E-C:
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, beside 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, 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.
人们很少对文学具有的更高层次的功能深入思考，以至于要是有人把提供信息说成是书籍的一种低劣的或次要的目的就觉得困惑不解，认为这话是一种悖论。但仅仅从使似乎矛盾的说法变得受人尊重这个意义上来说，这是一种似是而非的悖论。每当我们用普通语言谈论寻求信息或获取知识的时候，我们的理解总会与某种绝对新鲜的事物联系在一起。但所有真理能在人类所关心的事务中占据崇高的地位，其伟大之处便在于：即便是对于最平庸的人来说，它也从来不是绝对新鲜的东西。真理总是以萌芽状态或潜伏规则的形式存在着，对高尚者如此，对卑微者亦如此，需要培育，但从不需要植入。能够移植是衡量低级真理的直接标准。除此之外，还有一种比真理更稀罕的东西，那就是力量，或者说是对真理的深切认同。举例来说，孩子对于社会有什么用呢？孩童的无助、无辜和单纯唤起怜悯、疼爱和特殊的赞赏，不但使人类与生俱来的情感得到强化和不断升华，而且就连那些在上帝看来也是最珍贵的品质—比如，唤起人们宽容之心的柔弱，象征圣洁的无辜，以及与世俗格格不入的单纯等等—也得到了永久的铭记，而对这些品质的憧憬也历久弥新。更高层次的文学，即力量文学，所实现的正式与此相同的目的。你从《失乐园》这部史诗中能学到什么知识呢？什么也没学到。你从一本烹饪书中能学到什么呢？从每一段落里你都
能学到一点新东西—你以前从不知道的东西。但你会因此对这本微不足道的烹饪书作出比那部神圣诗作更高的评价吗？你要归功于弥尔顿的不是你学到了什么知识，一百万条零零散散的知识也不过是在尘世间向前迈了一百万步。你要感谢他的是他给了你力量—让你锻炼并拓展了与无限世界产生共鸣的潜力。在无限世界中，每一次脉动，每一次心跳，均是向上迈出的一步，如同踏着雅各梦中见到的天梯，从人间迈向远离地面的神秘高处。获取知识的脚步，自始至终只能让你在同一个平面上渐行渐远，但无法令你向上离开这个古老的人间。然而获取力量的第一步就是一个飞跃—一个上升到另一种境界的飞跃，在那种崇高的境界里浑然忘却了尘世的存在。
C-E
尽管古人把书说成“浩如烟海”，书的世界却真正的“天涯若比邻”，这话绝不是唯心的比拟。世界再大也没有阻隔。佛说“三千大千世界”，可算大极了。书的境界呢，“现在界”还加上“过去界”，也带上“未来界”，实在是包罗万象，贯通三界。而我们却可以足不出户，在这里随意阅历，随时拜师求教。谁说读书人目光短浅，不通人情，不关心世事呢！这里可得到丰富的经历，可认识各时各地、多种多样的人。经常在书里“串门儿”，至少可以脱去几分愚昧，多长几个心眼儿吧？
可惜我们“串门”时“隐”而犹存的“身”，毕竟只是凡胎俗骨。我们没有如来佛的慧眼，把人世间几千年积累的智慧一览无余，只好时时刻刻记住庄子“生也有涯而知也无涯”的名言。我们只是朝生暮死的虫豸（还不是孙大圣毫毛变成的虫儿），钻入书中世界，这边爬爬，那边停停，有时遇到心仪的人，听到惬意的话，或者对心上悬挂的问题偶有所得，就好比开了心窍，乐以忘言。这个“乐”和追求“享受”该不是一回事吧？
Though ancient people compared books to a vast ocean, yet the world of
books about distant people and things can be actually deemed as close as a next-door neighbor, which definitely is not an idealistic metaphorical assertion. No matter how vast the world of books may be, there exist no barriers at all. Buddhists regard this world of ours as “one Buddha-world,” which is extremely vast. But the world of books is so vast that it extends across three worlds, namely “the past world, the present world and the future world,” encompassing everything, across whose borders we can go back and forth with great ease. Without stepping out of the room, we can read and experience all that we care to and learn from great masters and ask them for advice whenever we wish to. Who claims that book-lovers are short-sighted, ignorant of human feelings, and indifferent to world affairs? Here in the world of books we can acquire abundant experience and become acquainted with various kinds of people from different ages and places. By frequently visiting this world, at least we can rid ourselves of some ignorance and gain a certain degree of wisdom.
What a pity it is that our physical bodies, “invisible” as we visit the world of books, are after all confined to this mundane world. As we are not endowed with Buddha’s discerning eyes, which, at a glance, take in all the human wisdom accumulated over millenniums, we have to comfort ourselves by always bearing in mind Zhuang Zi’s famous saying that “Human life-span is finite while knowledge is infinite.” Being merely insects (surely not insects Monkey King turned into by changing his soft hairs), whose life lasts only a short time, we crawl our way into the world of books, pausing hither and thither. Whenever we accidentally meet a much admired person, hear some pleasant or soothing words, or occasionally find an answer to a pending question, we feel greatly enlightened
and too pleased to say anything. This sense of “joy” thus derived should be different from “seeking indulgence in pleasure”, don’t you agree?
因篇幅问题不能全部显示，请点此查看更多更全内容