issue36 [SJTU-ETB6 10G] 第4次作业

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ISSUE36 - "The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by their contemporaries."
WORDS: 517          TIME: 01:05:14          DATE: 2007-8-4 17:35:33

Who are the ones that should decide the greatness of individuals? The statement asserts that the ones should be those who live after them rather than their contemporaries. From my point of view, however, an absolute opinion on either descendants or contemporaries is not objective. The contemporaries, although in several respects inferior to descendants, can also decide rightly whether the greatness of individuals exists or not.

To begin with, on one hand, the reason why sometimes the greatness can only be decided by descendants lies in that the criteria of their contemporaries cannot accord with the achievements of the individuals. As the development of society, the criterions on value of different ages also changed, and thus the real value embodied in the works of those individuals which was not accepted or dig out by their contemporaries sometimes can be revealed and praised by us-- their descendants. Such individuals as some of the philosophers always endured this kind of process. At first, the viewpoint of theory which represented their latest research in philosophy was treated as heterodox one; then the philosophers suffered a lot from those contemporaries; at last, one day, more and more philosophers found that the actual situation in philosophy was just the same as they had pointed out. Only at this time the changed criterion has proved the greatness of the individuals.

On the other hand, greatness that cannot be decided by contemporaries had to refer to the time which can prove them. That is to say, after the fruition of some achievements of those individuals was brought out, the contemporaries cannot prove it due to the limited conditions they got. As a result, no contemporary could decide whether greatness existed or not, only left it to be decided by the descendants. Take Albert Einstein as an example. To break out the restrain of classical mechanics at the beginning of 20th century, Einstein put forward the special theory of relativity and the general theory of relativity. Constrained by the experiment condition, no one could prove them at that time. Till now, a mass of experiments has proved the validity of the special one, but the general one is still to be proved.

However, that is not to say that contemporaries cannot decide the greatness of those individuals. A lot of discoveries and inventions that could contribute to contemporary society were proved to be greatness immediately. Like the case in Britain, James Watt who was renowned for the vast improvement of stream engine was recognized by the whole industrial class in the Industrial Revolution. Also there is a case in the realm of Medicine, Grawford Williamson Long--the person who discovered anesthesia-- ended the excruciating ordeal when a surgery was taking, and surely his greatness was recognized immediately. Besides those, numerous greatness is granted contemporarily in almost every area.

In sum, after the delicate analysis above, we can safely arrive at the conclusion that in some cases the greatness is decided by contemporaries when the benefits are obvious and immediate, while in other cases the greatness is decided by descendants when there are limits and out-fashioned criterions.