[12] Bywater (page vii), protesting against too generalizing interpretations, goes to the other extreme of undue restriction. That the treatment is philosophical and intends to suggest large inferences appears from both its plan and its language. Certainly the _Poetic_ is technical; but no less certainly it is theoretical. [13] The interpretation of Bywater. [14] ἤθη καὶ πάθη καὶ πράξεις, 1447 a, where Aristotle is speaking of dancing. [15] See foot-note 11 above. [16] In Chapter ix, 1451 b, Aristotle says: “It is evident from the above that the poet should be rather the poet of his plots than of his verses, inasmuch as he is a poet by virtue of his imitation, and it is actions that he imitates.” [17] Butcher (pages 110-124) in pointing out that the Greek phrase for the fine arts is _imitative arts_ (μιμητικαὶ τέχναι or μιμήσεις), says that Aristotle applies it specifically only to poetry and music. In this opening chapter of the _Poetic_ he evidently means to include dancing. That Aristotle had no thought of “bare imitation,” of that reproductive copying which Ruskin confused with artistic truth, has been remarked also by other critics. Butcher adds suggestively, though not with strict reference to the text, that to imitate nature was for Aristotle not to evoke the mere background which romanticism has taught us to spell with a capital N, but to work in nature’s ways. Nature (φύσις) in Aristotle is not the sensible world, but “the creative force, the productive principle.” So the immediate objects of poetic imitation are human characters, emotions, and actions, not as objective phenomena, but as expressions of human will. “The common original,” Butcher concludes, “is human life ... essential activity of the soul.” Though this is true to the underlying idea of the _Poetic_, Aristotle does not use any single phrase corresponding to “imitation of nature.” [18] 1449 b. [19] 1450 a. [20] 1450 b. [21] Σπουδαῖος, which of persons means _earnest_; of things, what we mean by _serious_ in such phrases as a _serious proposal_ and _serious consideration_. [22] Bywater makes one item, “as having magnitude, complete in itself.” Butcher makes two items, “complete, _and_ of a certain magnitude.” The former seems closer to the Greek text and, on the whole, more consistent with the context; but both renderings give much the same meaning ultimately. [23] The distinction has lately been pointed by Mr. Hardy’s _Dynasts_. This, whatever else may be thought of it, is not “complete as to size,” but indeterminate. Doubtless that is why it is styled an “epic-drama.” Certainly, for all its “enhanced utterance” and occasionally striking dialogue, it is not, by any definition, a drama. [24] Bywater, pages 152-161, has discussed this phrase amply, and in an appendix, 361-365, has compiled with their dates the successive critical translations. [25] vii. 1450 b. [26] 1451 a. [27] viii-ix, 1451 a-1451 b.