Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 with funding from Getty Research Institute 7 https://archive.org/details/onsublimebeautifOOburk ON THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL. EDMUND BURKE. NEW YORK: JOHN B. ALDEN, PUBLISHER. 1885. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE. Introduction: On Taste, - - 3 Novelty, 23 Pain and Pleasure. 24 The Difference between the Removal of Pain and Posi- tive Pleasure, - 27 Of Delight and Pleasure as Opposed to Each Other - 28 Joy and Grief, -------- 30 Of the Passions which belong to Self-Preservation, - 32 Of the Sublime, 32 Of the Passions which belong to Society, 33 The Final Cause of the Difference between the Passions belonging to Self-Preservation, and those which regard the Society of the Sexes, - - - - 34 Of Beauty, 36 Society and Solitude, - - 37 Sympathy, Imitation, and Ambition, 38 Sympathy, - -- -- -- -- 38 The Effects of Sympathy in the Distresses of Others - 39 Of the Effects of Tragedy, ------ 41 Imitation, 43 Ambition, - - 44 On the Passion Caused by the Sublime, 50 Terror, - - - - 51 Obscurity, 52 Of the Difference between Clearness and Obscurity with regard to the Passions, ----- 53 Power, - ---58 Privation, - - - - 65 Vastness, ----- 66 Infinity, - - - 67 Succession and Uniformity, ------ 68 Magnitude in Building, - - 70 Infinity in Pleasing Objects, ------ 71 Difficulty, - 72 Magnificence, --------- 72 Light, 74 Light in Building, 76 Color Considered as Productive of the Sublime, - 76 Sound and Loudness, 77 Suddenness, 78 Intermitting, - 78 The Cries of Amimals, 79 Smell and Taste: Bitters and Stenches, 80 Feeling. Pain, - 81 Of Beauty, 82 Proportion not the Cause of Beauty in Vegetables, - 83 Proportion not the Cause of Beauty in Animals, - - 87 Proportion not the Cause of Beauty in the Human Species, 89 Proportion further considered, ----- 95 Fitness not the Cause of Beauty, ----- 98 TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE. The Real Effects of Fitness, ------ ioi Perfection not the Cause of Beauty, - 104 How far the Idea of Beauty may be applied to the Qualities of the Mind, 105 How far the Idea of Beauty may be applied to Virtue, 106 The real Cause of Beauty. ------ 107 Beautiful Objects Smell, - - 107 Smoothness, - 109 Gradual Variation, - - - - - - - - 109 Delicacy, - Ill Beauty in Color, - - - - 112 The Physiognomy, 113 The Eye, - 114 Ugliness, - - 114 Grace, - - - - 115 Elegance and Speciousness, ------ 115 The Beautiful in Feeling, ------- 116 The Beautiful in Sounds, 118 Taste and Smell, ---119 The Sublime and Beautiful compared, ... 120 Of the Efficient Cause of the Sublime and Beautiful, - 122 Association, 123 Cause of Pain and Fear, - 124 How the Sublime is produced, ----- 127 How Pain can be a Cause of Delight, 128 Exercise Necessary for the Finer Organs, - - - 129 Why Things not Dangerous Produce a Passion like Ter- ror, ------ 130 Why Visual Objects of great dimensions are Sublime, 130 Unity, why Requisite to Vastness, - - - - 132 The Artificial Infinite, ------- 133 The Vibrations must be Similar, 134 The Effect of Succession in Visual Objects Explained 135 Locke’s Opinion Concerning Darkness considered, - 137 Darkness Terrible in its own Nature, - 139 Why Darkness is Terrible, ------- 140 The Effects of Darkness, ------ 141 The Effects of Blackness Moderated, - - - - 143 The Physical Cause of Love, ------ 144 Why Smoothness is Beautiful, 146 Sweetness, its Nature, - 147 Sweetness Relaxing, - 149 Variation, why Beautiful, - 151 Concerning Smallness, ------- 152 Of Color, ---------- 155 Of Words, ---------- 157 The Common Effect of Poetry, not by Raising Ideas of Things, 157 General Words before Ideas, - - - - - 159 The Effect of Words, ------- 161 Examples that Words may Affect without raising Images, 162 Poetry not Strictly an Imitative Art, - - - - 168 How Words Influence the Passions, 168 ON THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL. INTRODUCTION. ON TASTf). On a superficial view, we may seem to differ very widely from each other in our reasonings, and no less in our pleasures: but notwithstanding this difference, which I think to be rather apparent than real, it is probable that the standard both of reason and taste is the same in all human creatures. For if there were not some principles of judg- ment as well as of sentiment common to all mankind, no hold could possibly be taken either on their reason or their passions, suffi- cient to maintain the ordinary correspond- ence of life. It appears indeed to be gen- erally acknowledged, that with regard to truth and falsehood there is something fixed. We find people in their disputes continually appealing to certain tests and standards, which are allowed on all sides, and are supposed to be established in our common nature. But there is not the same obvious concurrence in any uniform or settled prin- ciples which relate to taste. It is even commonly supposed that this delicate and serial faculty, which seems too volatile to endure even the chains of a definition, cannot be properly tried by any test, nor regulated by any standard. There is so continual a 4 ON THE SUBLIME call for the exercise of the reasoning faculty, and it is so much strengthened by perpetual contention, that certain maxims of right reason seem to be tacitly settled amongst the most ignorant. The learned have improved on this rude science, and reduced those maxims into a system. If taste has not been so happily cultivated, it was not that the subject was barren, but that the laborers were few or negligent ; for to say the truth, there are not the same interesting motives to impel us to fix the one, which urge us to ascertain the other. And after all, if men differ in their opinion concerning such mat- ters, their difference is not attended with the same important consequences; else I make no doubt but that the logic of taste, if I may be allowed the expression, might very possi- bly be as well digested, and we might come to discuss matters of this nature with as much certainty, as those which seem more immedi- ately within the province of mere reason. And indeed, it is very necessary, at the entrance into such an inquiry as our present, to make this point as clear as possible ; for if taste has no fixed principles, if the imagina- tion is not affected according to some invari- able and certain laws, our labor is like to be employed to very little purpose; as it must be judged an useless, if not an absurd under- taking, to lay down rules for caprice, and to set up for a legislator of whims and fancies. The term taste, like all other figurative terms, is not extremely accurate; the thing which we understand by it, is far from a simple and determinate idea in the minds of most men, and it is therefore liable to un- certainty and confusion. I have no great opinion of a definition, the celebrated remedy for the cure of this disorder. For when we define, we seem in danger of cir- AND BEAUTIFUL. 5 cumscribing nature within the bounds of our own notions, which we often take up by hazard, or embrace on trust, or form out of a limited and partial consideration of the object before us, instead of extending our ideas to take in all that nature comprehends, according to her manner of combining. We are limited in our inquiry by the laws to which we have submitted at our setting out. Circa vilem patulumque morabimur orbem, Unde pndor pro ferre pedem vetat aut operis lex. A definition may be very exact, and yet go but a very little way towards informing us of the nature of the thing defined; but let the virtue of a definition be what it will, in the order of things, it seems rather to follow than to precede our inquiry, of which it ought to be considered as the result. It must be acknowledged that the methods of disquisition and teaching may be sometimes different, and on very good reason un- doubtedly ; but for my part, I am convinced that the method of teaching which ap- proaches most nearly to the method of inves- tigation, is incomparably the best ; since, not content with serving up a few barren and lifeless truths, it leads to the stock on which they grew ; it tends to set the reader himself in the track of invention, and to direct him into those paths in which the author has made his own discoveries, if he should be so happy as to have made any that are valuable. But to cut off all pretence for cavilling, I mean by the word Taste no more than that faculty or those faculties of the mind, which are affected with, or which form a judgment of, the works of imagination and the elegant arts. This is, I think, the most general idea of that word, and what is the least connected with any particular theory. And my point in this inquiry is, to find whether there are 6 ON THE SUBLIME any principles, on which the imagination is affected, so common to all, so grounded and certain, as to supply the means of reasoning satisfactorily about them. And such prin- ciples of taste I fancy there are; however paradoxical it may seem to those, who on a superficial view imagine, that there is so great a diversity of tastes, both in kind and degree, that nothing can be more indetermi- nate. All the natural powers in man, which I know, that are conversant about external objects, are the senses; the imagination; and the judgment. And first with regard to the senses. We do and we must suppose, that as the conformation of their organs are nearly or altogether the same in all men, so the manner of perceiving external objects is in all men the same, or with little difference. We are satisfied that what appears to be light to one eye, appears light to another; that what seems sweet to one palate, is sweet to another ; that what is dark and bitter to this man, is likewise dark and bitter to that ; and we conclude in the same manner of great and little, hard and soft, hot and cold, rough and smooth; and indeed of all the natural qual- ities and affections of bodies. If we suffer ourselves to imagine, that their senses present to different men different images of things, this sceptical proceeding will make every sort of reasoning on every subject vain and frivolous, even that sceptical reasoning itself which had persuaded us to entertain a doubt concerning the agreement of our perceptions. But as there will be little doubt that bodies present similar images to the whole species, it must necessarily be allowed, that the pleas- ures and the pains which every object excites in one man, it must raise in all mankind, whilst it operates, naturally, simply, and by AND BEAUTIFUL. its proper powers only; for if we deny this, we must imagine that the same cause operat- ing in the same manner, and on subjects of the same kind, will produce different effects, which would be highly absurd. Let us first consider this point in the sense of taste, and the rather as the faculty in question has taken its name from that sense. All men are agreed to call vinegar sour, honey sweet, and aloes bitter; and as they are all agreed in finding these qualities in those objects, they do not in the least differ concerning their effects with regard to pleasure and pain. They all concur in calling sweetness pleasant, and sourness and bitterness unpleasant. Here there is no diversity in their sentiments ; and that there is not, appears fully from the con- sent of all men in the metaphors which are taken from the sense of taste. A sour tem- per, bitter expressions, bitter curses, a bitter fate, are terms well and strongly understood by all. And we are altogether as well under- stood when' we say, a sweet disposition, a sweet person, a sweet condition, and the like. It is confessed, that custom and some other causes, have made many deviations from the natural pleasures or pains which belong to these several tastes; but then the power of distinguishing between the natural and the acquired relish remains to the very last. A man frequently comes to prefer the taste of tobacco to that of sugar, and the flavor of vinegar to that of milk ; but this makes no confusion in tastes, whilst he is sensible that the tobacco and vinegar are not sweet, and whilst he knows that habit alone has recon- ciled his palate to these alien pleasures. Even with such a person we may speak, and with sufficient precision, concerning tastes. But should any man be found who declares, that fo him tobacco has a taste like sugar, and 8 ON THE SUBLIME that he cannot distinguish between milk and vinegar; or that tobacco and vinegar are sweet, milk bitter, and sugar sour; we im- mediately conclude that the organs of this man are out of order, and that his palate is utterly vitiated. We are as far from confer- ring with such a person upon tastes, as from reasoning concerning the relations of quantity with one who should deny that all the parts together were equal to the whole. We do not call a man of this kind wrong in his no- tions, but absolutely mad. Exceptions of this sort, in either way, do not at all impeach our general rule, nor make us conclude that men have various principles concerning the rela- tions of quantity or the taste of things. So that wdien it is said, taste cannot be disputed, it can only mean, that no one can strictly answer what pleasure or pain some particu- lar man may find from the taste of some par- ticular thing. This indeed cannot be dis- puted ; but we may dispute, and with suffi- cient clearness too, concerning the things which are naturally pleasing or disagreeable to the sense. But when we talk of any pecul- iar or acquired relish, then we must know the habits, the prejudices, or the distempers of this particular man, and we must draw our conclusion from those. This agreement of mankind is not confined to the taste solely. The principle of pleasure derived from sight is the same in all. Light is more pleasing than darkness. Summer, when the earth is clad in green, when the heavens are serene and bright, is more agree- able than winter, when everything makes a different appearance. I never remember that anything beautiful, whether a man, a beast, a bird, or a plant, was ever shown, though it were to a hundred people, that they did not all immediately agree that jt was beautiful, AND BEAUTIFUL. 9 though some might have thought that it fell short of their expectation, or that other things were still finer. I believe no man thinks a goose to be more beautiful than a swan, or imagines that what they call a Friezland hen excels a peacock. It must be observed too, that the pleasures of the sight are not near so complicated, and confused, and altered by unnatural habits and associations, as the pleasures of the taste are ; because the pleas- ures of the sight more commonly acquiesce in themselves ; and are not so often altered by considerations which are independent of the sight itself. But things do not spontaneously present themselves to the palate as they do to the sight ; they are generally applied to it, either as food or as medicine ; and from the qualities which they possess for nutritive or medicinal purposes, they often form the palate by degrees, and by force of these asso- ciations. Thus opium is pleasing to Turks, on account of the agreeable delirium it pro- duces. Tobacco is the delight of Dutchmen, as it diffuses a torpor and pleasing stupefac- tion. Fermented spirits please our common people, because they banish care, and all consideration of future or present evils. All of these would lie absolutely neglected if their properties had originally gone no fur- ther than the taste; but all these, together with tea and coffee, and some other things, have passed from the apothecary’s shop to our tables, and were taken for health long before they were thought of for pleasure. The effect of the drug has made us use it frequently ; and frequent use, combined with the agreeable effect, has made the taste itself at last agreeable. But this does not in the least perplex our reasoning ; because we dis- tinguish to the last the acquired from the natural relish. In describing the taste of an 10 ON THE SUBLIME unknown fruit, you would scarcely say that it had a sweet and pleasant flavor like to- bacco, opium, or garlick, although you spoke to those who were in the constant use of these drugs, and had great pleasure in them. There is in all men a sufficient remembrance of the original natural causes of pleasure, to enable them to bring all things offered to their senses to that standard, and to regulate their feelings and opinions by it. Suppose one who had so vitiated his palate as to take more pleasure in the taste of opium than in that of butter or honey, to be presented with a bolus of squills ; there is hardly any doubt but that he would prefer the butter or honey to this nauseous morsel, or to any other bitter drug to which he had not been accustomed ; which proves that his palate w T as naturally like that of other men in all things, that it is still like the palate of other men in many things, and only vitiated in some particular points. For in judging of any new thing, even of a taste similar to that wffiich he has been formed by habit to like, he finds his palate affected in the natural manner, and on the common principles. Thus the pleasure of all the senses, of the sight, and even of the taste, that most ambiguous of the senses, is the same in all, high and low, learned and unlearned. Besides the ideas, with their annexed pains and pleasures, which are presented by the sense; the mind of man possesses a sort of creative power of its own ; either in represent- ing at pleasure the images of things in the order and manner in which they were re- ceived by the senses, or in combining those images in a new manner, and according to a different order. This power is called imagina- tion; and to this belongs whatever is called wit, fancy, invention, and the like. But it AND BEAUTIFUL. 