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PHILOSOPHICAL ENQUIRY

ΙΝΤΟ THE

ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS

O F THE

SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL.

PART II.

SECT. I.

OF THE PASSION CAUSED BY THE SUBLIME.

THE paffion caused by the great and fublime in nature, when thofe caufes operate moft powerfully, is aftonifhment; and astonishment is that state of the foul, in which all its motions are fufpended, with fome degree of horror*. In this cafe the mind is fo entirely filled with its object, that it cannot entertain any other, nor by confequence reason on that object which employs it. Hence arifes the great power of the fublime, that, far from being produced by them, it anticipates our reafonings, and hurries us on by an irresistible force. Aftonishment, as I have faid, is the effect of the fublime in its highest degree; the inferior effects are admiration, reverence, and respect.

Part I. fe&t. 3, 4, 7.

SECT.

SE C T. II.

TERROR.

NO paffion fo effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reafoning as fear. For fear being an apprehenfion of pain or death, it operates in a manner that refembles actual pain. Whatever therefore is terrible, with regard to fight, is fublime too, whether this cause of terror, be endued with greatness of dimenfions or not; for it is impoffible to look on any thing as trifling, or contemptible, that may be dangerous. There are many animals, who though far from being large, are yet capable of raising ideas of the fublime, because they are confidered as objects of terror; as ferpents and poisonous animals of almost all kinds. And to things of great dimenfions, if we annex an adventitious idea of terror, they become without comparison greater. A level plain of a vast extent on land, is certainly no mean idea; the prospect of fuch a plain may be as extenfive as a profpect of the ocean: but can it ever fill the mind with any thing fo great as the ocean itself? This is owing to feveral causes; but it is owing to none more than this, that the ocean is an object of no small terror. Indeed terror is in all cafes whatfoever, either more openly or latently, the ruling principle of the fublime. Several languages bear a strong teftimony to the affinity of these ideas. They frequently use the fame word, to fignify indifferently the modes of astonishment or admiration and thofe of terror. Oaμlos is in Greek, either fear or wonder; devos is terrible or refpectable; aidew, to reverence or to fear. Vereor

* Part IV. fect. 3, 4, 5, 6.

in Latin, is what adew is in Greek. The Romans used the verb fupeo, a term which strongly marks the state of an aftonished mind, to exprefs the effect either of fimple fear, or of astonishment; the word attonitus (thunder-struck) is equally expreffive of the alliance of these ideas; and do not the French etonnement, and the English astonishment and amazement, point out as clearly the kindred emotions which attend fear and wonder? They who have a more general knowledge of languages, could produce, I make no doubt, many other and equally striking examples.

SECT. III.

OBSCURITY.

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To make any thing very terrible, obfcurity seems in ge

neral to be neceffary. When we know the full extent of any danger, when we can accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehenfion vanishes. Every one will be fenfible of this, who confiders how greatly night adds to our dread, in all cafes of danger, and how much the notions of ghosts and goblins, of which none can form clear ideas, affect minds which give credit to the popular tales concerning fuch forts of beings. Those defpotic governments, which are founded on the paffions of men, and principally upon the paffion of fear, keep their chief as much as may be from the public eye. The policy has been the fame in many cafes of religion. Almost all the heathen temples were dark. Even in the barbarous temples of the Americans at this day, they keep their idol in a dark part of the hut, which is confecrated to his worship. For this purpofe too the druids per*Part IV. fect. 14, 15, 16. R

VOL. I.

formed

formed all their ceremonies in the bofom of the darkest woods, and in the fhade of the oldest and most spreading oaks. No perfon feems better to have understood the secret of heightening, or of setting terrible things, if I may use the expreffion, in their strongest light, by the force of a judicious obfcurity, than Milton. His defcription of death in the second book is admirably studied; it is astonishing with what a gloomy pomp, with what a fignificant and expreffive uncertainty of ftrokes and colouring, he has finished the portrait of the king of terrors:

The other shape,

If fhape it might be call'd that shape had none
Diftinguishable, in member, joint, or limb;
Or fubftance might be call'd that shadow feem'd,
For each feem'd either; black he flood as night;
Fierce as ten furies; terrible as hell;

And book a deadly dart. What seem'd his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.

In this defcription all is dark, uncertain, confused, terrible, and fublime to the last degree.

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OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CLEARNESS AND OBSCURITY WITH REGARD TO THE PASSIONS.

IT

T is one thing to make an idea clear, and another to make it affecting to the imagination. If I make a draw-. ing of a palace, or a temple, or a landscape, I present a. very clear idea of those objects; but then (allowing for the effect of imitation, which is fomething) my picture can at most affect only as the palace, temple, or landscape, would

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