CHAPTER IX
IMAGINATION
第九章 想象力
Everyone desires to have a good imagination, yet not all would agree as to what constitutes a good imagination. If I were to ask a group of you whether you have good imaginations, many of you would probably at once fall to considering whether you are capable of taking wild flights into impossible realms of thought and evolving unrealities out of airy nothings. You would compare yourself with great imaginative writers, such as Stevenson, Poe, De Quincey, and judge your power of imagination by your ability to produce such tales as made them famous.
每个人都希望自己有丰富的想象力，但并不是所有人都同意什么是丰富的想象力。如果我问你是否有丰富的想象力，你们中的许多人可能会立刻开始考虑你是否有能力进入不可能的思想领域，从空中无物中发展出不真实的东西。你会把自己和伟大的想象作家，如史蒂文森、坡、德昆西等比较，通过你能否创作出让他们成名的故事来判断你的想象力。
1. THE PLACE OF IMAGINATION IN MENTAL ECONOMY
1. 想象力在智力经济中的地位
But such a measure for the imagination as that just stated is far too narrow. A good imagination, like a good memory, is the one which serves its owner best. If DeQuincey and Poe and Stevenson and Bulwer found the type which led them into such dizzy flights the best for their particular purpose, well and good; but that is not saying that their type is the best for you, or that you may not rank as high in some other field of imaginative power as they in theirs. While you may lack in their particular type of imagination, they may have been short in the type which will one day make you famous. The artisan, the architect, the merchant, the artist,128 the farmer, the teacher, the professional man—all need imagination in their vocations not less than the writers need it in theirs, but each needs a specialized kind adapted to the particular work which he has to do.（R:The priority is to have the kind of imagination that serves our needs best.）
但是，正如刚才所述的对想象力的衡量标准过于狭隘了。一个好的想象力，就像一个好的记忆力一样，是那个最能为其拥有者服务的能力。如果德昆西、坡、史蒂文森和布尔沃发现那种引领他们进入如此令人眼花缭乱的境界的类型对他们的特殊目的来说是最好的；那么很好；但这并不是说他们的那种类型对你来说也是最好的，或者说你在其他领域的想象力就不能像他们在他们的领域那样高超。虽然你可能缺乏他们那种特定类型的想象力，但他们可能也缺乏将来使你出名的那种类型。工匠、建筑师、商人、艺术家、农民、教师、专业人士——所有人在其职业中需要的想象力不亚于作家在他们的工作中需要的想象力，但每个人都需要一种专业化的类型，以适应他必须做的特殊工作。
Practical Nature of Imagination.—Imagination is not a process of thought which must deal chiefly with unrealities and impossibilities, and which has for its chief end our amusement when we have nothing better to do than to follow its wanderings. It is, rather, a commonplace, necessary process which illumines the way for our everyday thinking and acting—a process without which we think and act by haphazard chance or blind imitation. It is the process by which the images from our past experiences are marshaled, and made to serve our present. Imagination looks into the future and constructs our patterns and lays our plans. It sets up our ideals and pictures us in the acts of achieving them. It enables us to live our joys and our sorrows, our victories and our defeats before we reach them. It looks into the past and allows us to live with the kings and seers of old, or it goes back to the beginning and we see things in the process of the making. It comes into our present and plays a part in every act from the simplest to the most complex. It is to the mental stream what the light is to the traveler who carries it as he passes through the darkness, while it casts its beams in all directions around him, lighting up what otherwise would be intolerable gloom.
想象力的实用性。——想象力并非一种必须主要处理非现实和不可能之事的思维过程，其首要目的也并非在我们无事可做时跟随其漫游以自娱自乐。相反，它是一种平常而必需的过程，为我们日常的思考和行动照亮道路——没有它，我们的思维和行动就会变得随意或盲目模仿。这是通过调动我们过去经历中的图像，使之服务于当前的一种过程。想象力展望未来，构建我们的模式，制定我们的计划。它树立我们的理想，并描绘我们实现这些理想的行为。它使我们能够在达到之前就体验我们的欢乐与悲伤、胜利与失败。它回望过去，让我们与古代的君王和先知共处，或者回到最初，我们看到事物在创造过程中。它进入我们的现在，在从最简单到最复杂的每一个行动中都扮演着角色。它之于思维流，犹如光线之于穿越黑暗的旅行者，他携带着它，同时将光束投向周围的所有方向，照亮了原本难以忍受的阴暗。
Imagination in the Interpretation of History, Literature, and Art.—Let us see some of the most common uses of the imagination. Suppose I describe to you the battle of the Marne. Unless you can take the images which my words suggest and build them into struggling, shouting, bleeding soldiers; into forts and entanglements and129 breastworks; into roaring cannon and whistling bullet and screaming shell—unless you can take all these separate images and out of them get one great unified complex, then my description will be to you only so many words largely without content, and you will lack the power to comprehend the historical event in any complete way. Unless you can read the poem, and out of the images suggested by the words reconstruct the picture which was in the mind of the author as he wrote "The Village Blacksmith" or "Snowbound," the significance will have dropped out, and the throbbing scenes of life and action become only so many dead words, like the shell of the chrysalis after the butterfly has left its shroud. Without the power of imagination, the history of Washington's winter at Valley Forge becomes a mere formal recital, and you can never get a view of the snow-covered tents, the wind-swept landscape, the tracks in the snow marked by the telltale drops of blood, or the form of the heartbroken commander as he kneels in the silent wood to pray for his army. Without the power to construct this picture as you read, you may commit the words, and be able to recite them, and to pass examination upon them, but the living reality of it will forever escape you.
