your time on a translation of Kant’s Critik der reinen Vernunft?" This question, which has been addressed to me by several friends, I think I shall best be able to answer in a preface to that translation itself. And I shall try to answer it point by point.

First, then, with regard to myself. Why should I waste my time on a translation of Kant’s Critik der reinen Vernunft? — that is, Were there not other persons more fitted for that task, or more specially called upon to undertake it?

It would be the height of presumption on my part to imagine that there were not many scholars who could have performed such a task as well as myself, or far better. All I can say is, that for nearly thirty years I have been waiting for someone really qualified, who would be willing to execute such a task, and have waited in vain. What I feel convinced of is that an adequate translation of Kant must be the work of a German scholar. That conviction was deeply impressed on my mind when reading, now many years ago, Kant’s great work with a small class of young students at Oxford—among whom I may mention the names of Appleton, Nettleship, and Wallace. Kant’s style is careless and involved, and no wonder that it should be so, if we consider that he wrote down the whole of the Critique in not quite five months. Now, beside the thread of the argument itself, the safest thread through the mazes of his sentences must be looked for in his adverbs and particles. They, and they only, indicate clearly the true articulation of his thoughts, and they alone impart to his phrases that peculiar intonation which tells those who are accustomed to that bye-play of language, what the author has really in his mind, and what he wants to express, if only he could find the right way to do it.

When reading and critically interpreting Kant’s text, I sometimes compared other translations, particularly the English translations by Haywood and Meiklejohn, and excellent as, in most places, I found their renderings, particularly the latter, I generally observed that, when the thread was lost, it was owing to a neglect of particles and adverbs, though sometimes also to a want of appreciation of the real, and not simply the dictionary meaning, of German words. It is not my intention to write here a criticism of previous translations; on the contrary, I should prefer to express my obligation to them for several useful suggestions which I have received from them in the course of what I know to be a most arduous task. But in order to give an idea of what I mean by the danger arising from a neglect of adverbs and particles in German, I shall mention at least a few of the passages of which I am thinking.

According to the translator, which of the following types of writing might be most stylistically similar to Kant’s Critik der reinen Vernunft?

Adapted from The Essays of Michel de Montaigne (trans. Charles Cotton, 1877)

So we see in the gift of eloquence, wherein some have such a facility and promptness, and that which we call a present wit so easy, that they are ever ready upon all occasions, and never to be surprised; and others more heavy and slow, never venture to utter anything but what they have long premeditated, and taken great care and pains to fit and prepare.

These two advantages of eloquence are those to which the lawyers and preachers of our age seem principally to pretend. If I were worthy to advise, the slow speaker, methinks, should be more proper for the pulpit, and the other for the bar: and that because the employment of the first does naturally allow him all the leisure he can desire to prepare himself, and besides, his career is performed in an even and unintermitted line, without stop or interruption; whereas the pleader's business and interest compels him to enter the lists upon all occasions, and the unexpected objections and replies of his adverse party jostle him out of his course, and put him, upon the instant, to pump for new and extempore answers and defenses. Yet, at the interview betwixt Pope Clement and King Francis at Marseilles, it happened, quite contrary, that Monsieur Poyet, a man bred up all his life at the bar, and in the highest repute for eloquence, having the charge of making the harangue to the Pope committed to him, and having so long meditated on it beforehand, as, so they said, to have brought it ready made along with him from Paris; the very day it was to have been pronounced, the Pope, fearing something might be said that might give offense to the other princes' ambassadors who were there attending on him, sent to acquaint the King with the argument which he conceived most suiting to the time and place, but, by chance, quite another thing to that Monsieur de Poyet had taken so much pains about: so that the fine speech he had prepared was of no use, and he was upon the instant to contrive another; which finding himself unable to do, Cardinal du Bellay was constrained to perform that office. The pleader's part is, doubtless, much harder than that of the preacher; and yet, in my opinion, we see more passable lawyers than preachers, at all events in France.

