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Perhaps in every case, as in our infatuation with lover or landscape, a sense of biological fitness infuses the resonant, eager uplifting response to the world at I am calling beauty. Yet I persist in believing there is more to this tingle than an evolutionary reflex. Otherwise, how could a man who is programmed to lust after every nubile female nonetheless be steadily attached, year after year, to the same woman? Why would I plant my yard with flowers that I cannot eat.
也許在任何一種情況下，比如在我們對愛人或自然環境的迷戀中，都會有一種生理上的吻合感，我們對外部世界的共鳴和熱切興奮的反應也融入其中，這就是我所謂的美。然而我堅信除了進化作用之外，這種興奮中還包含了一樣更為重要的東西。否則，我們如何解釋，天性中會對每一個性感女子都強烈愿望的男士，為何還會日復一日地受到同一個女子的吸引？我又為何要在庭院中種上無法食用的花？
As far back as we can trace our ancestors, we find evidence of passion for design-decorations on pots, beads on clothes, pigments on the ceilings of caves. Bone flutes have been found at human sites dating back more than 30, 000 years. So we answer the breathing of the land with our own measured breath; we answer the beauty we find with the beauty we make. Our ears may be finely tuned for detecting the movements of predators or prey, but that does not explain why we should be so moved by listening to Gregorian chants or Delta blues. Our eyes may be those of a slightly reformed ape, trained for noticing whatever will keep skin and bones intact, but that scarcely expalins why we should be so enthralled by the lines of a Shaker chair or a Durer engraving, orby photographs of Jupiter.
不論我們追溯遠古到多遠，我們都能找到對設計充滿熱情的證明——罐缽外部的裝飾、衣服上的串珠及洞穴頂部的彩繪。人類遺址上曾發現過30000年前的骨制的笛子。因而，我們用有韻律的呼吸回應大地的呼吸，我們用創造的美回應發現的美。我們的耳朵可以很精確地探知食肉動物或獵物的行蹤，但這并無法解釋為什么我們在聽到格列高利圣歌或德爾塔布魯斯時會感動。我們的眼睛也許比猿略為進化，可以發現任何獵物而毫發無損，但這也很難解釋為什么我們會著迷于震顫派的線條、丟勒的雕刻或木星的圖片。
As it happens, Jupiter is the brightest light in th sky on these September evenings, blazing in the southeast at dusk. Such a light must have dazzled our ancestors long before telescopes began to reveal the planet's husk of cloudsor or its halo of moons. We know that night-watchers in many cultures kept track of the heaven dance because the records of their observations have come down to us. Did they watch so faithfully because they believed the stars and planets controlled their fate, or because they were mesmerized by the majesty of the nignt?
事實上，木星是九月星空最亮的一顆，昏暗中閃爍在東南上空。在沒有望遠鏡來顯示行星的環繞云層和月亮的光暈時，這樣的光亮一定使我們的祖先目眩。我們得知許多文化中的觀星人都記載了星體運行，是因為他們的觀察記錄流傳了下來。他們如此忠誠地觀察是因為他們相信行星及恒星控制他們的命運，還是因為他們沉迷于夜晚的肅穆？
