The core of a nation's national philosophy is usually expressed in its constitution. In some countries, such as the United States, the nation's political philosophy has been set down in a single written document. In other countries, such as Great Britain, the substance of the nation's political philosophy consists of separate laws and judicial decisions made over hundreds of years. Thus Great Britain's “constitution” is simply all those laws and court opinions that are still in force. Regardless of whether a country's constitution is found in a single document or in many, it is usually extended through interpretation, customs, and traditions.
To endure over a period of time, a written document must contain thought and language so flexible as to be interpreted differently by succeeding generations to meet new governmental requirements, changes in social customs, and technological advances. This does not mean that a particular principle stated in a constitution will be ignored when it is no longer needed. It means the principle will simply be redefined to fit the new situations as they come into being. For this reason, interpretation of a constitution is often as important as the formal document itself.
The United States Constitution is a lean document that has been expanded substantially both through judicial interpretation and political practice. As the oldest written constitution in existence, it has proved well able to withstand the test of time.
There are 7 articles and 27 amendments in The Constitution of the United States of America (Woll & Binstock 1984: 574). The full Constitution can be viewed at the following addresses: http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html, http://www.law.cornell.edu/ constitution/constitution.overview.html, http://www.usconstitution.net.
2. Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (1667—1745) was an English satirist. Born in Ireland of English parents, Swift lived a life that might almost be described as a continual flight from Ireland and a constant return to it, as if the fugitive were impelled by an unalterable destiny. His greatest disappointment was his failure to become a bishop in England and his being given, instead, the deanship of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin.
Swift attended Kilkenny Grammar School and Trinity College; he first left Ireland in 1688, and for most part of the 1690s he served as secretary to Sir William Temple at Moor Park, Surrey, where he had time to read and to try his hand at writing. Resenting his dependent status and distressed at his lack of advancement, he made his first return to Ireland in 1694, and by being ordained in the Anglican Church laid the foundation for his final return to Dublin as Dean Swift 20 years later. After an unsuccessful effort to marry an heiress with whom he fell in love, Swift left Ireland again in 1696, for a second term with Temple at Moor Park. In 1699, Temple died, Swift went back to Ireland again with minor church appointments with various visits to London. He began to write satirical prose during this second term, and in 1704 published The Battle of the Books, a mock-epic about the “quarrel of the ancients and the moderns”; and A Tale of a Tub, a mixture of satirical essays and a narrative which burlesques the historical development of the Christian sects. Here, he exhibits the keen insight and develops the unusual objectivity that characterize so much of his work. From 1708 to 1714, he made a continuous stay with an ecclesiastical mission and wrote with sharp irony on church questions. In the most brilliant period of his life he was the associate of the ministers of Oxford and of such literary figures as Pope, Congreve, Gay, Parnell, etc. Yet the excitement and promise of the period ended in anticlimax and disappointment: the Tories went into a decline, and in 1714, Swift went back again to Ireland, and stayed in Dublin, with only a few visits to England, for his final long Irish sojourn. During this period of his life, he reconciled with his destiny, won the love of the Irish, and did his most distinguished writing: A Modest Proposal (1720), urging the Irish to solve their problems by raising children for the English food market, one of the finest pieces of irony in English; Gulliver's Travels (1726) makes highly original use of fantasy to comment both on contemporary society and on the foibles and failures of humanity in general. He wrote many other pamphlets on Irish affairs. His last years were less happy. After 1739, when he was 72 years old, his infirmities cut him off from his duties as dean, and from then on his social life dwindled. In 1742, guardians were appointed to administer his affairs, and his last three years were spent in gloom and lethargy. But this dark ending should not put his earlier life, so full of energy and humor, into a shadow. The writer of the satires was a man in full control of great intellectual powers.
For further information, visit the following addresses: http://www.accd.edu/sac/english/ bailey/swift.htm, http://65.107.211.206/previctorian/swift/swiftov.html .
3. the Orient The Orient may refer to the countries of Asia, especially of Eastern Asia. Oriental Studies includes Japanese studies, Buddhism, Sinology, and so on. Take Sinology for example, in Japan there are Tokyo School and Kyoto School, based respectively at the Chinese departments of Tokyo University and Kyoto University. Tokyo School emphasizes modernism, although they also specialize in Dunhuang Studies, while Kyoto School attaches importance to classicism, considering that the Sinologist elite is in their school. In the USA, the Yanjing Association in Harvard University offers great support to the study of Sinology around the world. In Europe, French Sinologists are remarkably active. What is the true value of Sinology? It shows us the fact that Chinese culture is widely respected around the world. Now, it is time we Chinese set our minds to take the responsibility of unearthing the precious treasure buried in our inheritance. For further information, check the Encyclopaedia of the Orient by visiting http://www.i-cias. com/e.o/ or http://lexicorient.com/e.o/orient.htm.
4. Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau (1817—1862) was not only a thinker, but also a practitioner of Transcendentalism, which exalted feeling over reason, individual expression over the restraints of law and custom. He believed in the transcendence of oversoul, an all-pervading power for goodness from which all things come and of which all things are a part. His main opinions may be summarized as: 1) Man has the capacity of knowing truth intuitively or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the senses. Man is a part of absolute good. 2) Nature is ennobling. Man is better for being out in the woods or meadows. 3) There exists oversoul, so the individual soul could reach God, without the help of churches and clergymen.
Thoreau is best remembered for Walden, or, Life in the Woods, published in 1854. In this work, Thoreau expressed his scorn on the idea that one needs travelling far, and insisted that the best traveling is done while staying at home, exploring the cosmography of the imagination. Thoreau said he was happiest alone, yet he was frequently in contact with the Concord-Boston group that included Emerson, Fuller, Hawthorne, Alcott, and Ellery Channing. He made a special trip to New Jersey to meet Walt Whitman; he visited with others on his walks through the woods and to the surrounding farms. He also got in touch with newspaper editors and book publishers whom he tried to interest in his works, as well as with the men who arranged his lecturing engagements that took him as far afield as Philadelphia and Bangor. Thoreau lived so busy a life, filled with so many activities that kept him in almost constant give-and-take with the everyday world, that it might seem surprising he had time for solitary meditations on the simplified life dedicated to contemplating eternal and universal truths. Thoreau's health began to decline as early as 1855. In May 1862 he died of tuberculosis. Both as a man and as a writer, Thoreau tried to convert the jagged connections of the world of human society into the seamless cosmic whole of nature's universe. He portrayed the aspirations of our dual selves, which go to the bottom of ponds and to the heights of stars. Thoreau realized the hazardous terms by which our duality comes into conjunction with the universe. We are instructed to live in the moment, lest we fall outside the fateful rhythms set up for our lives. We must be fully awake in order to escape the seep of the spirit into the dead weight of an exclusively material system. We have to simplify the acts of our daily doings while relishing the array of meanings that lie in the sacred “texts” found in the natural world. We are encouraged to go to inner frontiers where facts are “confronted” — traveling far while staying home. Check out the website http://www.eserver.org/thoreau/thoreau.html for more information about Thoreau.
