这段主要从反面来讲理念论的重要性。想起来“没经过审视的人生不值得过”。如何审视呢？分类与归纳，探寻背后的法则以及明确活动的目的与目标。只有审视过了，事物才有了意义，要不就是原材料
Without these Ideas — these generalizations, regularities and ideals — the world would be to us as it must seem to the first-opened eyes of the child, a mass of unclassified and unmeaning particulars of sensation; for meaning can be given to things only by classifying and generalizing them, by finding the laws of their beings, and the purposes and goals of their activity.
假如没有这些理念——即这些概念、法则以及理想，那么这个世界对于我们而言，就如同初睁眼的新生儿一般：感官的一堆未经分类且毫无意义的细节；因为只有通过对其进行分类与总结、探寻其存在的法则以及明确其活动目的目标，事物才有了意义。

细节解析

1、the purposes and goals：同可翻译成“目标”
Purpose: the reason why something is done or used, the aim or attention of something；侧重长期意义或根本原因
Goal: something that you are trying to do or achieve；侧重短期目标或具体步骤
The purpose of education is to develop critical thinking.
My main goal this semester is to get an A in math.

所在段落

The Story of Philosophy《哲学的故事》第1章Plato第7节VI. The Psychological Solution第15段第1句：

Without these Ideas — these generalizations, regularities and ideals — the world would be to us as it must seem to the first-opened eyes of the child, a mass of unclassified and unmeaning particulars of sensation; for meaning can be given to things only by classifying and generalizing them, by finding the laws of their beings, and the purposes and goals of their activity. Or the world without Ideas would be a heap of book-titles fallen haphazard out of the catalogue, as compared to the same titles arranged in order according to their classes, their sequences and their purposes; it would be the shadow s in a cave as compared with the sunlit realities without, which cast those fantastic and deceptive shadows within (514). Therefore the essence of a higher education is the search for Ideas: for generalizations, laws of sequence, and Ideas of development; behind things we must discover their relation and meaning, their mode and law of operation, the function and ideal they serve or adumbrate; we must classify and coördinate our sense experience in terms of law and purpose; only for lack of this does the mind of the imbecile differ from the mind of Caesar.
浙江大学译本： 假如没有这些理念—这些概论、规则和理想一我们一定会像刚睁开眼睛的婴儿一般，看到的世界由一堆杂乱无章、相互间毫无关联的无意义的感官个体构成；因为意义是在对事物进行分类和归纳的基础上赋予的，是通过发现事物的存在法则和行动目标而体现的。

上句见：Day421