To this most important insight of aesthetics (with which, in the most serious sense, aesthetics properly begins), Richard Wagner, by way of confirmation of its eternal truth, affixed his seal, when he asserted in his Beethoven that music must be evaluated according to aesthetic principles quite different form those which apply to all plastic arts, and not, in general, according to the category of beauty;
关于这一最重要的美学见解，（严格的说，真正的美学是从它开始的），理查·瓦格纳曾予以保证，肯定它是永恒真理。他在“贝多芬论”中曾断言：音乐的评价， 必须依照不同于一切造型艺术原理的审美原理，一般地说，不应该根据美这范畴来评论；
although an erroneous aesthetics, inspired by a mistaken and degenerate art, has, by virtue of the concept of beauty obtaining in the plastic domain, accustomed itself to demand of music an effect similar to that produced by works of plastic art, namely, the arousing of delight in beautiful forms.
虽则今日有一种错误的美学，依据一种腐化堕落的艺术，习惯了那只适用于造型艺术的审美概念，要求音乐产生与造型艺术相同的效果，换句话说，要求音乐能唤起对美的形式的快感。
Having recognized this extraordinary contrast, I felt a strong need to approach the essence of Greek tragedy and, with it, the profoundest revelation of the Hellenic genius; for I at last thought that I possessed a charm to enable me--far beyond the phraseology of our usual aesthetics--to represent vividly to my mind the fundamental problem of tragedy;
根据这一巨大的对立，我觉得很有必要进一步探索希腊悲剧的本质，从而深刻地揭示希腊的天才，因为我毕竟相信我能运用一种魔力，可以超出今日流行的美学术语之外，使悲剧的基本问题鲜明地浮现在我心中。
whereby I was granted such a surprising and unusual insight into the Hellenic character that it necessarily seemed to me as if our classical-Hellenic science that bears itself so proudly had thus far contrived to subsist mainly on shadow plays and externals.
因此， 我对于希腊人的特性获得非常深刻的体会，使我不禁觉得：那些自命不凡的希腊古学研究，至今还是捕风捉影，只满足于肤浅的认识而已。