想象力在解读历史、文学和艺术中的作用。——让我们看看一些最常见的想象力应用。假设我向你描述马恩河战役。除非你能将我的话语所暗示的图像构建成挣扎、呼喊、流血的士兵；堡垒、纠缠和胸墙；轰鸣的大炮、呼啸的子弹和尖叫的炮弹——除非你能将这些独立的图像结合起来，形成一个完整的复合体，否则我的描述对你来说只是许多几乎没有内容的词语，你将缺乏以任何完整方式理解这一历史事件的能力。除非你能够阅读诗歌，并从文字所暗示的图像中重构出作者在写下《乡村铁匠》或《雪地围困》时脑海中的画面，否则其意义就会消失，那些充满活力的生活场景和行动只会变成许多死寂的文字，就像蝴蝶离开茧壳后留下的空壳一样。如果没有想象力的力量，华盛顿在瓦利福奇的冬天历史就变成了一次纯粹的形式性叙述，你永远也无法看到雪覆盖的帐篷、风吹过的景观、雪地上由滴血标记出的足迹，或是那位心碎的指挥官跪在寂静的树林里为他的军队祈祷的身影。如果你在阅读时没有能力构建这幅画面，你可能会记住这些词句，能够背诵它们，并通过关于它们的考试，但你将永远无法体验到其活生生的现实。
Your power of imagination determines your ability to interpret literature of all kinds; for the interpretation of literature is nothing, after all, but the reconstruction on our part of the pictures with their meanings which were in the mind of the writer as he penned the words, and the experiencing of the emotions which moved him as he wrote. Small use indeed to read the history of the centuries unless we can see in it living, acting people, and real events occurring in actual environments. Small use to read the world's great books unless their characters130 are to us real men and women—our brothers and sisters, interpreted to us by the master minds of the ages. Anything less than this, and we are no longer dealing with literature, but with words—like musical sounds which deal with no theme, or like picture frames in which no picture has been set. Nor is the case different in listening to a speaker. His words are to you only so many sensations of sounds of such and such pitches and intensities and quality, unless your mind keeps pace with his and continually builds the pictures which fill his thought as he speaks. Lacking imagination, the sculptures of Michael Angelo and the pictures of Raphael are to you so many pieces of curiously shaped marble and ingeniously colored canvas. What the sculptor and the painter have placed before you must suggest to you images and thoughts from your own experience, to fill out and make alive the marble and the canvas, else to you they are dead.
你的想象力决定了你解读各种文学作品的能力；因为归根结底，对文学的解读不过是我们重建作者笔下文字时脑海中的画面及其意义，并体验他在写作时所感受到的情感。除非我们能在历史中看到活生生的、行动着的人，以及在真实环境中发生的真正事件，否则阅读几个世纪的历史确实没什么用。除非书中的人物对我们来说是真实的男人和女人——我们的兄弟姐妹，通过时代的大师们向我们诠释，否则阅读世界上伟大的书籍也没什么用。任何少于这一点的，我们就不再是在处理文学，而是在处理文字——就像没有主题的音乐声，或者没有设置画面的画框。听一个演讲者讲话的情况也没有什么不同。他的话语对你来说只是如此多的音高、强度和质量不同的声音感觉，除非你的思维与他保持同步，并不断地构建他在讲话时充满思想的画面。缺乏想象力，米开朗基罗的雕塑和拉斐尔的画作对你来说只不过是一些奇形怪状的大理石和巧妙着色的帆布。雕刻家和画家摆在你面前的作品必须向你暗示来自你自己经验的图像和思想，以充实并赋予大理石和帆布生命，否则对你来说它们是死的。
Imagination and Science.—Nor is imagination less necessary in other lines of study. Without this power of building living, moving pictures out of images, there is small use to study science beyond what is immediately present to our senses; for some of the most fundamental laws of science rest upon conceptions which can be grasped only as we have the power of imagination. The student who cannot get a picture of the molecules of matter, infinitely close to each other and yet never touching, all in vibratory motion, yet each within its own orbit, each a complete unit in itself, yet capable of still further division into smaller particles,—the student who cannot see all this in a clear visual image can never at best have more than a most hazy notion of the theory of matter. And this means, finally, that the explanations of light and heat and sound, and much besides, will be131 to him largely a jumble of words which linger in his memory, perchance, but which never vitally become a possession of his mind.
想象与科学。——在其他学习领域，想象力同样不可或缺。如果没有这种从图像中构建生动、动态画面的能力，仅仅研究感官直接呈现的科学知识就没有太大用处；因为一些最基础的科学定律是建立在只有当我们具备想象力时才能把握的概念之上的。如果一个学生无法想象物质的分子，它们彼此无限接近却又永不接触，全部处于振动状态，但又各自在自己的轨道内，每个都是完整的单元，却又能进一步细分为更小的粒子——如果学生无法在清晰的视觉图像中看到这一切，那么他对物质理论的理解充其量也只能是非常模糊的。这意味着，最终，光、热和声等现象的解释，以及更多内容，对他来说很大程度上只是一堆停留在记忆中、可能偶然浮现，但从未真正成为他思维财富的文字。
So with the world of the telescope. You may have at your disposal all the magnificent lenses and the accurate machinery owned by modern observatories; but if you have not within yourself the power to build what these reveal to you, and what the books tell you, into the solar system and still larger systems, you can never study astronomy except in a blind and piecemeal sort of way, and all the planets and satellites and suns will never for you form themselves into a system, no matter what the books may say about it.
