Passage One
第一段

In the centuries that followed, the Christian monks taught the barbarian tribes the value of rule by law in contrast lo their earlier perspective, which had no concept of a territorial state or of justice based on a code of laws. The monasteries provided schools during these centuries. These were the only schools in Western Europe during the Middle Ages. By the 11^th and 12^th centuries the universities were beginning to develop. The University of Bologna was particularly famous d for the revived study of ancient Roman law.
在随后的几个世纪里，基督教僧侣向野蛮部落传授了法治的价值，这与他们早期的观点形成鲜明对比，后者没有领土国家或基于法典的正义概念。在这些世纪里，修道院提供了学校。这些是中世纪西欧唯一的学校。到了 11 ^th 世纪 ^th 和 12 世纪，大学开始发展。博洛尼亚大学以复兴古罗马法研究而闻名。

Another significant step in the development of the idea of rule by law took place with the signing of The Magna Charta in 1215 AD. During the Renaissance The Code of Justinian was rediscovered in the West. However, it included the concept that the one who makes the law is above the law. Thus it supported the absolute right of the king to rule as he pleased. However, when King John of England attempted to use this code of laws as the basis for his ruling by decree, his nobles revolted and forced him to sign The Magna Charta which protected their feudal rights. Here was one more bit of progress in the direction toward rule by law.
公元 1215 年签署《大宪章》后，法治思想发展的另一个重要步骤发生了。在文艺复兴时期，《查士丁尼法典》在西方被重新发现。但是，它包括制定法律的人凌驾于法律之上的概念。因此，它支持国王随心所欲地统治的绝对权利。然而，当英格兰国王约翰试图使用这部法典作为他通过法令进行统治的基础时，他的贵族们反抗并强迫他签署保护他们封建权利的《大宪章》。这是在走向法治方面又取得了一点进展。

Passage Two
第二段

One major change in modern Western culture is the loss of the transcendent. No major civilization in human history has ever before risen or existed without a deep sense of the transcendent, in whatever terms the transcendent was conceived. Whether people believed in gods or fate or some philosophical system, there was always something inexplicable and beyond the reach of ordinary experience which provided a background for ordinary life and a basis for ethical values and decisions.
现代西方文化的一个重大变化是超验的丧失。在人类历史上，没有一个主要文明的兴起或存在，没有一个对超验者的深刻认识，无论超验者是以何种方式构想的。无论人们相信神灵、命运还是某种哲学体系，总有一些莫名其妙的东西，超出了普通经验的范围，为普通生活提供了背景，为道德价值观和决定提供了基础。

As a result, Western culture has been increasingly secularized. The dominance of theology during the Middle Ages has given way to the modern conception that economics and business, politics and international relations, education and research, the media and communications. Psychology, philosophy and all the other disciplines of the modern university can only be properly understood and practiced if God is left entirely out of consideration. The West now lives in a thoroughly secularized culture.Religion has been pushed off to one side. It is tolerated, but only if it is kept within the boundaries of personal life and does not intrude into the public arena.
结果，西方文化越来越世俗化。神学在中世纪的主导地位已经让位于现代概念，即经济和商业、政治和国际关系、教育和研究、媒体和通信。心理学、哲学和现代大学的所有其他学科只有在完全不考虑上帝的情况下才能被正确地理解和实践。西方现在生活在一个彻底世俗化的文化中。宗教被推到一边。它是可以容忍的，但前提是它被保持在个人生活的范围内并且不侵入公共领域。

Passage Three
第三段

During many centuries the architects struggled with this problem of constructing a building that was large enough, The Roman tradition taught them how to build heavy stone walls with very small windows lest the walls lose their strength. On the top of this they then placed a heavy stone roof. But in the twelfth century, after the beginning of the Crusades, when the architects had seen the pointed arches of the Mohammedan builders, the western builders discovered new style which inspired them to make the sort of building which the intense religious life of those days demanded. And then they developed this strange style upon which the Italians bestowed the contemptuous name of Gothic or barbaric. They achieved their purpose by inventing a vaulted roof which was supported by ribs. But such a roof, if it became too heavy. To overcome this difficulty, certain French architects then began to re-enforce the walls with heavy masses of stone against which the walls could lean while they supported the roof. And to assure the further safety of the roof they supported the ribs of the roof by so-called “flying buttresses”.
几个世纪以来，建筑师们一直在努力解决建造足够大的建筑的问题，罗马传统教会他们如何建造带有非常小窗户的厚重石墙，以免墙壁失去强度。然后，他们在上面放置了一个沉重的石头屋顶。但是在十二世纪，十字军东征开始后，当建筑师看到穆斯林建筑商的尖拱时，西方建筑商发现了新的风格，这激发了他们建造当时激烈的宗教生活所要求的那种建筑。然后他们发展了这种奇怪的风格，意大利人赋予了哥特式或野蛮的轻蔑名称。他们通过发明由肋骨支撑的拱形屋顶来实现他们的目的。但是这样的屋顶，如果它变得太重了。为了克服这一困难，某些法国建筑师随后开始用沉重的石头重新加固墙壁，墙壁在支撑屋顶时可以靠在上面。为了确保屋顶的进一步安全，他们通过所谓的“飞扶壁”支撑屋顶的肋骨。

Passage Four
第四段

By the middle of the eighteenth century the music of Europe was in full swing. Then there came forward a man who was greater than all others, a simple organist by the name of Johann Sebastian Bach. In his compositions for every known instrument, from comic songs and popular dances to the most stately of sacred hymns, he laid the foundation for the modern music. When he died in 1750 he was succeeded by Mozart, who created musical fabrics of sheer loveliness which remind us of lace that has been woven out of harmony and rhythm. Then came Ludwig van Beethoven, the most tragic of men, who brought modern orchestra, yet heard none of his greatest compositions because he was deaf, as the result of a cold contracted during his years of poverty.
到十八世纪中叶，欧洲的音乐如火如荼。然后出现了一个比其他人更伟大的人，一个名叫约翰·塞巴斯蒂安·巴赫的普通管风琴家。在他为每一种已知乐器创作的作品中，从喜剧歌曲和流行舞蹈到最庄严的神圣赞美诗，他为现代音乐奠定了基础。当他于1750年去世时，莫扎特接替了他，他创造了纯粹可爱的音乐面料，让我们想起了由和谐和节奏编织而成的蕾丝。然后是路德维希·范·贝多芬（Ludwig van Beethoven），他带来了现代管弦乐队，却没有听到他最伟大的作品，因为他在贫困的岁月里患上了感冒，因此耳聋。

Beethoven lived through the period of the French Revolution. Full of hope for a new and glorious day, he had dedicated one of his symphonies to Napoleon. But he lived to regret the hour. When he died in 1827, Napoleon was gone, so was the French Revolution, but the steam engine had come and was filling the world with a sound that had nothing in common with the dreams of The Third Symphony.
贝多芬经历了法国大革命时期。他对新的光荣日子充满希望，将他的一部交响曲献给了拿破仑。但他活着后悔了那一刻。当他于1827年去世时，拿破仑已经去世，法国大革命也去世了，但蒸汽机已经到来，并且正在用一种与《第三交响曲》的梦想毫无共同之处的声音来填充世界。