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It reminds us of the shaping power that reaches through the flower stem and through our own hands. It restores our faith in the generosity of nature. By giving us a taste of the kinship between our own small minds and the great Mind of the Cosmos, beauty reassures us that we are exactly and wonderfully made for life on this glorious planet, in this magnificent universe. I find in that affinity a profound source of meaning and hope. A universe so prodigal of beauty may actually need us to notice and respond, may need our sharp eyes and brimming hearts and teeming minds, in order to close the circuit of Creation.
无论是一朵花或是一双手，都让我们联想到美的创造力量。美让我们重拾信念---相信自然对于我们的无私恩惠与慷慨。美在人类渺小的心灵和宇宙伟大的精魂之间，化身为一座沟通的桥梁，并以此让我们不再怀疑：在这片恢宏的宇宙中，在这颗璀璨的星球上，人类的存在实为天工之作，神明之意。宇宙和人类对于美的共识，给予我生存的意义与希望。我们的宇宙中，美无处不在；她等待着我们敏锐的眼睛、充实的心灵，和泉涌般的智慧，去发现美，去回应美，由此成全造物的圆满。 译者注：
本文为美国当代作家司各特·罗素·桑达（Scott Russell Sander，1945-）所写。桑达出生于美国田纳西州(Tennessee)的孟菲斯(Memphis)。1963年，他就读于布朗大学(Brown University), 其后，又就读于剑桥大学（Cambridge University）并获得文学博士。1971年，他携妻子(就是本文一开始提到的Ruth，而Eva则是作者的女儿)迁往印地安那州(Indiana)的布鲁明顿(Bloomington), 并在那里的印地安那大学(Indiana University)任教至今。印地安那的自然风光给予他创作的灵感，他在作品中对于自然的生动细致描写充分体现出他对环境的关注。本文选自他新近出版的作品《寻找希望》（Hunting for Hope）。（编辑：李吉琴）
The Literature of Knowledge and the Literature of Power byThomas De Quincey
知识文学与力量文学托 马斯·昆西
What is it that we mean by literature? Popularly, and amongst the thoughtless, it is held to include everything that is printed in a book. Little logic is required to disturb that definition. The most thoughtless person is easily made aware that in the idea of literature one essential element is some relation to a general and common interest of man—so that what applies only to a local, or professional, or merely personal interest, even though presenting itself in the shape of a book, will not belong to Literature. So far the definition is easily narrowed; and it is as easily expanded. For not only is much that takes a station in books not literature; but inversely, much that really is literature never reaches a station in books. The weekly sermons of Christendom, that vast pulpit literature which acts so extensively upon the popular mind—to warn, to uphold, to renew, to comfort, to alarm—does not attain the sanctuary of
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libraries in the ten-thousandth part of its extent. The Drama again—as, for instance, the finest of Shakespeare’s plays in England, and all leading Athenian plays in the noontide of the Attic stage—operated as a literature on the public mind, and were (according to the strictest letter of that term) published through the audiences that witnessed their representation some time before they were published as things to be read; and they were published in this scenical mode of publication with much more effect than they could have had as books during ages of costly copying or of costly printing.
我们所说的“文学”是什么呢？人们，尤其是对此欠考虑者，普遍会认为：文学包括印在书本中的一切。可这种定义无需多少理由便可被推翻。最缺乏思考的人也很容易明白，“文学”这一概念中有个基本要素，即文学或多或少都与人类普遍而共同的兴趣有关；因此，那些仅适用于某一局部、某一行业或仅仅处于个人兴趣的作品，即便以书的形式面世，也不该属于“文学”。就此而论，文学之定义很容易变窄，而它同样也不难拓宽。因为不仅有许多跻身于书卷之列的文字并非文学作品，而且与之相反，不少真正的文学著作却未曾付梓成书。譬如基督教世界每星期的布道，这种篇什浩繁且对民众精神影响极广的讲坛文学，这种对世人起告戒、鼓励、振奋、安抚或警示作用的布道文学，最终能进入经楼书馆的尚不及其万分之一。此外还有戏剧，如英国莎士比亚最优秀的剧作，以及雅典戏剧艺术鼎盛时期的全部主流剧作，都曾作为文学作品对公众产生过影响。这些作品在作为读物出版之前，已通过观看其演出的观众而“出版”了（这正是“出版”一词最严格的意义）。在抄写或印刷都非常昂贵的年代，通过舞台形式“出版”这些剧作远比将它们出版成书效果更佳。
