IV

Poetry in general seems to have sprung from two causes, each of them
lying deep in our nature. First, the instinct of imitation is implanted
in man from childhood, one difference between him and other animals being
that he is the most imitative of living creatures, and through imitation
learns his earliest lessons; and no less universal is the pleasure felt
in things imitated. We have evidence of this in the facts of experience.
Objects which in themselves we view with pain, we delight to contemplate
when reproduced with minute fidelity: such as the forms of the most
ignoble animals and of dead bodies. The cause of this again is, that to
learn gives the liveliest pleasure, not only to philosophers but to men
in general; whose capacity, however, of learning is more limited. Thus
the reason why men enjoy seeing a likeness is, that in contemplating it
they find themselves learning or inferring, and saying perhaps, 'Ah, that
is he.' For if you happen not to have seen the original, the pleasure
will be due not to the imitation as such, but to the execution, the
colouring, or some such other cause.

Imitation, then, is one instinct of our nature. Next, there is the
instinct for 'harmony' and rhythm, metres being manifestly sections of
rhythm. Persons, therefore, starting with this natural gift developed by
degrees their special aptitudes, till their rude improvisations gave
birth to Poetry.

Poetry now diverged in two directions, according to the individual
character of the writers. The graver spirits imitated noble actions, and
the actions of good men. The more trivial sort imitated the actions of
meaner persons, at first composing satires, as the former did hymns to
the gods and the praises of famous men. A poem of the satirical kind