activity of mind of which the more developed stage is found in the process of thought. But even in Yen Yü's sense the word designates a form of spiritual activity; and to connect poetry with spiritual activity is to find the only key to an understanding of its intrinsic meaning.
But I should not like to lay undue stress on this Discourse as an anticipation of modern aesthetic thought. It is wholly outside the main highway of our own historical traditions; and even if it were not, it is always well to bear in mind what Stirling says in his Secret of Hegel:
"It 's a curious thing that, once a doctrine has become historically established, we are often startled by expressions in the works of previous writers which seem accurately to describe it; yet these previous writers shall have no more insight into the doctrine concerned than any Indian in his woods; and we ourselves should have found something quite else in the expressions, had we read them before the doctrine itself was become historically overt."
Rather for itself, as a guide to the still unexplored genius of China, this fragment may interest the Western World
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
Yen Yü was a man of letters of the Sung Dynasty, about the twelfth century A. D. There are five parts in his noted Discourse on Poetry—the Definition of Poetry, Styles of Poetry, the Method of Poetry, Judgements of Poetry, and Proofs of Poetry. As the treatise is richly illustrated with historical allusions it becomes very difficult to translate it without providing an elaborate commentary on all the poets and poems represented. Such a rendering may be desired by the special student. But the general reader is interested in having a glimpse of the treasured criticisms of poetry in Chinese literature. Hence a rough attempt is made here to translate the two parts of the treatise which are comparatively free from allusions and textual proofs. These are the Definition of Poetry and the Method of Poetry, and even these two parts are not given in full.