Books, therefore, do not suggest an idea coextensive and interchangeable with the idea of Literature; since much literature, scenic, forensic, or didactic (as from lecturers and public orators), may never come into books, and much that does come into books may connect itself with no literary interest. But a far more important correction, applicable to the common vague idea of literature, is to be sought not so much in a better definition of literature as in a sharper distinction of the two functions which it fulfills. In that great social organ which, collectively, we call literature, there may be distinguished two separate offices that may blend and often do so, but capable, severally, of a severe insulation, and naturally fitted for reciprocal repulsion. There is, first, the literature of knowledge; and, secondly, the literature of power. The function of the first is—to teach; the function of the second is—to move: the first is a rudder; the second, an oar or a sail. The first speaks to the mere discursive understanding; the second speaks ultimately, it may happen, to the higher understanding or reason, but always through affections of pleasure and sympathy. Remotely, it may travel towards an object seated in what Lord Bacon calls dry light; but, proximately, it does and must operate—else it ceases to be a literature of power—on and through that humid light which clothes itself in the mists and
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glittering iris of human passions, desires, and genial emotions. Men have so little reflected on the higher functions of literature as to find it a paradox if one should describe it as a mean or subordinate purpose of books to give information. But this is a paradox only in the sense which makes it honorable to be paradoxical. Whenever we talk in ordinary language of seeking information or gaining knowledge, we understand the words as connected with something of absolute novelty. But it is the grandeur of all truth which can occupy a very high place in human interests that it is never absolutely novel to the meanest of minds: it exists eternally by way of germ or latent principle in the lowest as in the highest, needing to be developed, but never to be planted. To be capable of transplantation is the immediate criterion of a truth that ranges on a lower scale. Besides which, there is a rarer thing than truth—namely, power, or deep sympathy with truth. What is the effect, for instance, upon society, of children? By the pity, by the tenderness, and by the peculiar modes of admiration, which connect themselves with the helplessness, with the innocence, and with the simplicity of children, not only are the primal affections strengthened and continually renewed, but the qualities which are dearest in the sight of heaven—the frailty, for instance, which appeals to forbearance, the innocence which symbolizes the heavenly, and the simplicity which is most alien from the worldly—are kept up in perpetual remembrance, and their ideals are continually refreshed. A purpose of the same nature is answered by the higher literature, viz. the literature of power. What do you learn from Paradise Lost? Nothing at all. What do you learn from a cookery book? Something new, something that you did not know before, in every paragraph. But would you therefore put the wretched cookery book on a higher level of estimation than the divine poem? What you owe to Milton is not any knowledge, of which a million separate items are still but a million of advancing steps on the same earthly level; what you owe is power—that is, exercise and expansion to your own latent capacity of sympathy with the infinite, where every pulse and each separate influx is a step upwards, a step ascending as upon a Jacob’s ladder from earth to mysterious altitudes above the earth. All the steps of knowledge, from first to last, carry you further on the same plane, but could never raise you one foot above your ancient level of earth: whereas the very first step in power is a flight—is an ascending movement into another element where earth is forgotten.
由此可见，书之概念与“文学”之概念不可相提并论，互相替换，因为许多文学作品，如戏剧演出或演讲者，雄辩家的说教和辩论，也许永远都不会付印成书，而不少印成书册的作品却可能与文学趣味并不相关。不过更为重要的是，要纠正人们对文学普遍的模糊观念，与其去为文学找一个更好的定义，不如更明确地划分文学的两种功能。在那两个被我们统称为文学的庞大社会媒体中，可以分辨出两种不同的功能。两种功能可能混合，而且经常混合，但各自又具有一种绝缘性，而且天生就互相排斥。这二者之一乃“知
