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Test: TOEFL
Adapted from Women and Economics by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1898)
All our virtues can be traced and accounted for. The great main stem of them all, what we call "love," is merely the first condition of social existence. It is cohesion, working among us at the constituent particles of society. Without some attraction to hold us together, we should not be able to hold together; and this attraction, as perceived by our consciousness, we call love.
The virtue of obedience consists in the surrender of the individual will, so often necessary to the common good; and it stands highest in military organization, wherein great numbers of men must act together against their personal interests, even to the sacrifice of life, in the service of the community. As we have grown into fuller social life, we have slowly and experimentally, painfully and expensively, discovered what kind of man was the best social factor. The type of a satisfactory member of society today is a man self-controlled, kind, gentle, strong, wise, brave, courteous, cheerful, true. In the Middle Ages, strong, brave, and true would have satisfied the demands of the time. We now require for our common good a larger range of qualities, a more elaborate moral organization. All this is a simple, evolutionary process of social life, and should have involved no more confusion, effort, and pain than any other natural process.
| 1. | In the passage above, the author argues what about social life? |
The author argues that all aspects of social life are founded upon love
The author argues that modern social life is more sophisticated than social life in the Middle Ages
The author argues that obedience and love are social experiences that serve little purpose in life
The author argues that social life never truly changes, although humans feel that it does
The author argues that as our social environments change, our social values evolve alongside