I know, experimentally, the disposition of nature so impatient of tedious and elaborate premeditation, that if it do not go frankly and gaily to work, it can perform nothing to purpose. We say of some compositions that they stink of oil and of the lamp, by reason of a certain rough harshness that laborious handling imprints upon those where it has been employed. But besides this, the solicitude of doing well, and a certain striving and contending of a mind too far strained and overbent upon its undertaking, breaks and hinders itself like water, that by force of its own pressing violence and abundance, cannot find a ready issue through the neck of a bottle or a narrow sluice. In this condition of nature, of which I am now speaking, there is this also, that it would not be disordered and stimulated with such passions as the fury of Cassius (for such a motion would be too violent and rude); it would not be jostled, but solicited; it would be roused and heated by unexpected, sudden, and accidental occasions. If it be left to itself, it flags and languishes; agitation only gives it grace and vigor. I am always worst in my own possession, and when wholly at my own disposition: accident has more title to anything that comes from me than I; occasion, company, and even the very rising and falling of my own voice, extract more from my fancy than I can find, when I sound and employ it by myself. By which means, the things I say are better than those I write, if either were to be preferred, where neither is worth anything. This, also, befalls me, that I do not find myself where I seek myself, and I light upon things more by chance than by any inquisition of my own judgment. I perhaps sometimes hit upon something when I write, that seems quaint and sprightly to me, though it will appear dull and heavy to another.—But let us leave these fine compliments; every one talks thus of himself according to his talent. But when I come to speak, I am already so lost that I know not what I was about to say, and in such cases a stranger often finds it out before me. If I should make erasure so often as this inconvenience befalls me, I should make clean work; occasion will, at some other time, lay it as visible to me as the light, and make me wonder what I should stick at.

The author would most likely agree with which of the following statements about the role of friends and strangers in the writing process?

Adapted from Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman (1910)

Some twenty-one years ago I heard the first great anarchist speaker—the inimitable John Most. It seemed to me then, and for many years after, that the spoken word hurled forth among the masses with such wonderful eloquence, such enthusiasm and fire, could never be erased from the human mind and soul. How could any one of all the multitudes who flocked to Most's meetings escape his prophetic voice! Surely they had but to hear him to throw off their old beliefs, and see the truth and beauty of anarchism!

My one great longing then was to be able to speak with the tongue of John Most,—that I, too, might thus reach the masses. Oh, for the naivety of youth's enthusiasm! It is the time when the hardest thing seems but child's play. It is the only period in life worthwhile. Alas! This period is but of short duration. Like spring, the Sturm und Drang period of the propagandist brings forth growth, frail and delicate, to be matured or killed according to its powers of resistance against a thousand vicissitudes.

My great faith in the wonder-worker, the spoken word, is no more. I have realized its inadequacy to awaken thought, or even emotion. Gradually, and with no small struggle against this realization, I came to see that oral propaganda is at best but a means of shaking people from their lethargy: it leaves no lasting impression. The very fact that most people attend meetings only if aroused by newspaper sensations, or because they expect to be amused, is proof that they really have no inner urge to learn.

It is altogether different with the written mode of human expression. No one, unless intensely interested in progressive ideas, will bother with serious books. That leads me to another discovery made after many years of public activity. It is this: all claims of education notwithstanding, the pupil will accept only that which his mind craves. Already this truth is recognized by most modern educators in relation to the immature mind. I think it is equally true regarding the adult. Anarchists or revolutionists can no more be made than musicians. All that can be done is to plant the seeds of thought. Whether something vital will develop depends largely on the fertility of the human soil, though the quality of the intellectual seed must not be overlooked.

In meetings the audience is distracted by a thousand non-essentials. The speaker, though ever so eloquent, cannot escape the restlessness of the crowd, with the inevitable result that he will fail to strike root. In all probability he will not even do justice to himself.

The relation between the writer and the reader is more intimate. True, books are only what we want them to be; rather, what we read into them. That we can do so demonstrates the importance of written as against oral expression. It is this certainty that has induced me to gather in one volume my ideas on various topics of individual and social importance. They represent the mental and soul struggles of twenty-one years—the conclusions derived after many changes and inner revisions.

The author’s point of view in this passage is primarily that __________.