11 must be observed, that the power of the im- agination is incapable of producing anything absolutely new ; it can only vary the disposi- tion of those ideas which it has received from the senses. Now the imagination is the most extensive province of pleasure and pain, as it is the region of our fears and our hopes, and of all our passions that are connected with them; and whatever is calculated to effect the imagination with these commanding ideas, by force of any original natural impression, must have the same power pretty equally over all men. For since the imagination is only the representation of the senses, it can only be pleased or displeased with the images, from the same principle on which the sense is pleased or displeased with the realities ; and consequently there must be just as close an agreement in the imaginations as in the senses of men. A little attention will convince us that this must of necessity be the case. But in the imaginations, besides the pain or pleasure arising from the properties of the natural object, a pleasure is perceived from the resemblance, which the imitation has to the original; the imagination, I conceive, can have no pleasure but what results from one or other of these causes. And these causes operate pretty uniformly upon all men, be- cause they operate by principles in nature, and which are not derived from any particu- lar habits or advantages. Mr. Locke very justly and finely observes of wit, that it is chiefly conversant in tracing resemblances : he remarks at the same time that the business of judgment is rather in finding differences. It may perhaps appear, on this supposition, that there is no material distinction between the wit and the judgment, as they both seem to result from different operations of the same faculty of comparing . But in reality, whether 12 ON THE SUBLIME they are or are not dependent on the same power of the mind, they differ so very ma- terially in many respects, that a perfect union of wit and judgment is one of the rarest things in the world. When two distinct objects are unlike to each other, it is only what we ex- pect; things are in their common way, and therefore they make no impression on the imagination: but when two distinct objects have a resemblance, we are struck, we attend to them, and we are pleased. The mind of man has naturally a far greater alacrity and satisfaction in tracing resemblances than in searching for differences : because by mak- ing resemblances we produce new images; we unite, we create, we enlarge our stock; but in making distinctions we offer no food at all to the imagination; the task itself is more severe and irksome, and what pleasure we derive from it is something of a negative and indirect nature. A piece of news is told me in the morning; this, merely as a piece of news, as a fact added to my stock, gives me some pleasure. In the evening I find there was nothing in it. What do I gain by this, but the dissatisfaction to find that I had been imposed upon? Hence it is that men are much more naturally inclined to belief than to incredulity. And it is upon this principle, that the most ignorant and barbarous na- tions have frequently excelled in similitudes, comparisons, metaphors, and allegories, who have been weak and backward in distinguish- ing and sorting their ideas. And it is for a reason of this kind, that Homer and the orien- tal writers, though very fond of similitudes, and though they often strike out such as are truly admirable, seldom take care to have them exact ; that is, they are taken with the general resemblance, they paint it strongly, and they take no notice of the difference AND BEAUTIFUL. 13 which may be found between the things com- pared. Now, as the pleasure of resemblance is that which principally flatters the imagination, all men are nearly equal in this point, as far as their knowledge of the things represented or compared extends. The principle of this knowledge is very much accidental, as it de- pends upon experience and observation, and not on the strength or weakness of any natu- ral faculty ; and it is from this difference in knowledge, that what we commonly, though with no great exactness, call a difference in taste proceeds. A man to whom sculpture is new, sees a barber’s block, or some ordinary piece of statuary ; he is immediately struck and pleased, because he sees something like a human figure; and, entirely taken up with this likeness, he does not at all attend to its defects. No person, I believe, at the first time of seeing a piece of imitation ever did. Some time after, we suppose that this novice lights upon a more artificial work of the same nature ; he now begins to look with contempt on what he admired at first ; not that he ad- mired it even then for its unlikeness to a man, but for that general though inaccurate resem- blance which it bore to the human figure. What he admired at different times in these so different figures, is strictly the same; and though his knowledge is improved, his taste is not altered. Hitherto his mistake was from a want of knowledge in art, and this arose from his inexperience ; but he may be still deficient from a want of knowledge in nature. For it is possible that the man in question may stop here, and that the master- piece of a great hand may please him no more than the middling performance of a vulgar artist; and this not for want of better or higher relish, but because all men do not ob- 14 ON THE SUBLIME serve with sufficient accuracy on the h um an figure to enable them to judge properly of an imitation of it. And that the critical taste does not depend upon a superior principle in men, but upon superior knowledge, may ap- pear from several instances. The story of the ancient painter and the shoemaker is very well known. The shoemaker set the painter right with regard to some mistakes he had made in the shoe of one of his figures, and which the painter, who had not made such accurate observations on shoes, and was con- tent with a general resemblance, had never observed. But this was no impeachment to the taste of the painter ; it only showed some want of knowledge in the art of making shoes. Let us imagine, that an anatomist had come into the painter’s working-room. His piece is in general well done, the figure in question in a good attitude, and the parts well adjusted to their various movements; yet the anatomist, critical in his art, may ob- serve the swell of some muscle not quite just in the peculiar action of the figure. Here the anatomist observes what the painter had not observed ; and he passes by what the shoe- maker had remarked. But a want of the last critical knowledge in anatomy no more re- flected on the natural good taste of the painter, or of any common observer of his piece, than the want of an exact knowledge in the formation of a shoe. A fine piece of a decollated head of St. John the Baptist was shown to a Turkish emperor; he praised many things, but he observed one defect ; he observed that the skin did not shrink from the wounded part of the neck. The sultan on this occasion, though his observation was very just, discovered no more natural taste than the painter who executed this piece, 0? than a thousand European connoisseurs, who AND BEAUTIFUL. 15 probably never would have made the same observation. His Turkish majesty had in- deed been well acquainted with that terrible spectacle, which the others could only have represented in their imagination. On the subject of their dislike there is a difference be- tween all these people, arising from the dif- ferent kinds and degrees of their knowledge ; but there is something in common to the painter, the shoemaker, the anatomist, and the Turkish emperor, the pleasure arising from a natural object, so far as each perceives it justly imitated ; the satisfaction in seeing an agreeable figure; the sympathy proceed- ing from a striking and affecting incident. So far as taste is natural, it is nearly common to all. In poetry, and other pieces of imagination, the same parity may be observed. It is true, that one man is charmed with Don Bellianis, and reads Virgil coldly: whilst another is transported with the Eneid, and leaves Don Bellianis to children. These two men seem to have a taste very different from each other ; but in fact they differ very little. In both these pieces, which inspire such opposite sentiments, a tale exciting admiration is told ; both are full of action, both are passionate; in both are voyages, battles, and triumphs, and continual changes of fortune. The ad- mirer of Don Bellianis perhaps does not un- derstand the refined language of the Eneid, who, if it was degraded into the style of the Pilgrim’s Progress, might feel it in all its en- ergy, on the same principle which makes him admire Don Bellianis. In his favorite author he is not shocked with the continual breaches of probability, the confusion of times, the offences against manners, the trampling upon geography ; for he knows nothing of geography and chronol- 16 ON THE SUBLIME ogy, and he has never examined the grounds of probability. He perhaps reads of a ship- wreck on the coast of Bohemia ; wholly taken up with so interesting an event, and only so- licitous for the fate of his hero, he is not in the least troubled at this extravagant blunder. For why should he be shocked at a shipwreck on the coast of Bohemia, who does not know but that Bohemia may be an island in the Atlantic ocean? and after all, what reflection 1 is this on the natural good taste of the person here supposed? So far then as taste belongs to the imagina- tion, its principle is the same in all men ; there is no difference in the manner of their being affected, nor in the causes of the affection ; but in the degree there is a difference, which arises from two causes principally; either from a greater degree of natural sensibility, or from a closer and longer attention to the object. To illustrate this by the procedure of the senses, in which the same difference is found, let us suppose a very smooth marble table to be set before two men ; they both per- ceive it to be smooth, and they are both pleased with it because of this quality. So far they agree, But suppose another, and after that another table, the latter still smooth- er than the former, to be set before them. It is now very probable that these men, who are so agreed upon what is smooth, and in the pleasure from thence, will disagree when they f come to settle which table has the advantage j in point of polish. Here is indeed the great dif- ference bet Aveen tastes, when men come to com- pare the excess or diminution of things which are judged by degree and not by measure. Nor is it easy, when such a difference arises, to settle the point, if the excess or diminution be not glaring. If we differ in opinion about two quantities, we can have recourse to a AND BEAUTIFUL . 17 common measure, which may decide the ques- tion with the utmost exactness; and this, I take it, is what gives mathematical knowl- edge a greater certainty than any other. But in things whose excess is not judged by great- er or smaller, as smoothness and roughness, hardness and softness, darkness and light, the shades of colors, all these are very easily distinguished when the difference is any way , considerable, but not when it is minute, for* 1 want of common measures, which perhaps may never come to be discovered. In these nice cases, supposing the acuteness of the sense equal, the greater attention and habit in such things will have the advantage. In the question about the tables, the marble-pol- isher will unquestionably determine the most accurately. But notwithstanding this want of a common measure for settling many dis- putes relative to the senses, and their repre- sentative the imagination, we find that the principles are the same in all, and that there is no disagreement until we come to examine into the pre-eminence or difference of things, which brings us within the province of the judgment. So long as we are conversant with the sen- sible qualities of things, hardly any more than the imagination seems concerned ; little more also than the imagination seems con- cerned when the passions are represented, be- cause by the force of natural sympathy they are felt in all men without any recourse to reasoning, and their justness recognized in every breast. Love, grief, fear, anger, joy, all these passions have in their turns affected every mind ; and they do not affect it in an arbitrary or casual manner, but upon certain, natural, and uniform principles. But as many of the works of imagination are not confined to the representation of sensible ob- 2 18 ON THE SUBLIME jects, nor to efforts upon the passions, but ex- tend themselves to the manners, the charac- ters, the actions, and designs of men, their re- lations, their virtues and vices, they come within the province of the judgment, which is improved by attention and by the habit of reasoning. All these make a very consider- able part of what are considered as the objects of taste ; and Horace sends us to the schools of philosophy and the world for our instruc- tion in them. Whatever certainty is to be acquired in morality and the science of life ; just the same degree of certainty have we in what relates to them in the works of imita- tion. Indeed it is for the most part in our skill in manners, and in the observances of time and place, and of decency in general, which is only to be learned in those schools to which Horace recommends us, that what is called taste, by way of distinction, consists ; and which is in reality no other than a more refined judgment. On the whole, it appears to me, that what is called taste, in its most gen- eral acceptation, is not a simple idea, but is partly made up of a perception of the primary pleasures of sense, of the secondary pleasures of the imagination, and of the conclusions of the reasoning faculty, concerning the various relations of these, and concerning the human passions, manners, and actions. All this is requisite to form taste, and the ground-work of all these is the same in the human mind ; for as the senses are the great originals of all our ideas, and consequently of all our pleas- ures, if they are not uncertain and arbitrary, the whole ground-work of taste is common to all, and therefore there is a sufficient foun- dation for a conclusive reasoning on these matters. Whilst we consider taste merely according to its nature and species, we shall find its AND BEAUTIFUL . 