一般来说,诗的起源仿佛有两个原因,都是出于人的天性。人从孩提的时候起就有模仿的本能(人和禽兽的分别之一,就在于人最善于模仿,他们最初的知识就是从模仿得来的),人对于模仿的作品总是感到快感。经验证明了这一点:事物本身看上去尽管引起痛感,但惟妙惟肖的图像看上去却能引起我们的快感,例如尸首或最可鄙的动物形象。(其原因也是由于求知不仅对哲学家是最快乐的事,对一般人亦然,只是一般人求知的能力比较薄弱罢了。我们看见那些图像所以感到快感,就因为我们一面在看,一面在求知,断定每一事物是某一事物,比方说,“这就是那个事物”。假如我 In general, the origin of poetry seems to have two reasons, are out of human nature. Since childhood, people have the instinct of imitation (one of the differences between man and beast is that people are the best at imitation, their original knowledge is derived from imitation), people always feel the pleasure of the imitation of the work. Experience has shown this: things appear to cause pain, in their own right, but lifelike images appear to arouse our pleasure, such as the corpse or the most despicable animal image. (The reason for this is also that knowledge-seeking is not only the happiest thing for philosophers, but also for the average person, only for the average person.) We feel pleasure when we see those images, because we are watching, Everything is something, for example, “This is the thing.” Suppose me