望远镜下的世界也是如此。你可能拥有现代天文台所拥有的所有精美透镜和精确机械；但如果你内心没有将这些所揭示的以及书本告诉你的内容构建成太阳系乃至更庞大系统的能力，你就无法真正学习天文学，只能以一种盲目且零散的方式去研究，而所有的行星、卫星和太阳对你来说永远不会形成一个体系，无论书本上怎么描述。
Everyday Uses of Imagination.—But we may consider a still more practical phase of imagination, or at least one which has more to do with the humdrum daily life of most of us. Suppose you go to your milliner and tell her how you want your spring hat shaped and trimmed. And suppose you have never been able to see this hat in toto in your mind, so as to get an idea of how it will look when completed, but have only a general notion, because you like red velvet, white plumes, and a turned-up rim, that this combination will look well together. Suppose you have never been able to see how you would look in this particular hat with your hair done in this or that way. If you are in this helpless state shall you not have to depend finally on the taste of the milliner, or accept the "model," and so fail to reveal any taste or individuality on your own part?
日常应用中的想象力。——但我们还可以考虑想象力的一个更实际的方面，或者至少是与我们大多数人平淡无奇的日常生活更相关的一个方面。假设你去拜访你的女帽商，告诉她你希望你的春季帽子如何塑形和装饰。再假设你从未能够在脑海中完整地看到这顶帽子，从而无法预知它完成后的样子，只是有一个大致的想法，因为你喜欢红色天鹅绒、白色羽毛和翘起的边缘，认为这种组合会看起来很好。假设你从未能够想象出自己戴着这顶特别的帽子，头发以这样或那样的方式打理时的样子。如果你处于这种无助的状态，难道你最终不还是要依赖女帽商的品味，或者接受“模特”的建议，从而未能展现出你自己的任何品味或个性吗？
How many times have you been disappointed in some article of dress, because when you planned it you were unable to see it all at once so as to get the full effect; or else you could not see yourself in it, and so be able to judge whether it suited you! How many homes have132 in them draperies and rugs and wall paper and furniture which are in constant quarrel because someone could not see before they were assembled that they were never intended to keep company! How many people who plan their own houses, would build them just the same again after seeing them completed? The man who can see a building complete before a brick has been laid or a timber put in place, who can see it not only in its details one by one as he runs them over in his mind, but can see the building in its entirety, is the only one who is safe to plan the structure. And this is the man who is drawing a large salary as an architect, for imaginations of this kind are in demand. Only the one who can see in his "mind's eye," before it is begun, the thing he would create, is capable to plan its construction. And who will say that ability to work with images of these kinds is not of just as high a type as that which results in the construction of plots upon which stories are built! (R: Images in mind are so important, without which one cannot understand, construct or create anything.)
多少次，你因为计划某件衣服时无法一次性看到它的全貌以获得完整效果而感到失望；或者你无法想象自己穿上它的样子，从而无法判断它是否适合你！有多少家庭里摆放着窗帘、地毯、墙纸和家具，它们之间总是不协调，因为有人未能在组装之前预见到它们本不应该搭配在一起！有多少人在规划自己的房屋后，看到完成后的样子还会想要再次建造相同的房子？能够在一块砖未砌、一根木材未放之前就看到一座建筑完整的人，不仅能够在脑海中一一审视细节，还能够看到整体的建筑，这样的人才是唯一能够安全规划结构的。正是这样的人才作为建筑师领取高薪，因为这类想象力是有需求的。只有那些能够在开始之前用“心灵的眼”看到他想要创造的东西的人，才有能力规划其构建。谁会说，与这种能力相比，构建故事情节的能力不是同样高级别的呢！
The Building of Ideals and Plans.—Nor is the part of imagination less marked in the formation of our life's ideals and plans. Everyone who is not living blindly and aimlessly must have some ideal, some pattern, by which to square his life and guide his actions. At some time in our life I am sure that each of us has selected the person who filled most nearly our notion of what we should like to become, and measured ourselves by this pattern. But there comes a time when we must idealize even the most perfect individual; when we invest the character with attributes which we have selected from some other person, and thus worship at a shrine which is partly real and partly ideal.
构建理想与规划。——在我们的人生理想和计划的形成中，想象力的作用同样显著。每个不盲目、无目标生活的人都必须有一些理想，一些模式，以此来规范自己的生活和指导自己的行动。我确信，在我们生命中的某个时刻，每个人都会选择一个最接近我们想要成为的样子的人，并以此作为衡量自己的标准。但总会有一个时刻，我们必须将即使是最完美的个体理想化；我们会从其他人那里选取特质赋予这个角色，从而在一个部分真实、部分理想的神坛前崇拜。
As time goes on, we drop out more and more of the strictly individual element, adding correspondingly more of the ideal, until our pattern is largely a construction133 of our own imagination, having in it the best we have been able to glean from the many characters we have known. How large a part these ever-changing ideals play in our lives we shall never know, but certainly the part is not an insignificant one.(R: Images play an important role in building our personalities.) And happy the youth who is able to look into the future and see himself approximating some worthy ideal. He has caught a vision which will never allow him to lag or falter in the pursuit of the flying goal which points the direction of his efforts.