19 principles entirely uniform; but the degree in which these principles prevail, in the several individuals of mankind, is alto- gether as different as the principles them- selves are similar. For sensibility and judg- ment, which are the qualities that compose what we commonly call a taste, vary exceed- ingly in various people. From a defect in the former of these qualities, arises a want of taste ; a weakness in the latter, constitutes a wrong or a bad one. There are some men formed with feelings so blunt, with tempers so cold and phlegmatic, that they can hardly be said to be awake during the whole course of their lives. Upon such persons the most striking objects make but a faint and obscure impression. There are others so continually in the agitation of gross and merely sensual pleasures, or so occupied in the low drudgery of avarice, or so heated in the chase of hon- ors and distinction, that their minds, which had been used continually to the storms of these violent and tempestuous passions, can hardly be put in motion by the delicate and refined play of the imagination. These men, though from a different cause, become as stu- pid and insensible as the former ; but when- ever either of these happen to be struck with any natural elegance or greatness, or with these qualities in any work of art, they are moved upon the same principle. The cause of a wrong taste is a defect of judgment. And this may arise from a natural weakness of understanding (in what- ever the strength of that faculty may con- sist), or, which is much more commonly the case, it may arise from a want of proper and well-directed exercise, which alone can make it strong and ready. Besides that ignorance, inattention, prejudice, rashness, levity, obstinacy, in short, all those passions, 20 ON THE SUBLIME and all those vices, which pervert the judg- ment in other matters, prejudice it no less in this its more refined and elegant province. These causes produce different opinions upon everything which is an object of the under- standing, without inducing us to suppose f that there are no settled principles of reason. And indeed on the whole one may observe, that there is rather less difference upon matters of taste among mankind, than up- on most of those which depend upon naked reason ; and that men are far better agreed on the excellence of a description in Virgil, than on the truth or falsehood of a theory of Aristotle. A rectitude of judgment in the arts, which may be called a good taste, does in a great measure depend upon sensibility ; because if the mind has no bent to the pleasures of the imagination, it will never apply itself suffi- ciently to works of that species to acquire a competent knowledge in them. But though a degree of sensibility is requisite to form a good judgment, yet a good judgment does not necessarily arise from a quick sensibility of pleasure ; it frequently happens that a very poor judge, merely by force of a greater com- plexional sensibility, is more affected by a very poor piece, than the best judge by the most perfect; for as everything new, ex- traordinary, grand, or passionate, is well calculated to affect such a person, and that the faults do not affect him, his pleasure is more pure and unmixed ; and as it is merely a pleasure of the imagination, it is much higher than any which is derived from a rectitude of the judgment; the judgment is for the greater part employed in throwing stumbling- blocks in the way of the imagination, in dis- sipating the scenes of its enchantment, and in tying us down to the disagreeable yoke of AND BEAUTIFUL. 21 our reason ; for almost the only pleasure that men have in judging better than others, con- sists in a sort of conscious pride and supe- riority, which arises from thinking rightly; but then, this is an indirect pleasure, a pleasure which does not immediately result from the object which is under contemplation. In the morning of our days, when the senses are unworn and tender, when the whole man is awake in every part, and the gloss of novelty fresh upon all the objects that sur- round us, how -lively at that time are our sensations, but how false and inaccurate the judgments we form of things? I despair of ever receiving the same degree of pleasure from the most excellent performances of genius, which I felt at that age from pieces which my present judgment regards as tri- fling and contemptible. Every trivial cause of pleasure is apt to affect the man of too sanguine a complexion: his appetite is too keen to suffer his taste to be delicate ; and he is in all respects what Ovid says of him- self in love. Molle meurn levibus cor est violabile telis, Et semper causa est , cur ego semper amem. One of this character can never be a refined judge; never what the comic poet calls ele- gans for mar um spectator. The excellence and force of a composition must always be imperfectly estimated from its effect on the minds of any, except we know the temper and character of those minds. The most powerful effects of poetry and music have been displayed, and perhaps are still displayed, where these arts are but in a very low and imperfect state. The rude hearer is affected by the principles which operate in these hearts even in their rudest condition ; and he is not skilful enough to perceive the defects. But 22 ON THE SUBLIME as arts advance towards their perfection, the science of criticism advances with equal pace, and the pleasures of judges is frequently in- terrupted by the faults which are discov- ered in the most finished compositions. Before I leave this subject, I cannot help taking notice of an opinion which many persons entertain, as if the taste were a sep- arate faculty of the mind, and distinct from the judgment and imagination ; a species of instinct, by which we are struck naturally, and at the first glance, without any previous reasoning, with the excellencies, or the defects of a composition. So far as the imagination and the passions are concerned, I believe it true, that the reason is little consulted ; but where disposition, where decorum, where congruity are concerned, in short, wherever the best taste differs from the worst, I am convinced that the understanding operates and nothing else ; and its operation is in reality far from being always sudden, or, when it is so, it is often far from being right. Men of the best taste by consideration come fre- quently to change these early and precipitate judgments, which the mind, from its aver- sion to neutrality and doubt loves to form on the spot. It is known that the taste (whatever it is) is improved exactly as we improve our judgment, by extending our knowledge, by a steady attention to our object, and by fre- quent exercise. They who have not taken these methods, if their taste decides quickly, it is always uncertainly ; and their quickness is owing to their presumption and rashness, and not to any hidden irradiation that in a moment dispels all darkness from their minds. But they who have cultivated that species of knowledge which makes the ob- ject of taste, by degrees and habitually attain not only a soundness, but a readiness AND BEAUTIFUL. 23 of judgment, as men do by the same methods on all other occasions. At first they are obliged to spell, but at last they read with ease and with celerity, but this celerity of its operation is no proof that the taste is a distinct faculty. Nobody, I believe, has at- tended the cause of a discussion, which turned upon matters within the sphere of mere naked reason, but must have observed the extreme readiness with which the whole process of the argument is carried on, the grounds dis- covered, the objections raised and answered, and the conclusions drawn from premises, with a quickness altogether as great as the taste can be supposed to work with ; and yet where nothing but plain reason either is or can be suspected to operate. To multiply principles for every different appearance is useless, and unphilosophical too in a high degree. ON THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL. PART I.— SEC. I.— NOVELTY. The first and the simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity. By curiosity I mean whatever desire we have for, or whatever pleasure we take in, novelty. We see children perpetually running from place to place to hunt out something new: they catch with great eagerness, and with very little choice, at whatever comes before them ; their attention is engaged by every- thing, because everything has, in that stage of life, the charm of novelty to recommend it. But as those things which engage us merely 24 ON THE SUBLIME by their novelty, cannot attach us for any length of time, curiosity is the most superfi- cial of all the affections; it changes its object perpetually ; it has an appetite which is very sharp, but very easily satisfied; and it has always an appearance of giddiness, restless- ness, and anxiety. Curiosity, from its na- ture, is a very active principle; it quickly runs over the greatest part of its objects, and soon exhausts the variety which is commonly to be met with in nature; the same things make frequent returns, and they return with less and less of any agreeable effect. In short, the occurrences of life, by the time we come to know it a little, would be incapable of affecting the mind with any other sensa- tions than those of loathing and weariness, if many things were not adapted to affect the mind by means of other powers besides nov- elty in them, and of other passions besides curiosity in ourselves. These powers and passions shall be considered in their place. But whatever these powers are, or upon what principle soever they affect the mind, it is absolutely necessary that they should not be exerted in those things which a daily vulgar use have brought into a stale unaffecting fa- miliarity. Some degree of novelty must be one of the materials in every instrument which works upon the mind ; and curiosity blends itself more or less with all our pas- sions. SEC. II. -PAIN AND PLEASURE. It seems then necessary towards moving the passions of people advanced in life to any considerable degree, that the objects designed for that purpose, besides their being in some measure new, should be capable of exciting pain or pleasure from other causes. Pain AND BEAUTIFUL. 25 and pleasure are simple ideas, incapable of definition. People are not liable to be mis- taken in their feelings, but they are very fre- quently wrong in the names they give them, and in their reasonings about them. Many are of opinion, that pain arises necessarily from the removal of some pleasure ; as they think pleasure does from the ceasing or dimi- nution of some pain. For my part, I am rather inclined to imagine, that pain and pleasure, in their most simple and natural manner of affecting, are each of a positive nature, and by no means necessarily depend- ent on each other for their existence. The human mind is often, and I think it is for the most part, in a state neither of pain nor pleasure, which I call a state of indifference. When I am carried from this state into a state of actual pleasure, it does not appear necessary that I should pass through the me- dium of any sort of pain. If in such a state of indifference, or ease, or tranquillity, or call it what you please, you were to be suddenly entertained with a concert of music ; or sup- pose some object of a fine shape, and bright lively colors, to be presented before you; or imagine your smell is gratified with the fra- grance of a rose ; or if without any previous thirst you were to drink of some pleasant kind of wine, or to taste of some sweetmeat without being hungry; in all the several senses, of hearing, smelling, and tasting, you undoubtedly find a pleasure ; yet if I inquire into the state of your mind previous to these gratifications, you will hardly tell me that they found you in any kind of pain ; or, hav- ing satisfied these several senses with their several pleasures, will you say that any pain has succeeded, though the pleasure is abso- lutely over ? Suppose, on the other hand, a man in the same state of indifference, to re- 26 ON THE SUBLIME ceive a violent blow, or to drink of some bit- ter potion, or to have his ears wounded with some harsh and grating sound ; here is no re- moval of pleasure; and yet here is felt, in every sense which is affected, a pain very dis- tinguishable. It may be said, perhaps, that the pain in these cases had its rise from the removal of the pleasure which the man en- joyed before, though that pleasure was of so low a degree as to be perceived only by the removal. But this seems to me a subtilty, that is not discoverable in nature. For if, previous to the pain, I do not feel any actual pleasure, I have no reason to judge that any such thing exists ; since pleasure is only pleasure as it is felt. The same may be said of pain, and with equal reason. I can never persuade myself that pleasure and pain are mere relations, which can only exist as they are contrasted; but I think I can discern clearly that there are positive pains and pleasures, which do not at all depend upon each other. Nothing is more certain to my own feelings than this. There is nothing which I can distinguish in my mind with more clearness than the three states, of indif- ference, of pleasure, and of pain. Every one of these I can perceive without any sort of idea of its relation to anything else. Caius is afflicted with a fit of the colic ; this man is actually in pain: stretch Caius upon the rack, he will feel a much greater pain ; but does this pain of the rack arise from the re- moval of any pleasure? or is the fit of the colic a pleasure or a pain just as we are pleased to consider it? AND BEAUTIFUL. 27 SEC. III.— THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE REMOVAL OF PAIN AND POS- ITIVE PLEASURE. We shall carry this proposition yet a step farther. We shall venture to propose, that pain and pleasure are not only not necessarily dependent for their existence on their mutual diminution or removal, but that, in reality, the diminution or ceasing of pleasure does not operate like positive pain ; and that the removal or diminution of pain, in its effect, has very little resemblance to positive jdeas- ure.* The former of these propositions will, I believe, be much more readily allowed than the latter; because it is very evident that pleasure, when it has run its career, sets us down very nearly where it found us. Pleas- ure of every kind quickly satisfies ; and when it is over, we relapse into indifference, or rather we fall into a soft tranquillity, which is tinged with the agreeable color of the former sensation. I own it is not at first view so apparent, that the removal of a great pain does not resemble positive pleasure ; but let us recollect in what state we have found our minds upon escaping some imminent dan- ger, or on being released from the severity of some cruel pain. We have on such occasions found, if I am not much mistaken, the temper of our minds in a tenor very remote from that which attends the preference of positive pleasure; we have found them in a state of much sobriety, impressed with a sense of awe, in a sort of tranquillity shadowed with horror. The fashion of the countenance and * Locke on Human Understanding, thinks that the re- moval or lessening of a pain is considered and operates as a pleasure, and the loss or diminishing of pleasure as a pain. It is this opinion which we consider here. 28 ON THE SUBLIME the gesture of the body on such occasions is so correspondent to this state of mind, that any person, a stranger to the cause of the appearance, would rather judge us under some consternation, than in the enjoyment of anything like positive pleasure. d’ orav avdp' arrj tcvklvt] Aafirj oto ' evi Tvarpr/ (ora /caraKreivac, aXkov e^lketg drjfiov , A vdpog Eg (Mpvsiov, dapfiog d’ e^ei ELGopowvrag. As when a ivretch who , conscious of his crime , Pursued for murder from his native clime , Just gains some frontier, breathless , pale , amaz'd; All gaze , all wonder / This striking appearance of the man whom Homer supposes to have just escaped an im- minent danger, the sort of mixed passion of terror and surprise, with which he affects the spectators, paints very strongly the manner in which we find ourselves affected upon occa- sions any way similar. For when we have suffered from any violent emotion, the mind naturally continues in something like the same condition, after the cause which first produced it has ceased to operate. The toss- ing of the sea remains after the storm ; and when this remain of horror has entirely sub- sided, all the passion, which the accident raised, subsides along with it ; and the mind returns to its usual state of indifference. In short, pleasure, (I mean anything either in the inward . sensation, or in the outward appearance, like pleasure from a positive cause) has never, I imagine, its origin from the removal of pain or danger. SEC. IV.— OF DELIGHT AND PLEASURE AS OPPOSED TO EACH OTHER. But shall we therefore say, that the re- moval of pain or its diminution is always simply painful ? or affirm that the cessation AND BEAUTIFUL. 