【英語天天讀】Universities and Their Function

Universities and Their Function

   By Alfred North Whitehead

The justification for a university is that it preserves the connection between knowledge and the zest(n. 風味；熱心；強烈的興趣) of life, by uniting the young and the old in the imaginative consideration of learning. The university imparts information, but it imparts it imaginatively. At least, this is the function which it should perform for society. A university which fails in this respect has no reason for existence. This atmosphere of excitement, arising from imaginative consideration, transforms knowledge. A fact is no longer a bare fact: it is invested with all its possibilities. It is no longer a burden on the memory: it is

energising(供給…能量) as the poet of our dreams, and as the architect of our purposes.

Imagination is not to be divorced from the facts: it is a way of illuminating the facts. It works by drawing the general principles which apply to the facts, as they exist, and then by an intellectual survey of alternative possibilities which are consistent with those principles. It enables men to construct an intellectual vision of a new world, and it preserves the zest of life by the suggestion of satisfying purposes.

Youth is imaginative, and if the imagination be strengthened by discipline this energy of imagination can in great measure be preserved through life. The tragedy of the world is that those who are imaginative have but slight experience, and those who are

experienced have feeble imaginations. Fools act on imagination without knowledge; pedants(n. 學究；書呆子；賣弄學問的人；空談家) act on knowledge without imagination. The task of a university is to weld together imagination and experience.

大學之是以有理由存在，就在于它使新老兩代在富于想象中學習，進而使知識與生活熱情之間得以彼此相連。大學是傳授知識的，但它以富有想象力的方式進行傳授。至少，這是它應該為社會發揮的作用。一所大學若不能如此就毫無存在的理由。人富于想象後便會感到興奮激動，使知識得以徹底轉化——事實已不再僅僅為事實，它具有了所有替在的可能 。它不再是記憶的累贅，而是充滿了活力，猶如能描繪我們美夢的詩人和實作我們心願的設計師。

想象與事實不可分離：通過它事實變得鮮明生動。想象使人獲得與存在的事實相适合的一般原則，并讓人對與那些原則相一緻的各種可能進行理性的審視。想象讓人建構起某種關于一個新世界的富有理性的視覺，通過暗示出一些令人喜悅的意圖而使生活熱情得以維持。

青年是富有想象力的，如果想象通過訓練得以加強，那麼這種想象力就能在生活中獲得極大的維護。這個世界的悲劇在于那些富有想象力的人經驗不多，而那些富有經驗的人卻想象不足。沒有知識的傻瓜全憑想象辦事，沒有想象的學究全憑知識辦事。大學的任務就是把想象和經驗彼此結合起來。