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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.
也许在任何一种情况下，比如在我们对爱人或自然环境的迷恋中，都会有一种生理上的吻合感，我们对外部世界的共鸣和热切兴奋的反应也融入其中，这就是我所谓的美。然而我坚信除了进化作用之外，这种兴奋中还包含了一样更为重要的东西。否则，我们如何解释，天性中会对每一个性感女子都强烈愿望的男士，为何还会日复一日地受到同一个女子的吸引？我又为何要在庭院中种上无法食用的花？
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.
不论我们追溯远古到多远，我们都能找到对设计充满热情的证明——罐钵外部的装饰、衣服上的串珠及洞穴顶部的彩绘。人类遗址上曾发现过30000年前的骨制的笛子。因而，我们用有韵律的呼吸回应大地的呼吸，我们用创造的美回应发现的美。我们的耳朵可以很精确地探知食肉动物或猎物的行踪，但这并无法解释为什么我们在听到格列高利圣歌或德尔塔布鲁斯时会感动。我们的眼睛也许比猿略为进化，可以发现任何猎物而毫发无损，但这也很难解释为什么我们会着迷于震颤派的线条、丢勒的雕刻或木星的图片。
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?
事实上，木星是九月星空最亮的一颗，昏暗中闪烁在东南上空。在没有望远镜来显示行星的环绕云层和月亮的光晕时，这样的光亮一定使我们的祖先目眩。我们得知许多文化中的观星人都记载了星体运行，是因为他们的观察记录流传了下来。他们如此忠诚地观察是因为他们相信行星及恒星控制他们的命运，还是因为他们沉迷于夜晚的肃穆？
