Most people would agree that, although our age exceeds all previous ages in knowledge, there has been no corresponding increase in wisdom. But agreement ceases as soon as we attempt to define "wisdom" and consider means of promoting it.

　　There are several factors that contribute to wisdom. Of these I should put first a sense of proportion: the capacity to take account of all the important factors in a prob-lem and to attach to each its due weight. This has become more difficult than it used to be owing to the extent and complexity of the special knowledge required of various kinds of technicians. Suppose, for example, that you are engaged in research in scien- tific medicine. The work is difficult and is likely to absorb the whole of your mind.

　　You have no time to consider the effect which your discoveries or inventions may have outside the field of medicine. You succeed (let us say) as modern medicine has succee-ded, in enormously lowering the infant death-rate, not only in Europe and America, but also in Asia and Africa. This has the entirely unintended result of making the food supply inadequate and lowering the standard of life in the parts of the world that have the greatest populations. To take an even more dramatic example, which is in everybody's mind at the present time; you study the makeup of the atom from a disin-terested (無利害關(guān)系的) desire for knowledge, and by chance place in the hands of a powerful mad man the means of destroying the human race.

　　Therefore, with every increase of knowledge and skill, wisdom becomes more necessary, for every such increase augments (增強) our capacity for realising our pur-poses, and therefore augments our capacity for evil, if our purposes are unwise.

　　The author uses the examples in the passage to illustrate his point that

　　A. it's extremely difficult to consider all the important elements in a problem

　　B. success in medical research has its negative effects

　　C. scientists may unknowingly cause destruction to the human race.

　　D. it's unwise to be totally absorbed in research in scientific medicine

　　題干問的是幾個例子的例證作用。事實上，本文的兩個例子都集中在第二段：第一個例子從第二段第四句開始，有一個標志詞，for example，這屬于上述的“從總結(jié)說明到舉例子的模式”，答案在例子之前;第二個例子在第二段末，也有提示詞：To take an even more dramatic example，它進一步例證第一個例子所說明的意思。因此，只需直接找第一個例子之前的總結(jié)性語句即可：This has become more difficult than it used to be ow-ing to the extent and complexity of the special knowledge required of various kinds of technicians.這是緊承上句 "take account of all the important factors in a problem" 而來的，由此可知正確答案A為被例證的論點：考慮一個問題中的所有重要因素極為困難。