| Line | Despite their many differences of temperament and |
| of literary perspective, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, | |
| Melville, and Whitman shared certain beliefs. Common | |
| to all these writers is their humanistic perspective. | |
| (5) | Its basic premises are that humans are the spiritual |
| center of the universe and that in them alone is the | |
| clue to nature, history, and ultimately the cosmos. | |
| Without denying outright the existence of a deity, this | |
| perspective explains humans and the world in terms | |
| (10) | of humanity. |
| This common perspective is almost always | |
| universalized. It emphasizes the human as universal, | |
| freed from the accidents of time, space, birth, and | |
| talent. Thus, for Emerson, the “American Scholar” | |
| (15) | turns out to be simply “Man Thinking,” while, for |
| Whitman, the “Song of Myself” merges imperceptibly | |
| into a song of all the “children of Adam,” where “every | |
| atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” | |
| Also common to all five writers is the belief | |
| (20) | that self-realization depends on the harmonious |
| reconciliation of two universal psychological | |
| tendencies: first, the self-asserting impulse of | |
| the individual to be responsible only to himself or | |
| herself, and second, the self-transcending impulse | |
| (25) | of the individual to know and become one with |
| that world. These conflicting impulses can be seen | |
| in the democratic ethic. Democracy advocates | |
| individualism, the preservation of the individual's | |
| freedom and self-expression. But the democratic self | |
| (30) | is torn between the duty to self, which is implied by |
| the concept of liberty, and the duty to society, which | |
| is implied by the concepts of equality and fraternity. | |
| A third assumption common to the five writers is | |
| that intuition and imagination offer a surer road to | |
| (35) | truth than does abstract logic or scientific method. It |
| is illustrated by their emphasis upon introspection— | |
| their belief that the clue to external nature is to be | |
| found in the inner world of individual psychology—and | |
| by their interpretation of experience as, in essence, | |
| (40) | symbolic. Both these stresses presume an organic |
| relationship between the self and the cosmos of | |
| which only intuition and imagination can properly take | |
| account. These writers’ faith in the imagination and | |
| in themselves led them to conceive of the writer as a | |
| (45) | seer. |
Economist: Paying extra for fair-trade coffee—coffee labeled with the Fairtrade logo—is intended to help poor farmers, because they receive a higher price for the fair-trade coffee they grow. But this practice may hurt more farmers in developing nations than it helps. By raising average prices for coffee, it encourages more coffee to be produced than consumers want to buy. This lowers prices for non-fair-trade coffee and thus lowers profits for non-fair-trade coffee farmers.
To evaluate the strength of the economist's argument, it would be most helpful to know which of the following?
Ozone in the stratosphere blocks deadly ultraviolet rays from the sun, but chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in aerosols and other products have thinned this protective layer. Evidence of this is the ozone hole that forms over the South Pole every Antarctic spring as temperatures drop below –78°C, the temperature at which ozone depletion occurs. Measurements of the ozone hole taken at various times this spring show that, compared with the same times the previous year, its area diminished by four million square kilometers. Nevertheless, scientists have not concluded that the ozone layer is recovering.
Which of the following would, if true, provide the strongest reason for the scientists’ reaction to the measurements?