《大学的理念》（节选）

【箴言】

各种观念进到头脑，如果不把一种观念与另一种观念比较，并使之系统化，就没有知识扩展可言。

如果没有分析、归类和关联的过程，即使学习再多的知识，心智也谈不上扩展，头脑也算不得开窍，或者说，也称不上具有综合的理解力。

【导读】

约翰•亨利（1801-1890），就学于牛津大学，1864年成为红衣主教。1854年都柏林成立天主教大学，约翰•亨利任校长。1852年他在都柏林为宣传这所新办的大学作了一系列的演讲。这些演讲后经修改，再加上他在其他场合所作的有关大学教育的演讲合成《大学的理念》（The idea of A university）一书。

【正文】

《大学的理念》(一)

知识要扩展，就不能是仅仅被动地即不假思索地接收一堆新的思想观念，而是对涌现的新的思想观念，要能够及时并积极地思考，要批判的审视这些思想，主动地接近这些思想，从主体的角度去体验这些思想。这是一种构造性的思维活动，它将我们获得的知识转化为有条理、有意义的思想；它使我们的知识客体成为我们自己的主观知识，通俗地说，就是将我们接收的事物加以消化，使之与我们已有的思想融为一体；没有这个过程，知识就不会随之而扩展。各种观念进到头脑，如果不把一种观念与另一种观念比较，并使之系统化，就没有知识扩展可言。我们不仅学习，而且将所学的与已知的进行对照，只有这样，我们才会感到心智在生长、在扩展。所谓启蒙，不仅是增加一点知识，而是将我们已经学到的和正在学习的大量知识吸收积聚至我们的大脑中，使之不断运转前进。因此，为人类普遍承认的、真正的有才之士，如亚里士多德、圣托马斯、牛顿或歌德（我说到这类才智时，有意同时举出天主教教会内外的例子），都能够将新与旧、过去与现在、远与近联系起来看，能够洞察这些事物之间的相互影响。没有这种观点，就看不到整体，看不到本质和中心。用这种观点掌握的知识就不仅看到一件件事，而且可以看到它们之间的本质联系。因此，这样的知识便不仅仅是单纯积累的东西，而是一种哲学思想。

《大学的理念》（二）

如果没有分析、归类和关联的过程，即使学习再多的知识，心智也谈不上扩展，头脑也算不得开窍，或者说，也称不上具有综合的理解力。如同我们已经说过的那样，一个记忆力好的人，不等于就可以成为一位哲学家，就像一本字典不能称为语法书一样。有些人，头脑中包罗了大量的、各种各样的思想观念，但对这些思想观念之间的实际关系却一无所知。这些人可能是古玩收藏家，编年史作者，或者是动物标本制作师。他们可能通晓法律、精通统计学，在他们各自的职位上，都是有用的人才。对这些人我是不敢妄加评论的，毕竟，他们取得的成就并不能保证他们不是思想狭隘的人。如果他们只是博览群书，或是见多识广，那么他们还配不上“造诣高深”的美称，也不能算是接受了开明的教育。

有时我们会邂逅这样一些人，他们见过很多世面，认识不少曾叱咤风云的人物，但是他们不会分析概括，没有真正意义上的观察力。他们对于人和事，虽富有离奇有趣而又详尽的见闻，但是因为没有宗教和政治上的明确的信念，所以他们提不出什么观点，不研讨任何真理性的问题，对听者无任何教益，只不过就事论事。这样的人虽见多识广，但谁也不会认为他们具有渊博的知识和深刻的思想。

原文鉴赏

一

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 acquirements 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 purpale, 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.

二

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 sensibilith about their real relations towards each other. These may be antiquarians, annalists, naturalists; they may ba 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 fulfills the type of liberal education.

We sometimes fall in with persons who have seen much of the world, and of the man 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 word. They abound in information in detail, curious and entertaining, about men and things; and, having lived under the influence of no 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 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.