読む---３（総合問題[明治大学]---その２）

先に取り上げた2002年度の明治大学（理工）のIIの冒頭の部分です。筆者はどんなことを言いたいのでしょうか。簡潔にまとめてみましょう。

    During difficult times such as these, you may be inclined to conclude that the world is against you. That, however, would be an incorrect conclusion. The world is not against you; Nature is.

    The essence of Nature is an infinity of possibilities. At any given point at any given time for any given action, an incalculable number of distinct things can happen next. For the most part, this is good news. Over the long run, the principle of infinite possibilities has been essential to the creation, diversity, and mystery of life.

    But day-to-day human existence is just a bit different. _AAn infinity of possibilities does not always work to our advantage. That's because there is usually only a finite set of things that can go right. In fact, we human beings tend to define things that way. ₁For instance, when the lawn mower is working, one thing is going right. But when the lawn mower is not working, one or more things have gone wrong.

まとめ終わった人は、実際の問題もやってみましょう。これ以降の文は、抽象的ではなく具体的に書かれているので、上の部分の作者の主張がよりはっきりわかると思います。

meiji-ko2002-2.pdfをダウンロード