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识文学”，之二则为“力量文学”。知识文学的作用在于教诲，力量文学的功能在于感化。前者可谓舵艄，后者则是桨桡或蓬帆。前者只有助于纯粹的推理悟解，后者则总是通过愉悦之情和恻隐之心的影响，最终激发出更高的悟性，或曰理性。远而望之，仿佛它可以通过培根称之为“理性之光”中的某个目标，近而观之，方知它必须通过那道被世人七情六欲之蒙蒙薄雾和闪闪彩虹包裹的“感性之光”发挥其作用，不然它就不再是一种“力量”的文学。世人对文学这两个更为重要的作用思之甚少，所以如果有人说赋予知识是书本平庸或次要的用途，此说便被视为悖论。但只有在悖论亦真这个意义上，此说方为悖论。每当我们用平常语言谈论求学求知的时候，总以为这些字眼与某种绝对新奇的事务有联系。然而，能在人类关注的事物中占据极高地位的真理之所以伟大，就在于它对最卑微者而言也绝非新奇；无论在最卑微者还是最高贵者心中，真理永远都以种子或潜在原理的方式存在，他只需去培育或发现，而无需去种植或创造。能够被移植是判断一个真理属于低级真理的直接标准。除此之外，还有一种比真理更珍贵的东西，那就是力量，或曰对真理的深切认同。举例而言，儿童对社会有何作用呢？儿童的无助、天真和单纯所唤起的怜悯、柔情和种种特殊的爱慕之意，不仅可强化和升华世人与生俱来的仁爱之心，就连那些在上帝眼中最为珍贵的品质，诸如唤醒宽容的柔弱、象征神圣的天真、以及超凡脱俗的单纯，也都会在永恒的记忆中得以保持，其完美典范亦会不断更新。更高层次的文学，即力量的文学，要实现的正是与此相同的目的。从弥尔顿的《失乐园》中你能获取什么知识呢？一无所获。从一本烹调书中你能学到什么呢？从每一段中你都能学到某种新的知识，某种你不曾知晓的知识。可你能因此而认为那本微不足道的烹调书比那部神圣的诗作更高明吗？你应该感谢弥尔顿的不是他给了你什么知识，因为获取一百万条互不相干的知识，也不过是在茫茫尘世向前走了一百万步；你应该感谢的是他给予你“力量”，使你能发挥并拓展与无限世界产生共鸣的潜能。在无限世界中，每一次脉动和心跳都是上升的一步，犹如沿雅各的天梯从地面攀向远离凡尘的神秘高处。知识的步伐，自始至终都让你在同一层面行进，但绝不可能使你从古老的人间尘世上升一步；而力量迈出的第一步就是飞升—升入另一种境界，一种使你忘却凡尘的境界。 （集体讨论 曹明伦、吴刚 执笔）
An Experience of Aesthetics by Robert Ginsberg 审美的体验 罗伯特·金斯伯格
I climbed the heights above Yosemite Valley, California in order to see the splendid granite mountain, Half Dome, in its fullest view. Approaching the edge through the woods I was filled with heightened expectation. I saw the ruin of a cabin and my approach caused the alignment of the chimney on this side of the valley with the shorn mountain across the valley. I stopped. Something happened. The stone verticals corresponded, one human-shaped, the other natural. The human site was still engaged in sightseeing. I was on its side. I saw the famous sight through the eyes of the ruin. I had come expecting beauty; I discovered an
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unexpected dimension to the beauty of the scene/seen.
为了饱览壮丽的花岗岩山峰半穹顶的全景，我登上了加州约塞米蒂谷的高地。穿过树林，走近山沿，心中充满美的期盼。远远望见一处小屋的废墟，走到近前，只见山谷这边的烟囱与横穿山谷的陡峭山崖恰好连成一线。我停下脚步，奇观出现了：两道石壁遥相呼应，一边人工打造，一边浑然天成。人造景观这边仍供观光游览，我此时就身临其境。透过小屋的废墟，我看到了著名的景观。我怀着对美的期盼而来，不经意间却发现了美的另一番天地。
In this experience I had been seeking the aesthetic. I knew I would find it, for I had seen post cards in advance and was following the trail map. The seeking took considerable effort and time. It was a heavy investment. I was not going for the scientific purpose of studying rock formation, nor was it for the recreational purpose of exercising my limbs in the fresh air, though that exertion added intensity to the experience and was its context. Primarily, I was going for the scenic wonders. No wonder that I would take delight in seeing Half Dome. The expectation elicited the outcome. I was suitably prepared. No distractions of practical consideration — or theoretic — detracted from my concentrated expectancy. Indeed, the world all around me on the climb contributed to the context for my goal. I was on the terrain of Nature in a national park, following the trail to a viewpoint upon a celebrated natural formation. Each step in the climb not only brought me closer but obliged me to sense the altitude. Moving through the thick woods was in anticipatory contrast to the great gap of the valley and the starkness of the treeless granite boulder.
这次旅程中我一直在捕捉一种美感。我知道会如愿以偿，因为我事先看过一些有关的风景明信片，循着山路示意图一路找来。这样的寻找费时费力，投入颇大。我此行的目的既不是出于对科学的动机来研究岩石的结构，也不是出于娱乐消遣的考虑在清新的空气中舒展肢体—尽管这次跋涉加深了我对美的体验，而且是这番体验的不可或缺的环节。我来这主要是为了览胜，因此见到半穹顶自然欣喜不已。有什么样的期盼就有什么样的结果。我有备而来，心无旁骛，一心期盼着美景，不受任何实际或假设因素的干扰。真的，在攀登过程中，我周围的一切都为寻美营造了氛围。我登上了国家公园的天然山地，循着山道前来观赏闻名遐迩的大自然的鬼斧神工。攀登中的每一步不仅使我距目标越来越近，也使我感受到海拔越来越高。不出所料，穿行在茂密的树林中，登上大峡谷寸草不生的花岗岩巨石，两种不同境界给人以强烈的反差。
My spirit and my senses were heightened. I was keenly aware of the world, eager to experience it. My senses were willing to be gratified by their fullest exercise. Hence my eye was sharp, but so was my ear and my nose, I was open to experiencing aesthetically. And on the way I did take minor pleasure in a bird’s song, a tree’s sway, and a cloud’s contortion. I was in the world considered as potential aesthetic realm. Any pleasing feature that appeared
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