随着时间的推移，我们逐渐剔除了更多严格意义上的个人元素，相应地增加了更多理想化的内容，直到我们的模式在很大程度上成为了我们自己想象力的构建，其中包含了我们从所认识的众多人物中能够搜集到的最佳特质。这些不断变化的理想在我们生活中扮演的角色有多大，我们永远不会知道，但肯定不是微不足道的。而那个能够展望未来，看到自己接近某个值得追求的理想的年轻人是幸福的。他捕捉到了一个愿景，这个愿景永远不会让他在追求那个指引他努力方向的飞逝目标时停滞不前或动摇。
Imagination and Conduct.—Another great field for imagination is with reference to conduct and our relations with others. Over and over again the thoughtless person has to say, "I am sorry; I did not think." The "did not think" simply means that he failed to realize through his imagination what would be the consequences of his rash or unkind words. He would not be unkind, but he did not imagine how the other would feel; he did not put himself in the other's place. (R: If a person can imagine the consequences of his conduct, he will be more cautious about his choices or decision.) Likewise with reference to the effects of our conduct on ourselves. What youth, taking his first drink of liquor, would continue if he could see a clear picture of himself in the gutter with bloated face and bloodshot eyes a decade hence? Or what boy, slyly smoking one of his early cigarettes, would proceed if he could see his haggard face and nerveless hand a few years farther along? What spendthrift would throw away his money on vanities could he vividly see himself in penury and want in old age? What prodigal anywhere who, if he could take a good look at himself sin-stained and broken as he returns to his "father's house" after the years of debauchery in the "far country" would not hesitate long before he entered upon his downward career?
想象力与行为。——另一个想象力的重要领域涉及到我们的行为和与他人的关系。一个没有思考的人一次又一次不得不说：“我很抱歉；我没想那么多。”这里的“没想那么多”仅仅意味着他未能通过想象力实现对鲁莽或不友好话语后果的认识。他本不想不友好，但他没有想象到对方会有什么感受；他没有设身处地为对方着想。同样，关于我们的行为对自己影响的理解也是如此。哪个年轻人在第一次喝酒时，如果能清晰地看到十年后自己躺在水沟里、脸庞浮肿、眼睛布满血丝的画面，还会继续喝下去吗？或者哪个男孩在偷偷抽他早期的香烟时，如果能预见几年后他那憔悴的面容和无力的手，还会继续抽吗？哪个挥霍无度的人，如果他能生动地看到自己在老年时贫困潦倒的样子，还会把钱浪费在虚荣上吗？任何一个浪子，如果他能在经历了“遥远国度”多年的放荡生活后，回到“父亲之家”时，能够好好看看自己满身罪孽、破碎不堪的样子，难道不会在开始堕落生涯之前犹豫很久吗？
Imagination and Thinking.—We have already considered134 the use of imagination in interpreting the thoughts, feelings and handiwork of others. Let us now look a little more closely into the part it plays in our own thinking. Suppose that, instead of reading a poem, we are writing one; instead of listening to a description of a battle, we are describing it; instead of looking at the picture, we are painting it. Then our object is to make others who may read our language, or listen to our words, or view our handiwork, construct the mental images of the situation which furnished the material for our thought.
想象力与思维。——我们已经考虑了在解释他人的思想、感受和作品时使用想象力的情况。现在，让我们更仔细地看看它在我们自己的思维方式中所扮演的角色。假设我们不是在读一首诗，而是在写一首诗；不是在听一场战斗的描述，而是在描述它；不是在看一幅画，而是在画它。那么我们的目标是让阅读我们的文字、聆听我们的话语或观看我们作品的其他人，构建起为我们思考提供素材的情境的心理图像。
Our words and other modes of expression are but the description of the flow of images in our minds, and our problem is to make a similar stream flow through the mind of the listener; but strange indeed would it be to make others see a situation which we ourselves cannot see; strange if we could draw a picture without being able to follow its outlines as we draw. Or suppose we are teaching science, and our object is to explain the composition of matter to someone, and make him understand how light, heat, etc., depend on the theory of matter; strange if the listener should get a picture if we ourselves are unable to get it.Or, once more, suppose we are to describe some incident, and our aim is to make its every detail stand out so clearly that no one can miss a single one. Is it not evident that we can never make any of these images more clear to those who listen to us or read our words than they are to ourselves?
我们的话语和其他表达方式不过是我们脑海中图像流动的描述，我们的任务是让类似的思维流通过听者的脑海；但如果我们自己无法看到一个情境，却让别人看到，那将是多么奇怪的事情；如果我们能在不跟随自己画出的轮廓的情况下画出一幅画，那将是多么奇怪。或者假设我们在教授科学，我们的目标是向某人解释物质的组成，并让他理解光、热等如何依赖于物质理论；如果听众能够形成一幅画面，而我们自己却无法形成，那将是多么奇怪。再或者，假设我们要描述某个事件，我们的目的是使其每一个细节都清晰地展现出来，以至于没有人会错过任何一个细节。难道不是显而易见吗，我们永远无法使这些图像对那些听我们说话或阅读我们文字的人比对我们自己的更清晰？
2. THE MATERIAL USED BY IMAGINATION
2.想象力所使用的素材
What is the material, the mental content, out of which imagination builds its structures?
想象力构建其结构所使用的材料是什么？这些心理内容又是什么呢？
Images the Stuff of Imagination.—Nothing can enter135 the imagination the elements of which have not been in our past experience and then been conserved in the form of images. The Indians never dreamed of a heaven whose streets are paved with gold, and in whose center stands a great white throne. Their experience had given them no knowledge of these things; and so, perforce, they must build their heaven out of the images which they had at command, namely, those connected with the chase and the forest. So their heaven was the "happy hunting ground," inhabited by game and enemies over whom the blessed forever triumphed. Likewise the valiant soldiers whose deadly arrows and keen-edged swords and battle-axes won on the bloody field of Hastings, did not picture a far-off day when the opposing lines should kill each other with mighty engines hurling death from behind parapets a dozen miles away. Firearms and the explosive powder were yet unknown, hence there were no images out of which to build such a picture.
