考博英語閱讀理解第四講

Passage 4

The phrase "civil disobedience" is usually attributed to the nineteenth-century American philosopher Henry David Thoreau. Although the concept is unquestionably much older (its roots

lie in ancient Greek philosophy), the designation is nonetheless telling: people tend to credit Thoreau, an American, with the idea because civil disobedience, is a hallmark of American eth- ics and politics. The clash between the dictates of individual conscience on one hand, and the imperatives of civil law on the other, forms much of this country's history. Examples range from the incidents leading up to the Revolution through the many social protests of the 1960'S.