29 or the lessening of pleasure is always attended itself with a pleasure ? By no means. What I advance is no more than this; first, that there are pleasures and pains of a positive and independent nature; and secondly, that the feeling which results from the ceasing or diminution of pain does not bear a sufficient resemblance to positive pleasure, to have it considered as of the same nature, or to entitle it to be known by the same name ; and thirdly, that upon the same principle the removal or qualification of pleasure has no resemblance to positive pain. It is certain that the former feeling (the removal or moderation of pain) has something in it far from distressing or disagreeable in its nature. This feeling, in many cases so agreeable, but in all so different from positive pleasure, has no name which I know ; but that hinders not its being a very real one, and very different from all others. It is most certain, that every species of satis- faction or pleasure, how different soever in its manner of affecting, is of a positive nature in the mind of him who feels it. The affec- tion is undoubtedly positive; but the cause may be, as in this case it certainly is, a sort of privation . And it is very reasonable that we should distinguish by some term two things so distinct in nature, as a pleasure that is i such simply, and without any relation, from that pleasure which cannot exist without a relation, and that too a relation to pain. Very extraordinary it would be, if these affections, so distinguishable in their causes, so different in their effects, should be con- founded with each, because vulgar use has ranged them under the same general title. Whenever I have occasion to speak of this species of relative pleasure, I call it Delight; and I shall take the best care I can, to use that word in no other sense. I am satisfied 30 ON THE SUBLIME the word is not commonly used in this appro- priated signification ; but I thought it better to take up a word already known, and to limit its signification, than to introduce a new one, which would not perhaps incorporate so well with the language. I should never have presumed the least alteration in our words, if the nature of the language, framed for the purposes of business rather than those of philosophy, and the nature of my subject, that leads me out of the common track of discourse, did not in a manner ne- cessitate me to it. I shall make use of this liberty with all possible caution. As I make use of the word Delight to express the sensa- tion which accompanies the removal of pain or danger; so when I speak of positive pleas- ure I shall for the most part call it simply Pleasure . SEC. V.— JOY AND GRIEF. It must be observed, that the cessation of pleasure affects the mind three ways. If it simply ceases, after having continued a prop- er time, the effect is indifference ; if it be abruptly broken off, there ensues an uneasy sense called disappointment ; if the object be so totally lost that there is no chance of en- joying it again, a passion arises in the mind, which is called grief. Now, there is none of these, not even grief, which is the most vio- lent, that I think has any resemblance to positive pain. The person who grieves, suf- fers his passion to grow upon him; he in- dulges it, he loves it ; but this never happens in the case of actual pain, which no man ever willingly endured for any considerable time. That grief should be willingly endured, thougn far from a simply pleasing sensation, is not so difficult to be understood. It is the AND BEAUTIFUL. 31 nature of grief to keep its object perpetually in its eye, to present it in its most pleasurable views, to repeat all the circumstances that attend it, even to the last minuteness ; to go back to every particular enjoyment, to dwell upon each, and to find a thousand new per- fections in all, that were not sufficiently un- derstood before ; in grief, the pleasure is still uppermost; and the affliction we suffer has no resemblance to absolute pain, which is al- ways odious, and which we endeavor to shake off as soon as possible. The Odyssey of Homer, which abounds with so many nat- ural and affecting images, has none more striking than those which Menelaus raises of the calamitous fate of his friends, and his own manner of feeling it. He owns, indeed, that he often gives himself some intermission from such melancholy reflections ; but he ob- serves, too, that, melancholy as they are, they give him pleasure. A/U/ efj.7T7]g rcavrag /uev odvpojuevog aat axevuv, TloXTiaiug ev fieyapoLGL KaOe/uevog yuerepoLGiVy ATAote psv te you (ppeva rspnopai , clTAote 6’ avrs Tlavopar atipypog 6s Kopog upvspoio yooio. Still in short intervals of pleasing woe, Regardful of the friendly dues I owe , I to the glorious dead forever dear , Indulge the tribute of a grateful tear. — Horn. Od. iv. On the other hand, when we recover our health, when we escape an imminent danger, is it with joy that we are affected? The sense on these occasions is far from that smooth and voluptuous satisfaction which the assured prospect of pleasure bestows. The delight which arises from the modifications of pain, confesses the stock from whence it sprung, in its solid, strong, and severe nature. 32 ON THE SUBLIME SEC. VI. -OF THE PASSIONS WHICH BE- LONG TO SELF-PRESERVATION. Most of the ideas which are capable of making a powerful impression on the mind, whether simply of Pain or Pleasure, or of the modifications of those, may be reduced very nearly to these two heads, self-preservation and society ; to the ends of one or the other of which all our passions are calculated to an- swer. The passions which concern self-pres- ervation, turn mostly on pain or danger. The ideas of pain, sickness, and death, fill the mind with strong emotions of horror ; but life and health, though they put us in a capacity of being affected with pleasure, they make no such impression by the simple enjoyment. The passions therefore which are conversant about the preservation of the individual, turn chiefly on pain and danger, and they are the most powerful of all the passions. SEC. VII.— OF THE SUBLIME. Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is any sort terrible, or is conver- sant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strong- est emotion which the mind is capable of feel- ing. I say the strongest emotion, because I am. satisfied the ideas of pain are much more powerful than those which enter on the part oj. pleasure. Without all doubt, the torments which we may be made to suffer, are much greater in their effect on the body and mind, than any pleasures which the most learned voluptuary could suggest, or than the liveli- est imagination, and the most sound and ex- AND BE A UTIFUL. 33 quisitely sensible body could enjoy. Nay, I am in great doubt whether any man could be found who would earn a life of the most perfect satisfaction, at the price of ending it in the torments, which justice inflicted in a few hours on the late unfortunate regicide in France. But as pain is stronger in its opera- tion than pleasure, so death is in general a much more affecting idea than pain ; because there are very few pains, however exquisite, which are not preferred to death : nay, what generally makes pain itself, if I may say so, more painful, is that it is considered as an emissary of this king of terrors. When dan- ger or pain press too nearly, they are incapa- ble of giving any delight, and are simply ter- rible; but at certain distances, and with cer- tain modifications, they may be, and they are delightful, as we every day experience. The cause of this I shall endeavor to investi- gate hereafter. SEC. VIII.— OF THE PASSIONS WHICH BELONG TO SOCIETY. The other head under which I class our passions, is that of society , which may be di- vided into two sorts. 1. The society of the sexes, which answers the purpose of propaga- tion; and next, that more general society , which we have with men and with other ani- mals, and which we may in some sort be said to have even with the inanimate world. The passions belonging to the preservation of the individual, turn wholly on pain and danger ; those which belong to generation ; have their origin in gratifications and pleasures; the pleasure most directly belonging to this pur- pose is of a lively character, rapturous and violent, and confessedly the highest pleasure of sense ; yet the absence of this so great an 34 ON THE SUBLIME enjoyment, scarce amounts to an uneasiness ; and, except at particular times, I do not think it affects at all. When men describe in what manner they are affected by pain and dan- ger, they do not dwell on the pleasure of health and the comfort of security, and then lament the loss of these satisfactions: the whole turns upon the actual pains and hor- rors which they endure. But if you listen to the complaints of a forsaken lover, you ob- serve that he insists largely on the pleasures which he enjoyed or hoped to enjoy and on the perfection of the object of his desires; it is the loss which is always uppermost in his mind. The violent effects produced by love, which has sometimes been even wrought up to madness, is no objection to the rule which we seek to establish. When men have suf- fered their imaginations to be long affected with any idea, it so wholly engrosses them as to shut out by degrees almost every other, and to break down every partition of the mind which would confine it. Any idea is sufficient for the purpose, as is evident from the infinite variety of causes which give rise to madness; but this at most can only prove that the passion of love is capable of produc- ing very extraordinary effects, not that its extraordinary emotions have any connection with positive pain. SEC. IX.— THE FINAL CAUSE OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PAS- SIONS BELONGING TO SELF-PRES- ERVATION, AND THOSE WHICH REGARD THE SOCIETY OF THE SEXES. The final cause of the difference in charac- ter between the passions which regard self- preservation and those which are directed to AND BEAUTIFUL. 35 the multiplication of the species, will illus- trate the foregoing remarks yet further ; and it is, I imagine, worthy of observation even upon its own account. As the performance of our duties of every kind depends upon life, and the performing them with vigor and effi- cacy depends upon health, we are very strongly affected with whatever threatens the destruction of either : but as we were not made to acquiesce in life and health, the sim- ple enjoyment of them is not attended with any real pleasure, lest, satisfied with that, we should give ourselves over to indolence and inaction. On the other hand, the generation of mankind is a great purpose, and it is re- quisite that men should be animated to the pursuit of it by some great incentive. It is therefore attended with a very high pleasure ; but as it is by no means designed to be our constant business, it is not fit that the ab- sence of this pleasure should be attended with any considerable pain. The difference be- tween men and brutes in this point, seems to be remarkable. Men are at all times pretty equally disposed to the pleasures of love, be- cause they are to be guided by reason in the time and manner of indulging them. Had any great pain arisen from the want of this satisfaction, reason, I am afraid, would find great difficulties in the performance of its of- fice. But brutes, who obey laws, in the execu- tion of which their own reason has but little share, have their stated seasons; at such times it is not improbable that the sensation from the want is very troublesome, because the end must be then answered, or be missed in many, perhaps forever ; as the inclination returns only with its season. 36 ON THE SUBLIME SEC. X.— OF BEAUTY. The passion which belongs to generation, merely as such, is lust only. This is evident in brutes, whose passions are more unmixed and which pursue their purposes more di- rectly than ours. The only distinction they observe with regard to their mates, is that of sex. It is true, that they stick severally to their own species in preference to all others. But this preference, I imagine, does not arise from any sense of beauty, which they find in their species, as Mr. Addison supposes, but from a law of some other kind, to which they are subject ; and this we may fairly conclude, from their apparent want of choice amongst those objects to which the barriers of their species have confined them. But man, who is a creature adapted to a greater variety and intricacy of relation, connects with the gen- eral passion, the idea of some social qualities, which direct and heighten the appetite which he 1ms in common with all other animals ; and as he is not designed like them to live at large, it is fit that he should have something to create a preference, and fix his choice ; and this in general should be some sensible qual- ity; as no other can so quickly, so power- fully, or surely produce its effect. The ob- ject therefore of this mixed passion, which we call love, is the beauty of the sex. Men are carried to the sex in general, as it is the sex, and by the common law of nature ; but they are attached to particulars by personal beauty. I call beauty a social quality; for when women and men, and not only they, but when other animals give us a sense of joy and pleasure in beholding them (and they are many that do so,) they inspire us with sentiments of tenderness and affection tow- AND BEAUTIFUL. 37 ards their persons; we like to have them near ns, and we enter willingly into a kind of relation with them, unless we should have strong reasons to the contrary. But to what end, in many cases, this was designed, I am unable to discover ; for I see no greater reason for a connection between man and several animals who are attired in so engaging a man- ner, than between him and some others who entirely want this attraction, or possess it in a far weaker degree. But it is probable, that Providence did not make even this distinc- tion, but with a view to some great end, though we cannot perceive distinctly what it is, as his wisdom is not our wisdom, nor our ways his ways. SEC. XI.— SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. The second branch of the social passions is that which administers to society in general. With regard to this, I observe, that society, merely as society, without any particular heightenings, gives us no positive pleasure in the enjoyment ; but absolute and entire soli- tude , that is, the total and perpetual exclu- sion from all society, is as great a positive pain as can almost be conceived. Therefore in the balance between the pleasure of general society and the pain of absolute solitude, pain is the predominant idea. But the pleasure of any particular social enjoyment out-weighs very considerably the uneasiness caused by the want of that particular enjoyment; so that the strongest sensations relative to the habitudes of particular society , are sensations of pleasure. 0-ood company, lively conver- sations, and the endearments of friendship, fill the mind with great pleasure; a tempo- rary solitude on the other hand, is itself agree- able. This may perhaps prove that we are 38 ON THE SUBLIME creatures designed for contemplation as well as action; since solitude as well as society has its pleasures ; as from the former obser- vation we may discern, that an entire life of solitude contradicts the purposes of our be- ing, since death itself is scarcely an idea of more terror. SEC. XII.— SYMPATHY, IMITATION, AND AMBITION. Under this denomination of society, the passions are of a complicated kind, and branch out into a variety of forms agreeable to that variety of ends they are to serve in the great chain of society. The three principal links in this chain are sympathy , imitation , and ambition. SEC. XIII.— SYMPATHY. It is by the first of these passions that we enter into the concerns of others ; that we are moved as they are moved, and are never suf- fered to be indifferent spectators of almost anything which men can do or suffer. For sympathy must be considered as a sort of substitution, by which we are put into the place of another man, and affected in many respects as he is affected: so that this pas- sion may either partake of the nature of those which regard self-preservation, and turning upon pain may be a source of the sublime ; or it may turn upon ideas of pleasure ; and then whatever has been said of the social affections, whether they regard society in general, or only some particular modes of it, may be ap- plicable here. It is by this principle chiefly that poetry, painting, and other affecting arts, transfuse their passions from one breast to another, and are often capable of grafting AND BEAUTIFUL . 