Essay One: Author Robert Pirsig suggests science has traditionally concerned itself with truth, while art has concerned itself with beauty. How might these two endeavors be the same? How might they be irreconcilably different?　作家Robert Pirsig指出，传统上科学一直关注真理，而艺术则关注美。这两种努力如何能够殊途同归？他们如何又有可能大相径庭，水火不容？

The impulse toward truth and the impulse toward beauty are both indispensable to human beings. It was precisely those two essential impulses that have given rise to the creation of science and of art. A perfect example of the indispensability of those two impulses is Albert Einstein who is at once a physicist and a violinist, or Leonardo Da Vinci who is a painter as well as an “aircraft” designer.

Science and art emerged as endeavors to answer man’s external and internal needs. Man lives in two cosmoses, one physical and one spiritual. What distinguishes man from animal is that he knows and needs to know about the physical world. This necessity to know about the physical world postulates that science must be concerned with the “hard” facts— the truth— of the physical reality. Hence science is necessarily pragmatic and utilitarian. Yet, while exploring the physical world, man also feels the need to express himself, to explore his emotions and feelings, and to seek spiritual comfort. In art he finds the satisfaction of those needs. Art does not fulfill any ulterior purposes but simply aims at man’s self-amusement. And nothing can delight man better than beauty; hence, strictly speaking, art is not linked with any utilitarian or materialistic interests. Art is aesthetic, contemplative, and disinterested, or in the words of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Judgment, art is characterized by “purposiveness without a purpose.”

However, as human endeavors, science and art share essential similarities. They are not necessarily reciprocally repulsive. Under certain circumstances, elements employed by science to seek scientific truth are assimilated into artistic creations and vice versa. For instance, people used to assume that the frenzy of inspiration are fundamental to art. However, in actual creative processes, the intuition and self-expression must be controlled by law and by the intellectual power of putting things into harmonious order. It was necessary to master certain laws and to use intellect to build Gothic cathedrals and to apply linear perspective and anatomy in order to create pictorial works of art (in this instance we recall the anatomic drawings by Da Vince). On the other hand, we have seen too many scientific designs which look like perfect works of art. American space shuttles, vehicles for scientific missions, display all the formal properties of an artwork—the symmetry, the curve, the shape, and the composition. Engineers use their non-verbal and visual thinking, characteristic of artistic activity, to have created some of the greatest works of art in human history. The space shuttles exist not because of geometry or thermodynamics, but because they were first a picture in the minds of those who built them. Thus, we can conclude that whether in scientific or in artistic quests, the underlying forces are essentially the same—imagination, creativity, and passion.

We should not posit science and art as absolute polarities. Instead, scientific and artistic modes of thinking are mutually enriching. The realization of the fruitfulness of thinking across different fields has led to creation of interdisciplinary studies and a student may properly achieve balanced intellectual development through the pursuit both in science and in art.

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　　于人类而言，对真理的冲动和对美的冲动，都是不可或缺的。正是这两种对于人类具有本质意义的冲动，促成了科学和艺术的产生。爱因斯坦既是物理学家，又是小提琴家；莱昂纳多·达芬奇既是画家又是飞行器的设计者。诠释这两种冲动对于人类的不可或缺性，他们是再好不过的例子。

　　科学和艺术的出现，构成了人类的两项努力，去因应人类内在和外在部的需求。人们生存于两个境界之中，一个是物质世界，一个是精神世界。而人与动物的根本区别就在于，人类对物质世界有所了解，并需要不断地去了解这个物质世界。人类了解物质世界的必要性，决定了科学必须探索物质世界一个个实实在在的事实，即世界真相。因此，科学必然是务实的和实用的。然而，在探索物质世界的同时，人类也会感受到去表达自身的需求，去探索自身的情感和感觉，去追求精神上的慰藉。在艺术之中，人类发现这些需求正好可以获得满足。艺术并不承载任何功利性目的，而只是简单地为了人类的自我愉悦。没有任何事物比美更能使人愉悦，因此，从严格意义上来说，艺术是不与任何功利性或者物质性利益相牵连的。艺术是关乎美的，是观照性质的，是超乎功利目的的；或者，引用德国哲学家康德在其《判断力批判》中的定义：艺术的特征是一种“无目的之目的性”。

　　然而，作为人类的两项努力，科学和艺术在本质上不无共通之处。他们并不一定是相互排斥的。在某些情况下，在探索科学真理过程中被科学所应用的某些元素，完全可以被融入到艺术创造中来，反之亦然。比如说，人们过去常常认为，灵感之癫狂乃艺术之根本。但是，在实际的艺术创作过程中，这种直觉和自我表达，必需受到法则和理性力量的制约，才能将原本杂乱无章的事物组织成和谐有序的整体。要建造哥特式教堂，如果不掌握一定的法则和运用理智，是绝对不可能的；而要创作绘画作品，则必须运用直线透视法和解剖学（在这方面，我们可以回忆起达芬奇的解剖学绘图）。另一方面，我们已经领略过如许多的看起来近乎完美艺术品的科学设计。美国的航天器，即那些执行科学使命的运载工具，展示出艺术作品的所有的形式属性——对称、曲线、形状、结构等。工程师们运用艺术活动所特有的其非语言、直观性思维，创造出了人类历史长河中某些堪称最伟大杰作的作品。航天飞机的存在，不是仅仅因为几何学或者热动力学，而首先是因为它们在创造者的心中，构成了一个直观的图像。因此，我们可以得出这样的结论，无论是科学探索还是艺术探索，深层次的要素是完全相同的，那就是想象力、创造力和激情。

　　因此，我们不应将科学与艺术设定为两个大相径庭的两个极端。相反，科学的思维模式和艺术的思维模式是相辅相成、相得益彰的。由于意识到跨越不同领域的思想模式的有效性，人们已创建了交叉学科研究。作为一个学生，可以通过对科学和艺术的双重追求，恰如其分地实现平衡的智力发展。