想象中的事物——没有任何事物能够进入我们的想象，除非它的元素曾经在我们的过去经验中出现过，并且以图像的形式保存下来。印第安人从未梦想过一个街道铺满黄金，中心矗立着白色大宝座的天堂。他们的经验并没有给他们这些事物的知识；因此，他们不得不用他们能够指挥的图像来构建他们的天堂，也就是那些与狩猎和森林有关的图像。所以他们的天堂是“快乐的狩猎场”，居住着猎物和敌人，而受祝福的人永远在那里取得胜利。同样地，那些在黑斯廷斯血腥战场上用致命的箭矢、锋利的剑和战斧赢得胜利的勇士们，也没有描绘出一个遥远的日子，那时对立的阵线会用强大的引擎从十几英里外的防御工事后面投掷死亡。火器和火药当时还未知，因此没有图像可以用来构建这样的画面。
I do not mean that your imagination cannot construct an object which has never before been in your experience as a whole, for the work of the imagination is to do precisely this thing. It takes the various images at its disposal and builds them intowholes which may never have existed before, and which may exist now only as a creation of the mind. And yet we have put into this new product not a single element which was not familiar to us in the form of an image of one kind or another. It is the form which is new; the material is old. This is exemplified every time an inventor takes the two fundamental parts of a machine, the lever and the inclined plane, and puts them together in relations new to each other and so evolves a machine whose complexity fairly bewilders us. And with other lines of thinking, as in mechanics, inventive power consists in being able to see136 the old in new relations, and so constantly build new constructions out of old material. It is this power which gives us the daring and original thinker, the Newton whose falling apple suggested to him the planets falling toward the sun in their orbits; the Darwin who out of the thigh bone of an animal was able to construct in his imagination the whole animal and the environment in which it must have lived, and so add another page to the earth's history.
我并不是说你的想象力不能构建一个你以前从未经历过的整体对象，因为想象力的工作恰恰就是做这件事。它利用手头的各种图像，将它们构建成可能之前从未存在过的整体，而这些整体现在可能只作为心灵的创造而存在。然而，我们在这个新产品中加入的没有一个元素不是以某种形式的图像我们所熟悉的。形式是新的；材料是旧的。每当一个发明家将机器的两个基本部分——杠杆和斜面——放在一起，并以彼此新的关系组合起来，从而发展出一个复杂到让我们眼花缭乱的机器时，这一点就被例证了。在其他思维领域，如机械学中，创新能力在于能够看到旧事物在新关系中的面貌，并因此不断用旧材料构建新结构。正是这种能力赋予了我们大胆和原创的思考者，比如牛顿，他对掉落的苹果提出了行星沿轨道向太阳坠落的想法；达尔文能够仅凭动物的股骨在想象中构建出整个动物及其必须生活过的环境，从而为地球的历史增添了新的一页。
The Two Factors in Imagination.—From the simple facts which we have just been considering, the conclusion is plain that our power of imagination depends on two factors; namely, (1) the materials available in the form of usable images capable of recall, and (2) our constructive ability, or the power to group these images into new wholes, the process being guided by some purpose or end. Without this last provision, the products of our imagination are daydreams with their "castles in Spain," which may be pleasing and proper enough on occasions, but which as an habitual mode of thought are extremely dangerous.
想象力的两个因素——从我们刚才考虑的简单事实中，结论很明显，我们的想象力依赖于两个因素；即（1）以可调用图像的形式可用的材料，以及（2）我们的构建能力，或者将这些图像组合成新的整体的能力，这个过程是由某种目的或目标指导的。如果没有这最后的条件，我们想象的产物就会变成带有“西班牙城堡”的白日梦，这在某些场合可能令人愉悦且适当，但作为一种习惯性的思维模式则极其危险。
Imagination Limited by Stock of Images.—That the mind is limited in its imagination by its stock of images may be seen from a simple illustration: Suppose that you own a building made of brick, but that you find the old one no longer adequate for your needs, and so purpose to build a new one; and suppose, further, that you have no material for your new building except that contained in the old structure.It is evident that you will be limited in constructing your new building by the material which was in the old. You may be able to build the new structure in any one of a multitude of different forms or styles of architecture, so far as the material at hand will lend itself to that style of building,137 and providing, further, that you are able to make the plans. But you will always be limited finally by the character and amount of material obtainable from the old structure. So with the mind. The old building is your past experience, and the separate bricks are the images out of which you must build your new structure through the imagination. Here, as before, nothing can enter which was not already on hand. Nothing goes into the new structure so far as its constructive material is concerned except images, and there is nowhere to get images but from the results of our past experience.
