Liberal Evolutionism and the Satirical Ape

This article considers intersections between the doctrines of mid-Victorian liberalism and biological evolution using 1860s caricatures and satires from Punch. In the years following the 1859 publication of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty and Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, caricatures featuring satirical apes illustrated mutually supportive cultural attitudes about politics and science. Ideas of character united the discourses of mid-Victorian evolutionism with liberalism, and the confluence of these ideas, or what I term liberal evolutionism, dramatized this overlap for Victorian culture. My project shows that the apes depicted in Punch were often intended as not only whimsical responses to the theories put forward by Darwin and Mill, they also point to the formation of the British subject.     

Scientific Man

Abstract

The art and craft of beautifying books with gold is described in detail as well as the historical development of this centuries old skill. A brief mention is made of gilding of picture frames.     

Man Also Key to Construction of the Sky Way

On October 15,2005, the newly-built thasa Rajiway Station, facing the magnificent Potala Palace from a distance, was decorated with fresh flowers and colored flags. Efforts are being made to prepare for the trial-operation of the Qinghair Tibet Railway in July 2006. This success reminds us of a man who contributes so much for the success of the “sky way“.     

Man Also Key to Construction of the Sky Way

On October 15,2005, the newly-built thasa Rajiway Station, facing the magnificent Potala Palace from a distance, was decorated with fresh flowers and colored flags. Efforts are being made to prepare for the trial-operation of the Qinghair Tibet Railway in July 2006. This success reminds us of a man who contributes so much for the success of the "sky way".     

Man And Nature

In an introductory lecture to freshmen of Moscow University's Geography Faculty, the man-nature relationship is analyzed in terms of the interplay of entropic and negentropic processes. Entropy is used in the sense of a leveling trend or degradation, and involves the dissemination of materials and goods. Negentropy refers to accumulation, concentration, enhancing of diversity and contrasts. In the original world of inert nature, entropy was dominant. With the appearance of life on earth, the negentropic process assumed significance as living matter accumulated the sun's energy and concentrated it in the form of fossil fuels, forests, etc. In the present man-altered environment, termed the noosphere (sphere of the mind), both entropic and negentropic trends are apparent. First, man concentrates chemical elements for processing; then, he disseminates them to users or, in the case of waste products, into the air and water. The dissemination of radioactive materials through fallout and waste disposal is the most hazardous form of the entropic process. The pollution danger may be reduced by adding to the present sequence of “concentration—dissemination” an additional element, namely “reconcentration,” meaning the recovery of useful products from wastes.     

人与沙漠

沙漠正吞噬着人类的家园。据统计,全球沙漠面积已超过1500万平方公里,占地球陆地面积的十分之一,并且这个数字正在日益增大。沙进人退,人进沙退,人类正同沙漠进行着一场拉锯战。最早,人们从沙漠在地球表面分布的位置着手分析,认为沙漠是干旱气候的产物。如果你仔细观察     

From Proletarian to Entrepreneur to Big Man: the Story of Noya1

The resemblances between Melanesian Big Men and capitalist entrepreneurs have long fascinated anthropologists. However, even though traditional leaders in Melanesian societies resemble entrepreneurs in certain respects they are motivated by different concerns. In this paper, I consider the career of Noya of the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea to demonstrate the contrasts and confluences between the roles of big man and that of entrepreneur. Noya is neither a traditional big-man nor a pure capitalist, but has drawn selectively upon the logic of each in his drive to achieve promience. His life story provides insights into how big-men articulate with the capitalist world system.     

Man among the primates

R. E. Passingham. The Human Primate. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1982. 390 pp. $14.95 cloth; $7.50 paper.     

大漠选美 谁是非洲好男人?

<正>作为西非富拉尼人的一个分支,尼日尔博罗罗人至今仍过着几乎与现代生活隔绝的原始游牧生活。尽管生活条件恶劣,但他们仍然非常热爱生活、追求美,"男子选美"活动就是他们爱美之心的一个表现,它就发生在尼日尔的盖雷沃尔节上。有人说尼日尔是世界上最热的国家之一,依我看大概也是世界上最荒凉的国家之一。单调平坦的高原一望无际,滚滚而来的热浪在荒原上扬起漫天尘埃……这就是我在塔瓦省的图法米尼村看到的景象。要不是为了博罗罗人的盖雷沃尔节,谁愿意到这种地方来!当然,博罗罗人的这种"男子选     

Sexual Selection,Automata and Ethics in George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss and Olive Schreiner's Undine and From Man to Man

Abstract

This paper brings together two related areas of debate in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The first concerns how the courtship plot of the nineteenth-century novel responded to, and helped to shape, scientific ideas of sexual competition and selection. In The Mill on the Floss (1860), George Eliot strikingly prefigures Darwin's later work on sexual selection, drawing from her own extensive knowledge of the wider debates within which evolutionary theory developed. Maggie Tulliver's characterisation allows Eliot to explore the ethical complexities raised by an increasingly powerful scientific naturalism, where biology is seen to be embedded within morality in newly specific ways. The second strand of the paper examines the extension of scientific method to human mind and motivation which constituted the new psychology. It argues that there are crucial continuities of long-established ethical and religious ideas within this increasingly naturalistic view of human mind and motivation. The contention that such ideas persist and are transformed, rather than simply jettisoned, is illustrated through the example of Thomas Henry Huxley's 1874 essay on automata. Turning finally to focus on Olive Schreiner's Undine (1929) and From Man to Man (1926), the paper explores the importance of these persistent ethical and religious ideas in two novels which remained unpublished during her lifetime. It argues that they produce both difficulty and opportunity for imagining love plots within the context of increasingly assertive biological and naturalistic accounts of human beings.     

从妄人到名贤:墓志与传世文献所见周子谅形象书写

周子谅受张九龄举荐任监察御史,在张九龄与李林甫的政争中为支持前者而弹劾牛仙客身死。此弹劾事件导致张九龄完全退出权力中心,被视为唐玄宗政治由明转昏的分界点。周子谅生平事迹散见于《周子谅墓志》、正史及唐宋人文集的相关记载,这些文献的写作年代跨度由开元而及于两宋。其中《周子谅墓志》揭示出周子谅作为一个普通官员的生命历程,最为接近其本来面目,却由于墓志本身的私密性而一直湮没无闻。而传世文献则具有公开性和较强的传播力,在这些文献中周子谅的形象相应地呈现为妄人、谏臣、名贤的演变序列,这种演变实质上反映了处于不同社会情境下的文本书写者对于弹劾事件认知的变迁,也可视作理解唐宋之际社会变迁的一条具体线索。     

On the State of Man

Abstract

Until recently increasing agricultural productivity was able to supply the world's increasing population. Now the appearance of adverse trends suggests that social and political problems will outdistance technical solutions. Explosive cost increases of energy, of fertilizers and of non-fuel minerals, as well as the possibility of adverse climatic changes and the continuing threat of political instability constitute real dangers. Paramount is the uncontrolled growth of world population, especially in South Asia, which poses the ultimate question: can the populations of these countries be saved under any circumstances, or must Nature be allowed to take its course? The quality of life for our descendants will be determined by how many of them there will be.