39 a delight on wretchedness, misery, and death itself. It is a common observation, that ob- jects which in the reality would shock, are n in tragical and such like representations, the source of a very high species of pleasure. This taken as a fact, has been the cause of much reasoning. The satisfaction has been commonly attributed, first, to the comfort we receive in considering that so melancholy a story is no more than a fiction ; and next, to the contemplation of our own freedom from the evils which we see represented. I am afraid it is a practice much too common in inquiries of this nature, to attribute the cause of feelings which merely arise from the mechanical structure of our bodies, or from the natural frame and constitution of our minds, to certain conclusions of the reasoning faculty on the objects presented to us; for I should imagine, that the influence of reason in producing our passions is noth- ing near so extensive as it is commonly be- lieved. SEC. XIV.— THE EFFECTS OF SYMPA- THY IN THE DISTRESSES OF OTHERS. To examine this point concerning the effect of tragedy in a proper manner, we must pre- viously consider how we are affected by the feelings of our fellow-creatures in circum- stances of real distress. I am convinced we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others ; for let the affection be what it will in appearance, if it does not make us shun such objects, if on the contrary it induces us to approach them, if it makes us dwell upon them, in this case I conceive we must have a delight or pleasure of some species or other in contemplating objects of this kind. Do 40 ON THE SUBLIME we not read the authentic histories of scenes of this nature with as much pleasure as ro- mances or poems, where the incidents are fictitious ? The prosperity of no empire, nor the grandeur of no king, can so agreeably affect in the reading, as the ruin of the state of Macedon, and the distress of its unhappy prince. Such a catastrophe touches us in history as much as the destruction of Troy does in fable. Our delight, in cases of this kind, is very greatly heightened, if the suf- ferer be some excellent person who sinks under an unworthy fortune. Scipio and Cato are both virtuous characters, but we are more deeply affected by the violent death of the one, and the ruin of the great cause he ad- hered to, than with the deserved triumphs and uninterrupted prosperity of the other; for terror is a passion which always produces delight when it does not press too close ; and pity is a passion accompanied with pleasure, because it arises from love and social affec- tion. Whenever we are formed by nature to any active purpose, the passion which ani- mates us to it, is attended with delight, or a pleasure of some kind, let the subject-matter be what it will ; and as our Creator has de- signed we should be united by the bond of sympathy, he has strengthened that bond by a proportionable delight; and there most where our sympathy is most wanted, in the distresses of others. If this passion was sim- ply painful, we would shun with the greatest care all persons and places that could excite such a passion ; as some, who are so far gone in indolence as not to endure any stronger impression, actually do. But the case is widely different with the greater part of mankind ; there is no spectacle we so eagerly pursue, as that of some uncommon and griev- ous calamity; so that whether the misfort- AND BEAUTIFUL. 41 une is before our eyes, or whether they are turned back to it in history, it always touches with delight. This is not an unmixed delight, but blended with no small uneasiness. The delight we have in such things, hinders us from shunning scenes of misery; and the pain we feel prompts us to relieve ourselves in relieving those who suffer; and all this antecedent to any reasoning, by an instinct that works us to its own purposes without our concurrence. SEC. XV.— OF THE EFFECTS OF TRAG- EDY. It is thus in real calamities. In imitated distresses the only difference is the pleasure resulting from the effects of imitation ; for it is never so perfect, but we can perceive it is imitation, and on that principle are somewhat pleased with it. And indeed in some cases we derive as much or more pleasure from that source than from the thing itself. But then I imagine we shall be much mistaken if we attribute any considerable part of our satisfaction in tragedy to the consideration that tragedy is a deceit and its representa- tions no realities. The nearer it approaches the reality, and the further it removes us from all idea of fiction, the more perfect is its power. But be its power of what kind it will, it never approaches to what it repre- sents. Choose a day on which to represent the most sublime and affecting tragedy we have ; appoint the most favorite actors ; spare no cost upon the scenes and decora- tions; unite the greatest efforts of poetry, painting, and music; and when you have collected your audience, just at the moment when their minds are erect with expectation, let it be reported that a state criminal of high 42 ON THE SUBLIME rank is on the point of being executed in the adjoining square ; in a moment the emptiness of the theatre would demonstrate the com- parative weakness of the imitative arts, and proclaim the triumph of the real sympathy. I believe that this notion of our having a simple pain in the reality, yet a delight in the representation, arises from hence, that we do not sufficiently distinguish what we would by no means choose to do, from what we should be eager enough to see if it was once done. We delight in seeing things, which so far from doing, our heartiest wishes would be to see redressed. This noble capi- tal, the pride of England and of Europe, I believe no man is so strangely wicked as to de- sire to see destroyed by a conflagration or an earthquake, though he should be removed himself to the greatest distance from the danger. But suppose such a fatal accident to have happened what numbers from all parts would crowd to behold the ruins, and amongst them many who would have been content never to have seen London in its glory! Nor is it, either in real or fictitious distresses, our immunity from them which produces our delight ; in my own mind I can discover nothing like it. I apprehend that this mistake is owing to a sort of sophism, by which we are frequently imposed upon; it arises from our not distinguishing between what is indeed a necessary condition to our doing or suffering anything in general, and what is the cause of some particular act. If a man kills me with a sword, it is a necessary condition to this that we should have been both of us alive before the fact; and yet it would be absurd to say, that our being both living creatures was the cause of his crime and of my death. So it is certain, that it is absolutely necessary my life should be out of AND BEAUTIFUL. 43 any imminent hazard, before I can take a delight in the sufferings of others, real or imaginary, or indeed in anything else from any cause whatsoever. But then it is a soph- ism to argue from thence, that this immunity is the cause of my delight either on these or any occasions. No one can distinguish such a cause of satisfaction in his own mind, I believe ; nay, when we do not suffer any very acute pain, nor are exposed to any imminent danger of our lives, we can feel for others, whilst we suffer ourselves ; and often then most when we are softened by affliction ; we see with pity even distresses which we would accept in the place of our own. SEC. XVI.— IMITATION. The second passion belonging to society is imitation, or, if you will, a desire of imitat- ing, and consequently a pleasure in it. This passion arises from much the same cause with sympathy. For as sympathy makes us take a concern in whatever men feel, so this affection prompts us to copy whatever they do ; and consequently we have a pleas- ure in imitating, and in whatever belongs to imitation merely as it is such, without any intervention of the reasoning faculty; but solely from our natural constitution, which Providence has framed in such a manner as to find either pleasure or delight, according to the nature of the object, in whatever regards the purposes of our being. It is by imitation far more than by precept, that we learn everything; and what we learn thus, we acquire not only more effectually, but more pleasantly. This forms our manners, our opinions, our lives. It is one of the strongest links of society; it is a species of mutual compliance, which all men yield to 44 ON THE SUBLIME each other, without constraint to themselves, and which is extremely flattering to all. Herein it is that painting and many other agreeable arts have laid one of the principal foundations of their power. And since, by its influence on our manners and our pas- sions, it is of such great consequence, I shall here venture to lay down a rule, which may inform us with a good degree of certainty when we are to attribute the power of the arts to imitation, or to our pleasure in the skill of the imitator merely, and when to sympathy, or some other cause in conjunc- tion with it. When the object represented in poetry or painting is such as we could have no desire of seeing in the reality, then I may be sure that its power in poetry or painting is owing to the power of imitation, and to no cause operating in the thing itself. So it is with most of the pieces which the painters call still-life. In these, a cottage, a dunghill, the meanest and most ordinary utensils of the kitchen, are capable of giving us pleasure. But when the object of the painting or poem is such as we should run to see if real, let it affect us with what odd sort of sense it will, we may rely upon it, that the power of the poem or picture is more owing to the nature of the thing itself than to the mere effect of imitation, or to a consideration of the skill of the imitator, however excellent. Aristotle has spoken so much and so solidly upon the force of imitation in his Poetics, that it makes any further discourse upon this subject the less necessary. SEC. XVII.— AMBITION. Although imitation is one of the great instruments used by Providence in bringing our nature towards its perfection, yet if men gave themselves up to imitation entirely, and AND BEAUTIFUL. 45 each followed the other, and so on in an eternal circle, it is easy to see that there never could be any improvement amongst them. Men must remain as brutes do, the same at the end that they are at this day, and that they were in the beginning of the world. To prevent this, God has planted in man a sense of ambition, and a satisfaction arising from the contemplation of his excel- ling his fellows in something deemed valuable amongst them. It is this passion that drives men to all the ways we see in use of signaliz- ing themselves, and that tends to make whatever excites in a man the idea of this distinction so very pleasant. It has been so strong as to make very miserable men take comfort, that they were supreme in misery ; and certain it is, that where we cannot distinguish ourselves by something excellent, we begin to take a complacency in some singular infirmities, follies, or defects of one kind or other. It is on this principle that flattery is so prevalent; for flattery is no more than what raises in a man’s mind an idea of a preference which he has not. Now, whatever, either on good or upon bad grounds, tends to raise a man in his own opinion, pro- duces a sort of swelling and triumph, that is extremely grateful to the human mind ; and this swelling is never more perceived, nor operates with more force, than when without danger we are conversant with terrible objects, the mind always claiming to itself some part of the dignity and importance of the things which it contemplates. Hence proceeds what Longinus has observed of that glorying and sense of inward greatness, that always fills the reader of such passages in poets and orators as are sublime ; it is what every man must have felt in himself upon such occasions. 46 ON THE SUBLIME SEC. XVIII.— THE RECAPITULATION. To draw the whole of what has been said into a few distinct points: — The passions which belong to self-preservation, turn on pain and danger; they are simply painful when their causes immediately affect us ; they are delightful when we have an idea of pain and danger, without being actually in such circumstances ; this delight I have not called pleasure, because it turns on pain, and be- cause it is different enough from any idea of positive pleasure. Whatever excites this delight, I call sublime. The passions belong- ing to self-preservation are the strongest of all the passions. The second head to which the passions are referred with relation to their final cause, is society. There are two sorts of societies. The first is, the society of sex. The passion belonging to this is called love, and it contains a mixture of lust ; its object is the beauty of women. The other is the great society with man and all other animals. The passion sub- servient to this is called likewise love, but it has no mixture of lust, and its object is beauty ; which is a name I shall apply to all such qualities in things as induce in us a sense of affection and tenderness, or some other passion the most nearly resembling these. The passion of love has its rise in positive pleasure ; it is, like all things which grow out of pleasure, capable of being mixed with a mode of uneasiness, that is, when an idea of its object is excited in the mind with an idea at the same time of having irretrievably lost it. This mixed sense of pleasure I have not called pain, because it turns upon actual pleasure, and is, in its cause and in most of its effects, of a nature altogether different. AND BEAUTIFUL. 47 Next to the general passion we have for society, to a choice in which we are directed by the pleasure we have in the object, the particular passion under this head called sympathy has the greatest extent. The nature of this passion is, to put us in the place of another in whatever circumstance he is in, and to affect us in like manner : so that this passion may, as the occasion requires, turn either on pain or pleasure ; but with the . modifications mentioned in some cases in Sec. 11. As to imitation and preference, nothing more need be said. SEC. XIX.— THE CONCLUSION. I believed that an attempt to range and methodize some of our most leading passions, would be a good preparative to such an inquiry as we are going to make in the ensu- ing discourse. The passions I have mentioned are almost the only ones which it can be necessary to consider in our present design ; though the variety of the passions is great, and worthy in every branch of that variety of an attentive investigation. The more accur- ately we search into the human mind, the stronger traces we everywhere find of his wis- dom who made it. If a discourse on the use of the parts of the body may be considered as an hymn to the Creator ; the use of the passions, which are the organs of the mind, cannot be barren of praise to him, nor unproductive to ourselves of that noble and uncommon union of science and admiration, which a contem- plation of the works of infinite wisdom alone can afford to a rational mind ; whilst, refer- ring to him whatever we find of right or good or fair in ourselves, discovering his strength and wisdom even in our own weakness and imperfection, honoring them where we dis- 48 ON THE SUBLIME cover them clearly, and adoring their pro- fundity where we are lost in our search, we may be inquisitive without impertinence, and elevated without pride ; we may be admitted, if I may dare to say so, into the councils of the Almighty by a consid- eration of his works. The elevation of the mind ought to he the principal end of all our studies, which if they do not in some measure effect, they are of very little service to us. But, besides this great purpose, a considera- tion of the rational of our passions seems to me very necessary for all who would affect them upon solid and sure principles. It is not enough to know them in general: to affect them, after a delicate manner, or to judge properly of any work designed to affect them, we should know the exact boundaries of their several jurisdictions ; we should pur- sue them through all their variety of opera- tions, and pierce into the inmost, and what might appear inaccessible parts of our nature, Quod latet arcana non enarrabile fibra. Without all this it is possible for a man, after a confused manner, sometimes to sat- isfy his own mind of the truth of his work ; but he can never have a certain determinate rule to go by, nor can he ever make his prop- ositions sufficiently clear to others. Poets, and orators, and painters, and those who cul- tivate other branches of the liberal arts, have without this critical knowledge succeeded well in their several provinces, and will succeed; as among artificers there are many machines made and even invented without any exact knowledge of the principles they are governed by. It is, I own, not uncommon to be wrong in theory, and right in practice ; and we are happy it is so. Men often act right from their feelings, who afterwards reason but ill AND BEAUTIFUL . 