想象力受限于图像库存——心智在想象方面的限制可以通过一个简单的例子来说明：假设你拥有一座砖砌的建筑，但你发现旧建筑不再满足你的需求，因此打算建造一座新的；进一步假设，你除了旧结构中的材料外没有其他材料可用于新建筑。显然，你在构建新建筑时将受到旧建筑材料的限制。只要手头的材料适合那种建筑风格，你可能能够以多种不同的形式或建筑风格来建造新建筑，并且前提是你能够制定计划。但最终你总是会被从旧结构中获得的材料的性质和数量所限制。心智也是如此。旧建筑是你的过去经验，而单独的砖块是你通过想象力必须用来构建新结构的图像。在这里，就像之前一样，没有任何东西可以进入，除非它已经在场。就构造材料而言，没有任何东西进入新结构，除了图像，而获取图像的唯一途径就是我们过去经验的结果。
Limited Also by Our Constructive Ability.—But not only is our imaginative output limited by the amount of material in the way of images which we have at our command, but also and perhaps not less by our constructive ability. Many persons might own the old pile of bricks fully adequate for the new structure, and then fail to get the new because they were unable to construct it. So, many who have had a rich and varied experience in many lines are yet unable to muster their images of these experiences in such a way that new products are obtainable from them. These have the heavy, draft-horse kind of intellect which goes plodding on, very possibly doing good service in its own circumscribed range, but destined after all to service in the narrow field with its low, drooping horizon. They are never able to take a dash at a two-minute clip among equally swift competitors, or even swing at a good round pace along the pleasant highways of an experience lying beyond the confines of the narrow here and now. These are the minds which cannot discover relations; which cannot think. Minds of this type can never be architects of their own fate, or even builders, but must content themselves to be hod carriers.138
想象力也受限于我们的构建能力——但不仅我们的想象产出受到我们掌握的图像材料数量的限制，同样可能更重要的是，还受到我们构建能力的限制。许多人可能拥有足够建造新结构的旧砖堆，却因为无法构建而未能得到新建筑。因此，许多在多方面有着丰富多样经验的人仍然无法以这种方式组织他们这些经验的图像，从而从中获得新的成果。这些人拥有沉重、拖拉的马匹般的智力，可能会在其有限的范围内做得很好，但终究注定要在狭窄的领域里服务，那里有低垂、下垂的地平线。他们永远无法在同样迅速的竞争者中以两分钟的速度冲刺，甚至无法在愉快的高速公路上以良好的速度前进，穿越狭窄现实之外的广阔经验。这些是无法发现关系；无法思考的心灵。这种类型的心灵永远不能成为自己命运的建筑师，甚至不能成为建设者，而必须满足于成为搬运工。
The Need of a Purpose.—Nor are we to forget that we cannot intelligently erect our building until we know the purpose for which it is to be used. No matter how much building material we may have on hand, nor how skillful an architect we may be, unless our plans are guided by some definite aim, we shall be likely to end with a structure that is fanciful and useless. Likewise with our thought structure. Unless our imagination is guided by some aim or purpose, we are in danger of drifting into mere daydreams which not only are useless in furnishing ideals for the guidance of our lives, but often become positively harmful when grown into a habit. The habit of daydreaming is hard to break, and, continuing, holds our thought in thrall and makes it unwilling to deal with the plain, homely things of everyday life. Who has not had the experience of an hour or a day spent in a fairyland of dreams, and awakened at the end to find himself rather dissatisfied with the prosaic round of duties which confronted him! I do not mean to say that we should never dream; but I know of no more pernicious mental habit than that of daydreaming carried to excess, for it ends in our following every will-o'-the-wisp of fancy, and places us at the mercy of every chance suggestion.
需要目标——我们也不应忘记，直到我们了解建筑的用途，我们才能明智地建造我们的建筑。无论我们手头有多少建筑材料，也无论我们可能是多么熟练的建筑师，除非我们的计划由某个明确的目标指导，否则我们很可能会以一个异想天开且无用的结构告终。我们的思维结构也是如此。除非我们的想象力由某种目标或目的指导，否则我们就有可能漂流到仅仅是白日梦中，这些白日梦不仅在提供指导我们生活的理想方面没有用处，而且当它们成为一种习惯时，往往会变得有害。白日梦的习惯很难打破，持续下去会使我们的思维受其奴役，使其不愿意处理日常生活中平凡、朴实的事物。谁没有经历过在一个梦幻般的仙境中度过一个小时或一天，然后在结束时醒来，发现自己对面前的平淡无奇的日常职责感到相当不满！我并不是说我们永远不应该做梦；但我知道，没有什么比过度沉迷于白日梦更有害的心智习惯了，因为它最终会导致我们追随每一个幻想的幻影，并使我们受制于每一个偶然的建议。
3. TYPES OF IMAGINATION
3.想象的种类
Although imagination enters every field of human experience, and busies itself with every line of human interest, yet all its activities can be classed under two different types. These are (1)reproductive, and (2) creative imagination.
虽然想象力进入人类经验的每一个领域，并在人类生活的各处发挥着作用，然而它所有的活动都可以被分为两种不同的类型。这些是（1）再生的和（2）创造性的想象力。
Reproductive Imagination.—Reproductive imagination is the type we use when we seek to reproduce in our minds the pictures described by others, or pictures from139 our own past experience which lack the completeness and fidelity to make them true memory.
再生想象力。——当我们试图在脑海中重现他人描述的画面，或是我们过往经历中那些缺乏完整性和忠实度以至于无法成为真实记忆的画面时，我们使用的就是再生想象力。
The narration or description of the story book, the history or geography text; the tale of adventure recounted by traveler or hunter; the account of a new machine or other invention; fairy tales and myths—these or any other matter that may be put into words capable of suggesting images to us are the field for reproductive imagination. In this use of the imagination our business is to follow and not lead, to copy and not create.
叙述或描述故事书、历史或地理课本；旅行者或猎人讲述的冒险故事；新机器或其他发明的描述；童话和神话——这些或其他任何可以用语言表达并能够激发我们想象的内容，都是再生想象力的领域。在这种想象力的使用中，我们的任务是跟随而不是引导，是复制而不是创造。
Creative Imagination.—But we must have leaders, originators—else we should but imitate each other and the world would be at a standstill. Indeed, every person, no matter how humble his station or how humdrum his life, should be in some degree capable of initiative and originality.Such ability depends in no small measure on the power to use creative imagination.
