The Idea of a University(Ⅱ)
[英国]约翰·亨利·纽曼/John Henry Newman
Now from these instances, to which many more might be added, it is plain, first, that the communication of knowledge certainly is either a condition or the means of that sense of enlargement or enlightenment, of which at this day we hear so much in certain quarters: this cannot be denied; but next, it is equally plain, that such communication is not the whole of the process. The enlargement consists, not merely in the passive reception into the mind of a number of ideas hitherto unknown to it, but in the mind' s energetic and simultaneous action upon and towards and among those new ideas, which are rushing in upon it. It is the action of a formative power, reducing to order and meaning the matter of our acquirements; it is a making the objects of our knowledge subjectively our own; or, to use a familiar word, it is a digestion of what we receive, into the substance of our previous state of thought; and without this no enlargement is said to follow. There is no enlargement, unless there be a comparison of ideas one with another, as they come before the mind, and a systematizing of them. We feel our minds to be growing and expanding then, when we not only learn, but refer what we learn to what we know already. It is not a mere addition to our knowledge which is the illumination; but the locomotion, the movement onwards, of that mental center, to which both what we know and what we are learning, the accumulating mass of our acquirement, gravitates. And therefore a truly great intellect, and recognized to be such by the common opinion of mankind, such as the intellect of Aristotle, or of St. Thomas, or of Newton, or of Goethe (I purposely take instances within and without the Catholic pale, when I would speak of the intellect as such), is one which takes a connected view of old and new, past and present, far and near, and which has an insight into the influence of all these one on another; without which there is no whole, and no center. It possesses the knowledge, not only of things, but also of their mutual and true relations; knowledge, not merely considered as acquirement, but as philosophy.
Accordingly, when this analytical, distributive, harmonizing process is away, the mind experiences no enlargement, and is not reckoned as enlightened or comprehensive, whatever it may add to its knowledge. For instance, a great memory, as I have already said, does not make a philosopher, any more than a dictionary can be called a grammar. There are men who embrace in their minds a vast multitude of ideas, but with little sensibility about their real relations towards each other. These may be antiquarians, annalists, naturalists; they may be learned in the law; they may be versed in statistics; they are most useful in their own place; I should shrink from speaking disrespectfully of them; still, there is nothing in such attainments to guarantee the absence of narrowness of mind. If they are nothing more than well-read men, or men of information, they have not what specially deserves the name of culture of mind, or fulfils the type of liberal education.
In like manner we sometimes fall in with persons who have seen much of the world, and of the men who, in their day, have played a conspicuous part in it, but who generalize nothing, and have no observation, in the true sense of the world. They abound in information in detail, curious and entertaining, about men and things; and, having lived under the influence of not very clear or settled principles, religious or political, they speak of every one and everything, only as so many phenomena, which are complete in themselves, and lead to nothing, not discussing them, or teaching any truth, or instructing the hearer, but simply talking. No one would say that these persons, well informed as they are, had attained to any great culture of intellect or to philosophy.
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现在，从这些例子以及更多这样的例子可以明显看出：首先，知识的交流必然是以知识的扩充和启发为条件或手段。关于这一点，现在一些地方有许多讨论，这是无可否认的事实；但是，同样明显的是：这样的交流并不是知识的扩充和启发的全过程。知识的扩充不仅指被动地接受一些以往不知道的观念，也指在这些新观念涌入头脑的同时，对其进行积极的思考。这样的思考具有创造力，能够将获得的知识变得条理清楚、意义鲜明；这使客观事物转变成我们的主观认识，用一个通俗的词来形容，就是“消化”，使新接收的知识能够与我们?有的思想融合在一起；没有这一环节，就不可能完成知识的扩充过程。
当新的知识进入大脑，我们必须使它系统化，并将其与别的知识互相对比，只有这样，才能使我们的知识有所扩充。当我们不仅学习，而且知道把正在学习的知识与已?掌握的知识进行比较时，我们才会感觉到思想在成长和扩展。启发并不只是单纯地表示增加知识，而是指将我们学过的和正在学的知识在脑子里集中起来，并使它们不断向前发展进步。因此，被人类公认为真正伟大的一些智者，比如亚里士多德、圣托马斯、牛顿或歌德（我谈到这些智者时，特意在天主教内外都举出一些例子），他们都能够把新的和老的、以前的和现在的、远的和近的等等不同的观念联系起来看待，他们能够看到这些观念相互之间的影响。没有这种能力，人们就看不到事物的整体，看不到事物的核心。拥有这种能力，所看到的就不仅仅是事物本身，还能看到它们之间的本质；知识在他们眼里，就不仅仅是一种学识，更是一种哲理。
由此可知，如果剔除了这种分析、分类和D调的过程，那么不管头脑里灌进了多少知识，思想都得不到扩展、启发，都不能获得综合性的理解能力。举个例子，就像我说过的，一个记性好的人不能称为哲学家，一本大字典也不能称做语法书。有些人脑子里有许许多多知识，但他们并不知道这些知识之间有何联系。这些人可能是古玩收藏家、编年史编者或博物学家；他们可能精于法律，也可能通晓统计学；他们在自己的领域内十分有价值；我不敢对他们说什么不敬的话。然而，即使有这样的成绩，也不能保证他们思想不狭隘。如果他们只是一些多读了一些书，或者多掌握了一些资料，那他们就称不上造诣颇深，也算不上受到了开明的教育。
同样，有时我们也会遇上一些这样的人，他们见多识广，或显赫一时。但是，他们对这些见识既无归纳能力，也不懂得观察世界。他们掌握的是关于人和事物大量细节性的、娱乐性的、稀奇古怪的资料；而且，由于没有明确或者确定的政治宗教?则来指导生活，他们不会讨论，只能就事论事地说一些现象，不能产生任何新的东西，也不会给听众带来任何教益——他们只是单纯地说话而已。没有人会认为这些见多识广的人学识深厚或者精通哲理。
梦想，从大学开始！
一种错觉
An Illusion
[英国]威廉·萨默塞特·毛姆/William Somerset Maugham
It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched, for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real they are bruised and wounded. It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; for the books they read, ideal by the necessity of selection, and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life.