49 on them from principle ; but as it is impossible to avoid an attempt at such reasoning, and equally impossible to prevent its having some influence on our practice, surely it is worth taking some pains to have it just and founded on the basis of sure experience. We might expect that the artists themselves would have been our surest guides; but the artists have been too much occupied in the practice : the philosophers have done little ; and what they have done, was mostly with a view to their own schemes and systems : and as for those called critics, they have generally sought the rule of the arts in the wrong place; they sought it among poems, pictures, engravings, statues, and buildings. But art can never give the rules that make an art. This is, I believe, the reason why artists in general, and poets principally, have been confined in so narrow a circle; they have been rather imi- tators of one another than of nature; and this with so faithful an uniformity, and to so remote an antiquity, that it is hard to say who gave the first model. Critics follow them, and therefore can do little as guides. I can judge but poorly of anything, whilst I measure it by no other standard than itself. The true standard of the arts is in every man’s power; and an easy observation of the most common, sometimes of the meanest things in nature, will give the truest lights, where the greatest sagacity and industry that slights such observation, must have us in the dark, or, what is worse, amuse and mislead us by false lights. In an inquiry it is almost everything to be once in a right road. I am satisfied I have done but little by these observations considered in themselves; and I never should have taken the pains to digest them, much less should I have ever ventured to publish them, if I was not convinced that 4 50 ON THE SUBLIME nothing tends more to the corruption of science than to suffer it to stagnate. These waters must be troubled before they can exert their virtues. A man who works beyond the surface of things, though he may be wrong himself, yet he clears the way for others, and may chance to make even his errors subserv- ient to the cause of truth. In the following parts I shall inquire what things they are that cause in us the affections of the sublime and beautiful, as in this I have considered the affections themselves. I only desire one favor, that no part of this discourse may be judged of by itself, and independently of the rest ; for I am sensible I have not disposed my materials to abide the test of a captious con- troversy, but of a sober and even forgiving examination : that they are not armed at all points for battle, but dressed to visit those who will give a peaceful entrance to truth. ON THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL. PART II.— SEC. I.— ON THE PASSION CAUSED BY THE SUBLIME. The passion caused by the great and sub- lime in nature , when those causes operate most powerfully, is astonishment ; and aston- ishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror. In this case the mind is so entirely filled with its object, that it cannot entertain any other, nor by consequence reason on that object which employs it. Hence arises the great power of the sublime, that far from be- ing produced by them, it anticipates our rea- AND BEAUTIFUL. 51 sonings, and hurries us on by an irresistible force. Astonishment, as I have said, is the effect of the sublime in its highest degree; the inferior effects are admiration, reverence and respect. SEC. II.— TERROR No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear. For fear being an apprehension of pain or death, it operates in a manner that resembles actual pain. Whatever therefore is terrible, with regard to sight, is sublime too, whether this cause of terror be endued with greatness of dimensions or not ; for it is impossible to look on anything as trifling, or contemptible, that may be dangerous. There are many ani- mals, who though far from being large, are yet capable of raising ideas of the sublime, because they are considered as objects of ter- ror; as serpents and poisonous animals of almost all kinds. And to things of great di- mensions, 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 such a plain may be as extensive as a pros- pect of the ocean : but can it ever fill the mind with anything so great as the ocean itself ? This is owing to several 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 cases whatsoever, either more openly or latently, the ruling principle of the sublime. Several languages bear a testimony to the affinity of these ideas. They frequently use the same word, to signify indifferently the modes of astonishment or admiration and those of terror. 6aju/3og is in Greek, either fear or wonder; decvog is terrible or respectable; 52 ON THE SUBLIME cudeo 9 to reverence or to fear. Vereor in Latin, is what aideu is in Greek. The Romans used the verb stupeo , a term which strongly marks the state of an astonished mind, to ex- press the effect either of simple fear, or of astonishment; the word attonitus (thunder- struck) is equally expressive of the alliance of these ideas ; and do not the French etonne- ment , 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. SEC. III.— OBSCURITY. To make anything very terrible, obscurity seems in general to be necessary. When we know the full extent of any danger, when we can accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension vanishes. Every one will be sensible of this, who considers how greatly night adds to our dread, in all cases of dan- ger, and how much the notions of ghosts and goblins, of w’hich none can form clear ideas, affect minds which give credit to the popular tales concerning such sorts of beings. Those despotic governments, which are founded on the passions of men, and principally upon the passion of fear, keep their chief as much as may be from the public eye. The policy has been the same in many cases of religion. Almost all the heathen temples were dark. Even in the barbarous temples of the Ameri- cans at this day, they keep their idol in a dark part of the hut, which is consecrated to his worship. For this purpose too the Druids performed all their ceremonies in the bosom of the darkest woods, and in the shade of the oldest and most spreading oaks. No person AND BEAUTIFUL . 53 seems better to have understood the secret of heightening, or of setting terrible things, if I may use the expression, in their strongest light, by the force of a judicious obscurity, than Milton. His description of death in the second book is admirably studied ; it is aston- ishing with what a gloomy pomp, with what a significant and expressive uncertainty of strokes and coloring, he has finished the por- trait of the king of terrors. The other shape. If shape it might be call'd that shape had none Distinguishable , in member, joint, or limb; Or substance might le call'd that shadow seem'd. For each seem'd either; black he stood as night ; Fierce as ten furies; terrible as hell; And shook a deadly dart. What seem'd his head The likeness of a kingly crown had on. In this description all is dark, uncertain, confused, terrible, and sublime to the last degree. SEC. IV.— OF THE DIFFERENCE BE- TWEEN CLEARNESS AND OBSCUR- ITY WITH REGARD TO THE PAS- SIONS. It is one thing to make an idea clear, and another to make it affecting to the imagina- tion. If I make a drawing 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 something) my picture can at most affect only as the pal- ace, temple, or landscape, would have affected in the reality. On the other hand, the most lively and spirited verbal description I can give, raises a very obscure and imperfect idea of such objects; but then it is in my power to raise a stronger emotion by the description than I could do by the best painting. This experience constantly evinces. The proper 54 ON THE SUBLIME manner of conveying the affections of the mind from one to another, is by words ; there is a great insufficiency in all other methods of communication ; and so far is a clearness of imagery from being absolutely necessary to an influence upon the passions, that they may be considerably operated upon, without presenting any image at all, by certain sounds adapted to that purpose ; of which we have a sufficient proof in the acknowledged and powerful effects of instrumental music. In reality, a great clearness helps but little tow- ards affecting the passions, as it is in some sort an enemy to all enthusiasms whatsoever. SEC. [IV].— THE SAME SUBJECT CON- TINUED. There are two verses in Horace’s Art of Poetry that seems to contradict this opinion, for which reason I shall take a little more pains in clearing it up. The verses are, Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures, Suam quae sunt oeults subjecta fidelibus. On this the Abbe du Bos founds a criticism, wherein he gives painting the preference td poetry in the article of moving the passions ; principally on account of the greater clear- ness of the ideas it represents. I believe this excellent judge was led into this mistake (if it be a mistake) by his system, to which he found it more conformable than I imagine it will be found by experience. I know several who admire and love painting, and yet who regard the objects of their admiration in that art with coolness enough in comparison of that warmth with which they are animated by affecting pieces of poetry or rhetoric. Among the common sort of people, I never could perceive that painting had much influ- ence on their passions. It is true, that the AND BEAUTIFUL. 55 best sorts of painting, as well as the best sorts of poetry, are not much understood in that sphere. But it is most certain, that their passions are very strongly roused by a fanatic preacher, or by the ballads of Chevy- chase, or the Children in the Wood, and by other little popular poems and tales that are current in that rank of life. I do not know of any paintings, bad or good, that produce the same effect. So that poetry, with all its ob- scurity, has a more general as well as a more powerful dominion over the passions than the other art. And I think there are reasons in nature, why the obscure idea, when properly conveyed, should be more affecting than the clear. It is our ignorance of things that causes all our admiration, and chiefly excites our passions. Knowledge and acquaintance make the most striking causes affect but little. It is thus with the vulgar; and all men are as the vulgar in what they do not understand. The ideas of eternity, and infin- ity, are among the most affecting we have : and perhaps there is nothing of which we really understand so little, as of infinity and eternity. We do not anywhere meet a more sublime description than this justly -celebrated one of Milton, wherein he gives the portrait of Satan with a dignity so suitable to the sub- ject: He above the rest In shape and gesture proudly eminent Stood like a toioer ; his form had yet not lost All her original brightness , nor appear'd Less than archangel ruin'd , and th' excess Of glory obscur'd ; as when the sun new ris'n Looks through the horizontal misty air Shorn of his beams ; or from behind the moon In dim eclipse disastrous twilight sheds On ha'f the nations and with fear of change Perplexes monarchs. Here is a very noble picture; and in what does this poetical picture consist? in images 56 ON THE SUBLIME of a tower, an archangel, the sun rising through mists, or in an eclipse, the ruin of monarchs, and the revolutions of kingdoms The mind is hurried out of itself, by a crowd of great and confused images; which affect because they are crowded and confused. For separate them, and you lose much of the greatness; and join them, and you infallibly lose the clearness. The images raised by poe- try are always of this obscure kind ; though in general the effects of poetry are by no means to be attributed to the images it raises ; which point we shall examine more at large hereafter. But painting, when we have al- lowed for the pleasure of imitation, can only affect simply by the images it presents ; and even in painting, a judicious obscurity in some things contributes to the effect of the picture ; because the images in painting are exactly similar to those in nature ; and in nature dark, confused, uncertain images have a greater power on the fancy to form the grander pas- sions, than those have which are more clear and determinate. But where and when this observation may be applied to practice, and how far it shall be extended, will be better de- ducted from the nature of the subject, and from the occasion, than from any rules that can be given. I am sensible that this idea has met with opposition, and is. likely still to be rejected by several. But let it be considered, that hardly anything can strike the mind with its great- ness, which does not make some sort of ap- proach towards infinity; which nothing can do whilst we are able to perceive its bounds ; but to see an object distinctly, and to perceive its bounds, is one and the same thing. A clear idea is therefore another name for a lit- tle idea. There is a passage in the book of Job amazingly sublime, and this sublimity is prin- AND BEAUTIFUL. 57 cipally due to the terrible uncertainty of the thing described : In thoughts from the visions of the night , when deep sleep falletli upon men , fear came upon me and trembling , which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face. The hair of my flesh stood up. It stood still , but I could not discern the form thereof ; an image was before mine eyes ; there was silence ; a'wd I heard a voice , — Shall mortal man be more just than Godf We are first prepared with the utmost solemnity for the vision; we are first terrified, before we are let even into the obscure cause of our emotion : but when this grand cause of terror makes its appearance, what is it? is it not wrapt up in the shades of its own incompre- hensible darkness, more awful, more striking, more terrible, than the liveliest description, than the clearest painting, could possibly represent it? When painters have attempted to give us clear representations of these very fanciful and terrible ideas, they have, I think, almost always failed; insomuch that I have been at a loss, in all the pictures I have seen of hell, whether the painter did not intend something ludicrous. Several painters have handled a subject of this kind with a view of assembling as many horrid phantoms as their imaginations could suggest ; but all the de- signs I have chanced to meet of the tempta- tions of St. Anthony, were rather a sort of odd wild grotesques, than anything capable of producing a serious passion. In all these subjects poetry is very happy. Its appari- tions, its chimeras, its harpies, its allegorical figures, are grand and affecting ; and though Yirgil’s Fame, and Homer’s Discord, are ob- scure, they are magnificent figures. These figures in painting would be clear enough, but I fear they might become ridiculous. 58 ON THE SUBLIME SEC. V.