创造性想象力——但我们必须有领导者、创始者——否则我们只会相互模仿，世界将停滞不前。事实上，每个人，无论其地位多么卑微或生活多么平凡，都应该在某种程度上具备主动性和原创性。这种能力在很大程度上依赖于运用创造性想象力的力量。
Creative imagination takes the images from our own past experience or those gleaned from the work of others and puts them together in new and original forms. The inventor, the writer, the mechanic or the artist who possesses the spirit of creation is not satisfied with mere reproduction, but seeks to modify, to improve, to originate. True, many important inventions and discoveries have come by seeming accident, by being stumbled upon. Yet it holds that the person who thus stumbles upon the discovery or invention is usually one whose creative imagination is actively at work seeking to create or discover in his field. The world's progress as a whole does not come by accident, but by creative planning. Creative imagination is always found at the van of progress, whether in the life of an individual or a nation.140
创造性想象力从我们自己的过往经验中提取图像，或者从他人作品中搜集图像，并将它们以新颖且原创的形式结合起来。拥有创造精神的发明家、作家、机械师或艺术家不满足于单纯的复制，而是寻求改变、改进、创新。的确，许多重要的发明和发现看似偶然而来，似乎是无意中被撞见的。然而，通常那些偶然发现或发明的人，往往是其创造性想象力积极工作、在其领域内寻求创造或发现的人。世界的整体进步不是偶然发生的，而是通过创造性规划实现的。无论是在个人生活还是国家层面，创造性想象力总是处于进步的最前沿。
4. TRAINING THE IMAGINATION
4.想象力训练
Imagination is highly susceptible of cultivation, and its training should constitute one of the most important aims of education. Every school subject, but especially such subjects as deal with description and narration—history, literature, geography, nature study and science—is rich in opportunities for the use of imagination. Skillful teaching will not only find in these subjects a means of training the imagination, but will so employ imagination in their study as to make them living matter, throbbing with life and action, rather than so many dead words or uninteresting facts.
想象力是高度可培养的，其训练应成为教育最重要的目标之一。每一门学校科目，尤其是那些涉及描述和叙述的科目——历史、文学、地理、自然研究和科学——都富含使用想象力的机会。熟练的教学不仅能在这些科目中找到训练想象力的方法，而且在学习这些科目时会如此运用想象力，使得它们成为充满生命力和活动力的生动材料，而不仅仅是许多死板的文字或乏味的事实。
Gathering of Material for Imagination.—Theoretically, then, it is not hard to see what we must do to cultivate our imagination. In the first place, we must take care to secure a large and usable stock of images from all fields of perception. It is not enough to have visual images alone or chiefly, for many a time shall we need to build structures involving all the other senses and the motor activities as well. This means that we must have a first-hand contact with just as large an environment as possible—large in the world of Nature with all her varied forms suited to appeal to every avenue of sense; large in our contact with people in all phases of experience, laughing with those who laugh and weeping with those who weep; large in contact with books, the interpreters of the men and events of the past. We must not only let all these kinds of environment drift in upon us as they may chance to do, but we must deliberately seek to increase our stock of experience; for, after all, experience lies at the bottom of imagination as of every other mental process. And not only must we thus put ourselves in the way of acquiring new experience,141 but we must by recall and reconstruction, as we saw in an earlier discussion, keep our imagery fresh and usable. For whatever serves to improve our images, at the same time is bettering the very foundation of imagination.
收集想象力素材。——从理论上讲，不难看出我们必须做些什么来培养我们的想象力。首先，我们必须小心地从所有感知领域获取大量可用的图像。仅拥有视觉图像是不够的，因为很多时候我们需要构建涉及所有其他感官和运动活动的结构。这意味着我们必须与尽可能大的环境进行直接接触——在自然世界中尽可能大，自然世界以其各种形式吸引每个感官；在我们与处于各种经验阶段的人接触中尽可能大，与欢笑的人一起笑，与哭泣的人一起哭；在与书籍的接触中尽可能大，书籍是过去人和事件的解读者。我们不仅必须让所有这些类型的环境偶然地影响我们，而且我们必须有意识地寻求增加我们的经验库存；毕竟，经验是想象力以及每一个其他心理过程的基础。我们不仅必须这样让自己获得新的经验，而且我们必须通过回忆和重建，正如我们在早期讨论中看到的，保持我们的意象新鲜和可用。因为任何有助于改善我们图像的东西，同时也在改善想象力的真正基础。
We Must Not Fail to Build.—In the second place, we must not fail to build. For it is futile to gather a large supply of images if we let the material lie unused. How many people there are who put in all their time gathering material for their structure, and never take time to do the building! They look and listen and read, and are so fully occupied in absorbing the immediately present that they have no time to see the wider significance of the things with which they deal. They are like the students who are too busy studying to have time to think. They are so taken up with receiving that they never perform the higher act of combining. They are the plodding fact gatherers, many of them doing good service, collecting material which the seer and the philosopher, with their constructive power, build together into the greater wholes which make our systems of thought. They are the ones who fondly think that, by reading books full of wild tales and impossible plots, they are training their imagination. For them, sober history, no matter how heroic or tragic in its quiet movements, is too tame. They have not the patience to read solid and thoughtful literature, and works of science and philosophy are a bore. These are the persons who put in all their time in looking at and admiring other people's houses, and never get time to do any building for themselves.
