四、英国的政治传统
The Englishman has been called a political animal, and he values what is political and practical so much that ideas easily become objects of dislike in his eyes, and thinkers, miscreants, because practice is everything, a free play of the mind is nothing. The notion of the free play of the mind upon all subjects being a pleasure in itself, being an object of desire, being an essential provider of elements without which a nations spirit, whatever compensations it may have for them, must in the long run, die of emptiness, hardly enters into an Englishmans thoughts. It is noticeable that the word curiosity, which in other languages is used in a good sense, to mean, as a high and fine quality of mans nature, just this disinterested love of a free play of the mind on all subjects, for its own sakeit is noticeable, I say, that this word has in our language no sense of the kind, no sense but a rather bad and disparaging one. But criticism, real criticism, is essentially the exercise of this very quality. It obeys an instinct prompting it to try to know the best that is known and thought in the world, irrespectively of practice, politics, and everything of the kind; and to value knowledge and thought as they approach this best, without the intrusion of any other considerations whatever. This is an instinct for which there is, I think, little original sympathy in the practical English nature, and what there was of it has undergone a long benumbing period of blight and suppression in the epoch of Romanticism.
It is of the last importance that English criticism should clearly discern what rule for its course, in order to avail itself of the field now opening to it, and to produce fruit for the future, it ought to take. The rule may be summed up in one word-disinterestedness. And how is criticism to show disinterestedness? By keeping aloof from what is called the practical view of things by resolutely following the law of its own nature, which is to be a free play of the mind on all subjects which it touches. By steadily refusing to lend itself to any of those concealed, political, practical considerations about ideas, which plenty of people will be sure to attach to them, but which criticism has really nothing to do with. Its business is, as I have said, simply to know the best that is known and thought in the world, and by in its turn making this known, to create a current of true and fresh ideas. Its business is to do this with inflexible honesty, with due ability; but its business is to do no more.
答案
46.对所有事物的自由思考本身就是一种乐趣，一种愿望，为民族精神提供了赖以生存的重要因素。离开这些因素，不管有其他什么样的补偿，一个国家的民族精神终究将会由于空洞而消逝。但是这种认识很难进入英国人的思想。
47.它遵循一种本能，促使它不考虑实践、政治和所有类似的事物，汲取世界上知识和思想的精华;并且促使它在这个过程中不受任何其他考虑的侵扰，珍视知识和思想。
48.好奇是一种本能，但我认为，英国人讲究实际的本性中几乎找不到这一本能的痕迹;而且仅存的求知欲也在浪漫主义时代里，经历了长期的不良影响和压制而变得麻木了。
49.至关重要的是，英国的批评界若想利用向它敞开的领域，若想在将来有所收获，必须清楚应该为自己的发展道路选择什么样的原则。
50.方法便是：坚决不为那些隐秘的、政治的和功利的观点服务，尽管很多人肯定会依附于这些观点，但批评活动却与它们毫不相干。
总体分析
英国人素来看重政治和实际，而忽视自由思想和对事物的好奇心。然而对于批评界来说，他们的驱动力应该是对世界了解的欲望，而不是政治和实际。英国的批评界若想有所作为，必须清楚应该采取什么样的原则。按照作者的主张，英国的批评界应该以求知、传播和创新思想为己任，杜绝任何政治和功利因素的影响。