— POWER. Besides those things which directly suggest the idea of danger, and those which produce a similar effect from a mechanical cause, I know of nothing sublime, which is not some modification of power. And this branch rises, as naturally as the other two branches, from terror, the common stock of everything that is sublime. The idea of power at first view seems of the class of those indifferent ones, which may equally belong to pain or to pleasure. But in reality, the affection arising from the idea of vast power, is extremely remote from that neutral character. For first, we must remember, that the idea of pain, in its high- est degree, is much stronger than the highest degree of pleasure ; and that it preserves the same superiority through all the subordinate gradations. From hence it is, that where the chances for equal degrees of suffering or en- joyment are in any sort equal, the idea of the suffering must always be prevalent. And in- deed the ideas of pain, and above all of death, are so very affecting, that whilst we remain in the presence of whatever is supposed to have the power of inflicting either, it is im- possible to be perfectly free from terror. Again, we know by experience, that for the enjoyment of pleasure, no great efforts of pow- er are at all necessary ; nay, we know, that such efforts would go a great way towards destroying our satisfaction ; for pleasure must be stolen, and not forced upon us; pleasure follows the will ; and therefore we are gen- erally affected with it by many things of a force greatly inferior to our own. But pain is always inflicted by a power in some way superior, because we never submit to pain willingly. So that strength, violence, pain, AND BEAUTIFUL. 59 and terror, are ideas that rush in upon the mind together. Look at a man, or any other animal of prodigious strength, and what is your idea before reflection? Is it that this strength will be subservient to you, to your ease, to your pleasure, to your interest in any sense? No; the emotion you feel is, lest this enormous strength should be employ- ed to the purposes of rapine and destruc- tion. That power derives all its sublim- ity from the terror with which it is gen- erally accompanied, will appear evidently from its effect in the very few cases in which it may he possible to strip a considerable de- gree of strength of its ability to hurt. When you do this, you spoil it of everything sub- lime, and it immediately becomes contempt- ible. An ox is a creature of vast strength ; but he is an innocent creature, extremely serviceable, and not at all dangerous; for which reason the idea of an ox is by no means grand. A bull is strong too, but his strength is of another kind ; often very destructive, seldom (at least amongst us) of any use in our business ; the idea of a bull is therefore great, and it has frequently a place in sublime descriptions, and elevating comparisons. Let us look at another strong animal in the two distinct lights in which we may consider him. The horse in the light of an useful beast, fit for the plough, the road, the draft ; in every social useful light, the horse has nothing sublime: but is it thus that we are affected with him, whose neck is clothed with thunder , the glory of ivhose nostrils is terrible , who swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage , neither believeth that it is the sound of the trumpet f In this description the useful character of the horse entirely disappears, and the terrible and sublime blaze out to- gether. We have continually about us ani- 60 ON THE SUBLIME mals of a strength that is considerable, but not pernicious. Amongst these we never look for the sublime; it comes upon us in the gloomy forest, and in the howling wilderness, in the form of the lion, the tiger, the panther, the rhinoceros. Whenever strength is only useful, and employed for our benefit or our pleasure, then it is never sublime ; for noth- ing can act agreeably to us, that does not act in conformity to our will : but to act agreea- bly to our will, it must be subject to us, and therefore can never be the cause of a grand and commanding conception. The description of the wild ass, in Job, is worked up into no small sublimity, merely by insisting on his freedom, and his setting mankind at defiance ; otherwise the description of such an animal could have nothing noble in it. Who hath loosed (says he) the bands of the wild ass % whose house I have made the wilderness , and the barren land his dwellings. He scorneth the multitude of the city , neither regardeth he the voice of the driver. The range of the moun- tains is his pasture. The magnificent descrip- tion of the unicorn and of leviathan in the same book, is full of the same heightening circumstances: Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee ? canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the f urrow f wilt thou trust him because his strength is great % — Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook f will he make a covenant with thee % wilt thou take him for a servant forever % shall not one be cast down even at the sight ofhimf In short, wheresoever we find strength, and in what light soever we look upon power, we shall all along observe the sublime the concomitant of terror, and contempt the attendant on a strength that is subservient and innoxious. The race of dogs in many of their kinds have generally a competent degree of strength and AND BEAUTIFUL. 61 swiftness; and they exert these and other valuable qualities which they possess, greatly to our convenience and pleasure. Dogs are indeed the most social, affectionate, and amia- ble animals of the whole brute creation ; but love approaches much nearer to contempt than is commonly imagined ; and accordingly though we caress dogs, we borrow from them an appellation of the most despicable kind, when we employ terms of reproach ; and this appellation is the common mark of the last vileness and contempt in every language. Wolves have not more strength than several species of dogs ; but, on account of their un- manageable fierceness, the idea of a wolf is not despicable; it is not excluded from grand descriptions and similitudes. Thus we are affected by strength, which is nat- ural power. The power which arises from institution in kings and commanders, has the same connection with terror. Sover- eigns are frequently addressed with the title of dread majesty. And it may be observed, that young persons, little acquainted with the world, and who have not been used to ap- proach men in power, are commonly struck with an awe which takes away the free use of their faculties. When I prepared my seat in the street (says Job) the young men saw me , and hid themselves. Indeed, so natural is this timidity with regard to power, and so strongly does it inhere in our constitution, that very few are able to conquer it, but by mixing much in the business of the great world, or by using no small violence to their natural dispositions. I know some people are of opin- ion, that no awe, no degree of terror, accom- panies the idea of power : and have hazarded to affirm, that we can contemplate the idea of God himself, without any such emotion. I purposely avoided, when I first considered 62 ON THE SUBLIME this subject, to introduce the idea of that great and tremendous Being, as an example in an argument so light as this ; though it fre- quently occurred to me, not as an objection to, but as a strong confirmation of, my notions in this matter. I hope, in what I am going to say, I shall avoid presumption where it is almost impossible for any mortal to speak with strict propriety. I say then, that whilst we consider the Godhead merely as he is an object of the understanding, which forms a complex idea of power, wisdom, justice, goodness, all stretched to a degree far exceed- ing the bounds of our comprehension, whilst we consider the Divinity in this refined and abstracted light, the imagination and passions are little or nothing affected. But because we are bound, by the condition of our nature, to ascend to these pure and intellectual ideas, through the medium of sensible images, and to judge of these divine qualities by their evi- dent acts and exertions, it becomes extremely hard to disentangle our idea of the cause from the effect by which we are led to know it. Thus when we contemplate the Deity, his attributes and their operation coming united on the mind, form a sort of sensible image, and as such are capable of affecting the imagination. Now, though in a just idea of the Deity, perhaps none of his attributes are predominant, yet to our imagination, his power is by far the most striking. Some re- flection, some comparing, is necessary to sat- isfy us of his wisdom, his justice, and his goodness. To be struck with his power, it is only necessary that we should open our eyes. But whilst we contemplate so vast an object, under the arm, as it were, of almighty power, and invested upon every side with omnipres- ence, we shrink into the minuteness of our own nature, and are, in a manner, annihilated AND BEAUTIFUL. 63 before him. And though a consideration of his other attributes may relieve in some meas- ure our apprehensions, yet no conviction of the justice with which it is exercised, nor the mercy with which it is tempered, can wholly remove the terror that naturally arises from a force which nothing can withstand. If we rejoice, w*e rejoice with trembling: and even whilst we are receiving benefits, we cannot but shudder at a power which can confer ben- efits of such mighty importance. When the prophet David contemplated the wonders of wisdom and power which are displayed in the economy of man, he seems to be struck with a sort of divine horror, and cries out, Fear- fully and wonderfully am I made ! An hea- then poet has a sentiment of a similar nature ; Horace looks upon it as the last effort of phi- losophical fortitude, to behold without terror and amazement, this immense and glorious fabric of the universe : Hunc solem, et stellas, et decedentia certis Tempora momentis, sunt qui formidine nulla Imbuti spectant. Lucretius is a poet not to be suspected of giv- ing way to superstitious terrors ; yet when he supposes the whole mechanism of nature laid open by the master of his philosophy, his transport on this magnificent view, which he had represented in the colors of such bold and lively poetry, is overcast with a shade of secret dread and horror : His tibi merebus qucedam divina voluptas Percipit , atque horror, quod sic Natura tua vi Tam manifesta patet ex omni parte retecta. But scripture alone can supply ideas answera- ble to the majesty of this subject. In the scripture, whenever Gfod is represented as appearing or speaking, everything terrible in nature is called up to heighten the awe and 64 ON THE SUBLIME solemnity of the divine presence. The psalms, and the prophetical books, are crowded with instances of this kind. The earth shook (says the psalmist), the heavens also dropped at the presence of the Lord. And what is re- markable, the painting preserves the same character, not only when he is supposed de- scending to take vengeance upon the wicked, but even when he exerts the like plenitude of power in acts of beneficence to mankind. Tremble thou earth ! at the presence of the Lord ; at the presence of the God of Jacob ; which turned the rock into standing water, the flint into a fountain of waters ! It were end- less to enumerate all the passages, both in the sacred and profane writers, which establish the general sentiment of mankind, concerning the inseparable union of a sacred and rever- ential awe, with our ideas of the divinity. Hence the common maxim, Primus in orbe deos fecit timor. This maxim may be, as I believe it is, false with regard to the origin of religion. The maker of the maxim saw how inseparable these ideas were, without consid- ering that the notion of some great power must be always precedent to our dread of it. But this dread must necessarily follow the idea of such a power, when it is once excited in the mind. It is on this principle that true religion has, and must have, so large a mixt- ure of salutary fear ; and that false religions have generally nothing else but fear to sup- port them. Before the Christian religion had, as it were, humanized the idea of the Divinity, and brought it somewhat nearer to us, there was very little said of the love of God. The followers of Plato have something of it, and only something ; the other writers of pa- gan antiquity, whether poets or philosophers, nothing at all. And they who consider with what infinite attention, by what a disregard AND BEAUTIFUL. 65 of every perishable object, through what long habits of piety and contemplation it is, any man is able to attain an entire love and de- votion to the Deity, will easily perceive, that it is not the first, the most natural, and the most striking effect which proceeds from that idea. Thus we have traced power through its several gradations into the high- est of all, where our imagination is finally lost ; and we find terror, quite throughout the progress, its inseparable companion, and growing along with it, as far as w~e can possi- bly trace them. Now as power is undoubtedly a capital source of the sublime, this will point out evidently from whence its energy is derived, and to what class of ideas we ought to unite it. SEC. VI.— PRIVATION. All general privations are great, because they are all terrible ; Vacuity , Darkness, Soli- tude, and Silence. With what a fire of imag- ination, yet with what severity of judgment, has Virgil amassed all these circumstances, where he knows that all the images of a tre- mendous dignity ought to be united, at the mouth of hell ! where, before he unlocks the secrets of the great deep, he seems to be seized with a religious horror, and to retire astonished at the boldness of his own design : Di quibus imperium est animarum, umbrceque — silentes ! A Et Chaos , et Plegethon ! loca noote silentia late f Sit michi fas audita loqui ! sit numine vestro Pandere res alta terra et caligine mersas ! lbant obscuri, sola sub nocte, per umbram, Perque domos Ditis vacuas, et inania regna. Ye subterraneous gods ! whose awful sway The gliding ghosts, and silent shades obey ,* O Chaos , hear ! and Phlegethon profound ! Whose solemn empire stretches wide around ! 66 ON THE SUBLIME Give me, ye great tremendous powers , to tell Of scenes and wonders in the depth of hell : Give me your mighty secrets to display From those black realms of darkness to the day.— Pitt. Obscure they went through dreary shades that led Along the waste dominions of the dead . — Dryden. SEC. VII. —VASTNESS. Greatness of dimension is a powerful cause of the sublime. This is too evident, and the observation too common, to need any illustra- tion ; it is not so common to consider in what ways greatness of dimension, vastness of ex- tent or quantity, has the most striking effect. For certainly, there are ways, and modes, wherein the same quantity of extension shall produce greater effects than it is found to do in others. Extension is either in length, height, or depth. Of these the length strikes least ; an hundred yards of even ground will never work such an effect as a tower an hun- dred yards high, or a rock or mountain of that altitude. I am apt to imagine likewise, that height is less grand than depth; and that we are more struck at looking down from a precipice, than looking up at an ob- ject of equal height ; but of that I am not very positive. A perpendicular has more force in forming the sublime than an inclined plane ; and the effects of a rugged and broken sur- face seem stronger than where it is smooth and polished. It would carry us out of our way to enter in this place into the cause of these appearances ; but certain it is they af- ford a large and fruitful field of speculation. However, it may not be amiss to add to these remarks upon magnitude, that as the great extreme of dimension is sublime, so the last extreme of littleness is in some measure sub- lime likewise ; when we attend to the infinite divisibility of matter, when we pursue animal life into these excessively small, and yet or- AND BEAUTIFUL . 67 ganized beings, that escape the nicest inquisi- tion of the sense, when we push our discover- ies yet downward, and consider those creat- ures so many degrees yet smaller, and the still diminishing scale of existence, in tracing which the imagination is lost as well as the sense, we become amazed and confounded at the wonders of minuteness ; nor can we dis- tinguish in its effect this extreme of littleness from the vast itself. For division must be infinite as well as addition ; because the idea of a perfect unity can no more be arrived at, than that of a complete whole, to which noth- ing may be added. SEC. VIII.