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达芬奇忙于他的很多发明以至于不能完成他的画作；年仅32岁战死沙场的西德尼不只是个伟大的战士，还是个出色的学者和诗人。这两个人都达到了文艺复兴的“通才”思想，他们精通一切。
It is perhaps, no accident that many of the outstanding figures of the past were exceptionally versatile men. Right up until comparatively recent times, it was possible for an intelligent person to acquaint himself with almost every branch of knowledge. Thus man of genius like Leonardo da Vinci or Sir Philip Sidney, engaged in many careers at once as a matter of course. Da Vinci was so busy with his numerous inventions, that he barely found time to complete his paintings; Sidney, who died when he was only 32 years old, was not only a great soldier, but a brilliant scholar and poet as well. Both these men came very near to fulfilling the Renaissance ideal of the “universal man”, the man who was good at everything.
Today, we rarely, if ever, hear that a musician has invented a new type of submarine. Knowledge has been divided and sub-divided into countless, narrow-defined parts. The specialists are respected; the versatile person, far from being admired, is more often regarded with suspicion. The modern world is a world of high-skilled experts who have had to devote the greater part of their lives to a very limited field of study in order to compete with their fellows.
With this high degree of specialization, the frontiers of knowledge are steadily being pushed back more rapidly than ever before. But this has not been achieved without considerable cost. The scientist, who outside his own particular subject is little more than a idiot, is a modern phenomenon; as is the man of letters who is barely aware of the tremendous strides that have been made in technology. Similarly, specialization has indirectly affected quite ordinary people in every walk of life. Many activities which were once pursued for their own sakes, are often given up in despair; they require techniques, the experts tell us, which take a life-time to master. Why learn to play the piano, when you can listen to the world’s greatest pianists in your own drawing-room?
