2.
Philosophy and Baseball
In the fall of 1967, the Boston Red Sox were
playing in the World Series. I was a freshman at a
university that was located in the Midwestat the
time, enrolled in a philosophy course that met at two
in the afternoon. The course was taught by a native
Bostonian. He wanted to watch the games on television,
but he was too responsible to cancel class. So he
conducted classes, those October afternoons, while
actually listening to the games on a small transistor
radio propped up inside his lectern, the volume
turned down so that only he could hear.
Baseball is unique among
American sports by its ability to appeal to a
love resembling that of a child of fable and
legend. Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio,
Roberto Clemente—names like these will echo through
time that are trumpet calls to storied battles fought
and won in ages past. When Hank Aaron
stretched out a sinewy arm to pull one down,
striding up to a rack of ash-hewn bats, he became a
modern-day knight selecting their lance. And
when glints of the afternoon sun shone off Mickey
Mantle's colossal bat, there will have to be seen
for one brief, stirring moment the glimmer of the
jewels in King Arthur's own mighty sword, Excalibur.
So there he stood, that learned professor of
mine, lecturing about the ideas, that have engaged
people's minds for centuries. Then he'd interrupt
himself to announce, with smiling eyes, that the Sox
had taken a two-to-nothing lead. Here was a
man who's mind was disciplined
inside his schoolbook to contemplate
the collected wisdom of the ages—and he
was behaving like a boy with a contraband
comic opened. On those warm October days, as
the afternoon sun dances and plays on the domes
and spires of the university, the philosophers
had to stand aside, for the professor's imagination
had transported him to the Boston of his youth.
Choose the best alternative for the underlined part.
A. 
B. 
C. 
Midwestern university then
D. 
University which was in the Midwest
5.
SOCIAL SCIENCE: This passage is adapted from Leonard W.
Levy's Origins of the Fifth Amendment: The Right Against Self
Incrimination. (©1968 by Clio Enterprises Inc.).
Community courts and community justice pre-
vailed in England at the time of the Norman Conquest
[1066]. The legal system was ritualistic, dependent
upon oaths at most stages of litigation, and permeated
5
by both religious and superstitious notions. The pro-
ceedings were oral, very personal, and highly con-
frontative. Juries were unknown. One party publicly
"appealed," or accused, the other before the community
meeting at which the presence of both was obligatory.
10
To be absent meant risking fines and outlawry. After
the preliminary statements of the parties, the court ren-
dered judgment, not on the merits of the issue nor the
question of guilt or innocence, but on the manner by
which it should be resolved. Judgment in other words
15
preceded trial because it was a decision on what form
the trial should take. It might be by compurgation, by
ordeal, or, after the Norman Conquest, by battle.
Excepting trial by battle, only one party was tried or,
more accurately, was put to his "proof." Proof being
20
regarded as an advantage, it was usually awarded to the
accused party; in effect he had the privilege of proving
his own case.
Trial by compurgation consisted of a sworn state-
ment to the truth of one's claim or denial, supported by
25
the oaths of a certain number of fellow swearers.
Presumably they, no more than the claimant, would
endanger their immortal souls by the sacrilege of false
swearing. Originally the oath-helpers swore from their
own knowledge to the truth of the party's claim. Later
30
they became little more than character witnesses,
swearing only to their belief that his oath was trust-
worthy. If he rounded up the requisite number of com-
purgators and the cumbrous swearing in very exact
form proceeded without a mistake, he won his case. A
35
mistake "burst" the oath, proving guilt.
Ordeals were usually reserved for more serious
crimes, for persons of bad reputation, for peasants, or
for those caught with stolen goods. As an invocation of
immediate divine judgment, ordeals were consecrated
40
by the Church and shrouded with solemn religious mys-
tery. The accused underwent a physical trial in which
he called upon God to witness his innocence by putting
a miraculous sign upon his body. Cold water, boiling
water, and hot iron were the principal ordeals, all of
45
which the clergy administered. In the ordeal of cold
water, the accused was trussed up and cast into a pool
to see whether he would sink or float. On the theory
that water which had been sanctified by a priest would
receive an innocent person but reject the guilty, inno-
50
cence was proved by sinking—and hopefully a quick
retrieval—guilt by floating. In the other ordeals, one
had to plunge his hand into a cauldron of boiling water
or carry a red hot piece of iron for a certain distance, in
the hope that three days later, when the bandages were
55
removed, the priest would find a "clean" wound, one
that was healing free of infection. How deeply one
plunged his arm into the water, how heavy the iron or
great the distance it was carried, depended mainly on
the gravity of the charge.
60
The Normans brought to England still another
ordeal, trial by battle, paradigm of the adversary
system, which gave to the legal concept of "defense" or
"defendant" a physical meaning. Trial by battle was a
savage yet sacred method of proof which was also
65
thought to involve divine intercession on behalf of the
righteous. Rather than let a wrongdoer triumph, God
would presumably strengthen the arms of the party who
had sworn truly to the justice of his cause. Right, not
might, would therefore conquer. Trial by battle was
70
originally available for the settlement of all disputes
but eventually was restricted to cases of serious crime.
Whether one proved his case by compurgation,
ordeal, or battle, the method was accusatory in char-
acter. There was always a definite and known accuser,
75
some private person who brought formal suit and
openly confronted his antagonist. There was never any
secrecy in the proceedings, which were the same for
criminal as for civil litigation. The judges, who had no
role whatever in the making of the verdict, decided only
80
which party should be put to proof and what its form
should be; thereafter the judges merely enforced an
observance of the rules. The oaths that saturated the
proceedings called upon God to witness to the truth of
the respective claims of the parties, or the justice of
85
their cause, or the reliability of their word. No one gave
testimonial evidence nor was anyone questioned to test
his veracity.
As it is used in line 33, the word cumbrous most nearly means:
A. 
B. 
C. 
D.