我们必须建造。——其次，我们不能失败于建造。因为如果我们让收集的素材闲置不用，那么积累大量图像是徒劳的。有多少人把他们所有的时间都花在为他们的结构收集材料上，却从不花时间去建造！他们看、听、读，完全忙于吸收眼前的事物，以至于没有时间看到他们所处理事物更广泛的意义。他们就像那些太忙于学习而没有时间思考的学生。他们如此专注于接收，以至于从未进行更高级的联合行为。他们是那些辛勤的事实收集者，许多人做得很好，收集材料，然后由具有建设性能力的先知和哲学家构建成更大的整体，这些整体构成了我们的思维方式。他们认为，通过阅读充满荒诞故事和不可能情节的书籍，就能训练自己的想象力。对他们来说，严肃的历史，无论其平静运动多么英勇或悲剧，都显得过于平淡。他们没有耐心阅读严肃而有思想的文学作品，科学和哲学作品更是枯燥无味。这些人把他们所有的时间都花在观看和欣赏别人的房屋上，却从没时间为自己建造任何东西。
We Should Carry Our Ideals into Action.—The best training for the imagination which I know anything about is that to be obtained by taking our own material142 and from it building our own structure. It is true that it will help to look through other people's houses enough to discover their style of building: we should read. But just as it is not necessary for us to put in all the time we devote to looking at houses, in inspecting doll houses and Chinese pagodas, so it is not best for us to get all our notions of imaginative structures from the marvelous and the unreal; we get good training for the imagination from reading "Hiawatha," but so can we from reading the history of the primitive Indian tribes. The pictures in "Snowbound" are full of suggestion for the imagination: but so is the history of the Puritans in New England. But even with the best of models before us, it is not enough to follow others' building. We must construct stories for ourselves, must work out plots for our own stories; we must have time to meditate and plan and build, not idly in the daydream, but purposefully, and then make our images real by carrying them out in activity, if they are of such a character that this is possible; we must build our ideals and work to them in the common course of our everyday life; we must think for ourselves instead of forever following the thinking of others; we must initiate as well as imitate.
我们应该将理想付诸行动。——我所知道的关于想象力的最佳训练，是通过使用自己的素材来构建我们自己的框架获得的。确实，通过观察别人的房子来发现他们的建筑风格是有帮助的：我们应该阅读。但是，就像我们不必把所有时间都花在看房子上，检查玩具屋和中国宝塔一样，从奇妙和不真实中获得所有关于想象结构的观念对我们来说也不是最好的；我们从阅读《海华沙》中获得对想象力的良好训练，但我们也可以通过阅读原始印第安部落的历史来获得。《雪地困局》中的图片充满了对想象力的启发：但新英格兰清教徒的历史也是如此。但即使有最好的模型摆在我们面前，仅仅跟随他人的建造是不够的。我们必须为自己构造故事，必须为我们的故事制定情节；我们必须有时间去冥想、计划和建造，不是在白日梦中闲散地，而是有目的地，然后通过在活动中实现它们来使我们的图像变得真实，如果它们具有这种性质，这是可能的；我们必须建立我们的理想，并在我们日常生活的普通过程中为之努力；我们必须为我们自己思考，而不是永远跟随他人的思想；我们必须既创新又模仿。
5. PROBLEMS FOR OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION
5.供观察和反省的问题
1. Explain the cause and the remedy in the case of such errors as the following:
Children who defined mountain as land 1,000 or more feet in height said that the factory smokestack was higher than the mountain because it "went straight up" and the mountain did not.
Children often think of the horizon as fastened to the earth.
Islands are thought of as floating on the water.143
2. How would you stimulate the imagination of a child who does not seem to picture or make real the descriptions in reading, geography, etc.? Is it possible that such inability may come from an insufficient basis in observation, and hence in images?
3. Classify the school subjects, including domestic science and manual training, as to their ability to train (1) reproductive and (2) creative imagination.
4. Do you ever skip the descriptive parts of a book and read the narrative? As you read the description of a bit of natural scenery, does it rise before you? As you study the description of a battle, can you see the movements of the troops?
5. Have you ever planned a house as you think you would like it? Can you see it from all sides? Can you see all the rooms in their various finishings and furnishings?
6. What plans and ideals have you formed, and what ones are you at present following? Can you describe the process by which your plans or ideals change? Do you ever try to put yourself in the other person's place?
7. Take some fanciful unreality which your imagination has constructed and see whether you can select from it familiar elements from actual experiences.
8. What use do you make of imagination in the common round of duties in your daily life? What are you doing to improve your imagination?
1. 解释以下错误的原因和补救措施：
孩子们将山定义为高度超过1000英尺的土地，并说工厂的烟囱比山高，因为它是“直上直下”的，而山不是。
孩子们经常认为地平线是固定在地面上的。
岛屿被认为是漂浮在水面上的。
2. 对于一个似乎无法在阅读、地理等描述中形成画面或使之真实的孩子，你如何激发他的想象力？这种无能是否可能源于观察基础不足，因此图像也不足？
3. 将学校科目分类，包括家政科学和手工训练，根据它们训练（1）再现性和（2）创造性想象力的能力。
4. 你是否会跳过书中的描述部分直接阅读叙述？当你阅读自然风景的描述时，它是否在你面前浮现？当你研究一场战斗的描述时，你能看到部队的移动吗？
5. 你是否曾规划过一所你认为理想的房子？你能从各个角度看到它吗？你能看见所有房间的各种装修和家具吗？
6. 你形成了哪些计划和理想，目前你在遵循哪些？你能描述你的计划或理想变化的过程吗？你是否曾试图设身处地为他人着想？
7. 取一些你的想象力构建的奇妙非现实之物，看看你是否能从中挑选出来自实际经验的熟悉元素。
8. 在日常生活中的常规职责中，你如何利用想象力？你正在做什么来提高你的想象力？
