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.

　　想象与事实不可分离：通过它事实变得鲜明生动。想象使人获得与存在的事实相适合的一般原则，并让人对与那些原则相一致的各种可能进行理性的审视。想象让人构建起某种关于一个新世界的富有理性的视觉，通过暗示出一些令人喜悦的意图而使生活热情得以维持。

　　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 act on knowledge without imagination. The task of a university is to weld together imagination and experience.

　　青年是富有想象力的，如果想象通过训练得以加强，那么这种想象力就能在生活中获得极大的维护。这个世界的悲剧在于那些富有想象力的人经验不多，而那些富有经验的人却想象不足。没有知识的傻瓜全凭想象办事，没有想象的学究全凭知识办事。大学的任务就是把想象和经验彼此结合起来。

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（编辑：王美娇）