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Lesson 22 Knowledge and progress 知识和进步 Why does the idea of progress loom so large in the modern world?Surely because progress of a particular kind is actually taking place around usand is becoming more and more manifest.Although mankind has undergone nogeneral improvement in intelligence or morality, it has made extraordinaryprogress in the accumulation of knowledge.|| Knowledge began to increase assoon as the thoughts of one individual could be communicated to another bymeans of speech.With the invention of writing, a great advance was made,forknowledge could then be not only communicated but also stored.Libraries madeeducation possible, and education in its turn added to libraries: the growth ofknowledge followed a kind of compound-interest law,which was greatly enhancedby the invention of printing.All this was comparatively slow until, with thecoming of science, the tempo was suddenly raised.Then knowledge began to beaccumulated according to a systematic plan.The trickle became a stream; thestream has now become a torrent.|| Moreover, as soon as new knowledge isacquired, it is now turned to practical account.What is calledmoderncivilizationis not the result of a balanced development of all mans nature, butof accumulated knowledge applied to practical life.The problem now facinghumanity is: What is going to be done with all this knowledge? As is so oftenpointed out, knowledge is a two-edged weapon which can be used equally for goodor evil.It is now being used indifferently for both.Could any spectacle, forinstance, be more grimly whimsical than that of gunners using science toshatter mens bodies while, close at hand, surgeons use it to restore them? Wehave to ask ourselves very seriously what will happen if this twofold use ofknowledge, with its ever-increasing power,continues.|| | 