— INFINITY. Another source of the sublime is Infinity ; if it does not rather belong to the last. Infin- ity has a tendency to fill the mind with that sort of delightful horror, which is the most genuine effect, and truest test of the sublime. There are scarce any things which can be- come the objects of our senses, that are really and in their own nature infinite. But the eye not being able to perceive the bounds of many things, they seem to be infinite, and they pro- duce the same effects as if they were really so. We are deceived in the like manner, if the parts of some large object are so continued to any indefinite number, that the imagina- tion meets no check which may hinder its extending them at pleasure. Whenever we repeat any idea frequently, the mind, by a sort of mechanism, repeats it long after the first cause has ceased to oper- ate. After whirling about, when we sit down, the objects about us still seem to whirl. After a long succession of noises, as the fall of waters, or the beating of forge-hammers, the hammers beat and the waters roar in 68 ON THE SUBLIME imagination long after the first sounds have ceased to affect it ; and they die away at last by gradations which are scarcely perceptible. If you hold up a straight pole, with your eye to one end, it will seem extended to a length almost incredible. Place a number of uni- form and equidistant marks on this pole, they will cause the same deception, and seem multiplied without end. The senses, strongly affected in some one manner, cannot quickly change their tenor, or adapt themselves to other things; but they continue in their whole channel until the strength of the first mover decays. This is the reason of an ap- pearance very frequent in madmen ; that they remain whole days and nights, sometimes whole years, in the constant repetition of some remark, some complaint, or song, which having struck powerfully on their disordered imagination in the beginning of their phrenzy, every repetition re-enforces it with new strength ; and the hurry of their spirits, un- restrained by the curb of reason, continues it to the end of their lives. SEC. IX.— SUCCESSION AND UNI- FORMITY. Succession and uniformity of parts are what constitute the artificial infinite. 1 . Suc- cession; which is requisite that the parts may be continued so long and in such a direction, as by their frequent impulses on the sense to impress the imagination with an idea of their progress beyond their actual limits. 2. Uni- formity; because if the figures of the parts should be changed, the imagination at every change finds a check ; you are presented at every alteration with the termination of one idea, and the beginning of another ; by which means it becomes impossible to continue that AND BEAUTIFUL. 69 uninterrupted progression, which alone can stamp on bounded objects the character of infinity.* It is in this kind of artificial infinity, I believe, we ought to look for the cause why a rotund has such a noble effect. For in a rotund, whether it be a building or a plantation, you can nowhere fix a boundary ; turn which way you will, the same object still seems to continue, and the imagination has no rest. But the parts must be uniform, as well as circularly disposed, to give this figure its full force; because any difference, whether it be in the disposition or in the figure, or even in the color of the parts, is highly prejudicial to the idea of infinity, which every change must check and inter- rupt, at every alteration commencing a new series. On the same principles of succession and uniformity, the grand appearance of the ancient heathen temples, which were gen- erally oblong forms, with a range of uniform pillars on every side, will be easily accounted for. From the same cause also may be derived the grand effect of the aisles in many of our own cathedrals. The form of a cross used in some churches seems to me not so eligible as the parallelogram of the ancients ; at least, I imagine it is not so proper for the outside. For supposing the arms of the cross every way equal, if you stand in a direction parallel to any of the side walls, or colo- nades, instead of a deception that makes the building more extended than it is, you are cut off from a considerable part (two thirds) of its actual length ; and to prevent all possi- bility of progression, the arms of the cross taking a new direction, make a right angle * Addison, in the Spectator concerning the pleasures of the imagination, thinks it is because in the rotund at one glance you see half the building. This I do not imagine to be the real cause. 70 ON THE SUBLIME with the beam, and thereby wholly turn the imagination from the repetition of the former idea. Or suppose the spectator placed where he may take a direct view of such a building, what will be the consequence? the necessary consequence will be, that a good part of the basis of each angle formed by the intersection of the arms of the cross, must be inevitably lost; the whole must of course assume a broken unconnected figure; the lights must be unequal, here strong, and there weak; without that noble gradation, which the perspective always effects on parts disposed uninterruptedly in a right line. Some or all of these objections will lie against every figure of a cross, in whatever view you take it. I exemplified them in the Greek cross, in which these faults appear the most strongly ; but they appear in some degree in all sorts of crosses. Indeed there is nothing more preju- dicial to the grandeur of buildings, than to abound in angles; a fault obvious in many; and owing to an inordinate thirst for variety, which whenever it prevails, is sure to leave very little true taste. SEC. X.— MAGNITUDE IN BUILDING. To the sublime in building, greatness of dimensions seems requisite; for on a few parts, and those small, the imagination can- not rise to any idea of infinity. No greatness in the manner can effectually compensate for the want of proper dimensions. There is no danger of drawing men into extravagant designs by this rule; it -carries its own caution along with it. Because too great a length in buildings destroys the purpose of greatness, which it was intended to promote ; the perspective will lessen it in height as it gains in length ; and will bring it at last to a AND BEAUTIFUL. 71 point ; turning the whole figure into a sort of triangle, the poorest in its effect of almost any figure that can be presented to the eye. I have ever observed, that colonades and avenues of trees of a moderate length, were without comparison far grander, than when they were suffered to run to immense dis- tances. A true artist should put a generous deceit on the spectators, and effect the no- blest designs by easy methods. Designs that are vast only by their dimensions, are always the sign of a common and low imagination. No work of art can be great, but as it deceives; to be otherwise is the prerogative of nature only. A good eye will fix the medium betwixt an excessive length or height (for the same objection lies against both), and a short or broken quantity; and perhaps it might be ascertained to a tolerable degree of exactness, if it was my purpose to descend far into the particulars of any art. SEC. XI.— INFINITY IN PLEASING! OB- JECTS. Infinity, though of another kird, causes much of our pleasure in agreeable, as well as of our delight in sublime, images. The spring is the pleasantest of the seasons; and the young of most animals, though far from being completely fashioned, afford a more agreeable sensation than the full-grown ; be- cause the imagination is entertained with the promise of something more, and does not ac- quiesce in the present object of the sense. In unfinished sketches of drawing, I have often seen something which pleased me beyond the best finishing; and this I believe proceeds from the cause I have just now assigned. 72 ON THE SUBLIME SEC. XII.— DIFFICULTY. Another source of greatness is Difficulty. When any work seems to have required im- mense force and labor to effect it, the idea is grand. Stonehenge, neither for disposition nor ornament, has anything admirable; but those huge rude masses of stone, set on end and piled on each other, turn the mind on the immense force necessary for such a work. Nay, the rudeness of the work increases this cause of grandeur, as it excludes the idea of art and contrivance ; for dexterity produces another sort of effect, which is different enough from this. SEC. XIII.— MAGNIFICENCE. Magnificence is likewise a source of the sublime. A great profusion of things, which are splendid or valuable in themselves, is magnificent. The starry heaven, though it occurs so very frequently to our view, never fails to excite an idea of grandeur. This can- not be owing to the stars themselves, sepa- rately considered. The number is certainly the cause. The apparent disorder augments the grandeur, for the appearance of care is highly contrary to our ideas of magnificence. Besides, the stars lie in such apparent confu- sion, as makes it impossible on ordinary oc- casions to reckon them. This gives them the advantage of a sort of infinity. In works of art, this kind of grandeur, which consists in multitude, is to be very cautiously admitted ; because a profusion of excellent things is not to be attained, or with too much difficulty; and because in many cases this splendid con- fusion would destroy all use, which should be attended to in most of the works of art with AND BEAUTIFUL. 73 the greatest care ; besides, it is to be consid- ered, that unless you can produce an appear- ance of infinity by your disorder, you will have disorder only without magnificence. There are, however, a sort of fire- works, and some other things, that in this way succeed well, and are truly grand. There are also many descriptions in the poets and orators, which owe their sublimity to a richness and profusion of images, in which the mind is so dazzled as to make it impossible to attend to that exact coherence and agreement of the al- lusions, which we should require on every other occasion. I do not now remember a more striking example of this, than the de- scription which is given of the king’s army in the play of Henry the Fourth : All furnished , all in arms, All plum'd like ostriches that with the wind Baited like eagles having lately bathed; As full of spirit as the month of May, And gorgeous as the sun in Midsummer , Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls. I saw young Harry with his beaver on Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury; And vaulted with such ease into his seat As if an angel dropped from the clouds To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus. In that excellent book, so remarkable for the vivacity of its descriptions, as well as the solidity and penetration of its sentences, the Wisdom of the son of Sirach, there is a noble panegyric on the high priest Simon the son of Onias ; and it is a very fine example of the point before us : ‘ 1 How was he honored in the midst of the people, in his coming out of the sanctuary! He was as the morning star in the midst of a cloud, and as the moon at the full ; as the sun shining upon the temple of the Most High, and as the rainbow giving light in the bright clouds ; and as the flower of roses in the spring 74 ON THE SUBLIME of the year, as lilies by the rivers of waters, and as the frankincense tree in summer ; as fire and incense in the censer, and as a vessel of gold set with precious stones; as a fair olive tree budding forth fruit, and as a cy- press which groweth up to the clouds. When he put on the robe of honor, and was clothed with the perfection of glory, when he went up to the holy altar, he made the garment of holiness honorable. He himself stood by the hearth of the altar, compassed with his breth- ren round about ; as a young cedar in Liba- nus, and as palm trees compassed they him about. So were all the sons of Aaron in their glory, and the oblations of the Lord in their hands,” etc. SEC. XIV. -LIGHT. Having considered extension, so far as it is capable of raising ideas of greatness; color comes next under consideration. All colors depend on light. Light therefore ought pre- viously to be examined ; and with it its op- posite, darkness. With regard to light, to make it a cause capable of producing the sub- lime, it must be attended with some circum- stances, besides its bare faculty of showing other objects. Mere light is too common a thing to make a strong impression on the mind, and without a strong impression noth- ing can be sublime. But such a light as that of the sun, immediately exerted on the eye, as it overpowers the sense, is a very great- idea. Light of an inferior strength to this, if it moves with great celerity, has the same power; for lightning is certainly productive of grandeur, which it owes chiefly to the ex- treme velocity of its motion. A quick tran- sition from light to darkness, or from dark- ness to light, has yet a greater effect. But AND BEAUTIFUL. 75 darkness is more productive of sublime ideas than light. Our great poet was convinced of this ; and indeed so full was he of this idea, so entirely possessed with the power of a well- managed darkness, that in describing the ap- pearance of the Deity, amidst that profusion of magnificent images, which the grandeur of his subject provokes him to pour out upon every side, he is far from forgetting the ob- scurity which surrounds the most incompre- hensible of all beings, but With the majesty of darkness round Circles his throne. And what is no less remarkable, our author had the secret of preserving this idea, even when he seemed to depart the farthest from it, when he describes the light and glory which flows from the divine presence ; a light which by its very excess is converted into a species of darkness. Dark with excessive light thy skirts appear. Here is an idea not only poetical in a high de- gree, but strictly and philosophically just. Extreme light, by overcoming the organs of sight, obliterates all objects, so as in its effect exactly to resemble darkness. After looking for some time at the sun, two black spots, the impression which it leaves, seem to dance be- fore our eyes. Thus are two ideas as opposite as can be imagined reconciled in the extremes of both ; and both in spite of their opposite nature brought to concur in producing the sublime. And this is not the only instance wherein the opposite extremes operate equally in favor of the sublime which in all things abhors mediocrity. 16 ON THE SUBLIME SEC. XV.— LIGHT IN BUILDING. As the management of light is a matter of importance in architecture, it is worth in- quiring, how far this remark is applicable to building. I think then, that all edifices cal- culated to produce an idea of the sublime, ought rather to be dark and gloomy, and this for two reasons; the first is, that darkness itself on other occasions is known by expe- rience to have a greater effect on the passions than light. The second is, that to make an object very striking, we should make it as different as possible from the objects with which we have been immediately conversant ; when therefore you enter a building, you cannot pass into a greater light than you had in the open air ; to go into one some few de- grees less luminous, can make only a trifling change ; but to make the transition thoroughly striking, you ought to pass from the greatest light, to as much darkness as is consistent with the uses of architecture. At night the contrary rule will hold, but for the very same reason ; and the more highly a room is then illuminated, the grander will the passion be. SEC. XVI.— COLOR CONSIDERED AS PRODUCTIVE OF THE SUBLIME. Among colors, such as are soft or cheerful (except perhaps a strong red which is cheer- ful) are unfit to produce grand images. An immense mountain covered with a shining green turf, is nothing, in this respect, to one dark and gloomy; the cloudy sky is more grand than the blue ; and night more sublime and solemn than day. Therefore in histor* ical painting, a gay or gaudy drapery can never have a happy effect : and in buildings, AND BEAUTIFUL. 77 when the highest degree of the sublime is in- tended, the materials and ornaments ought neither to be white, nor green, nor yellow, nor blue, nor of a pale red, nor violet, nor spotted, but of sad and fuscous colors, as black, or brown, or deep purple, and the like. Much of gilding, mosaics, painting, or stat- ues, contribute but little to the sublime. This rule need not be put in practice, except where an uniform degree of the most striking sub- limity is to be produced, and that in every particular ; for it ought to be observed, that this melancholy kind of greatness, though it be certainly the highest, ought not to be stud- ied in all sorts of edifices, where yet grandeur must be studied : in such cases the sublimity must be drawn from the other sources ; with a strict caution however against anything light and riant; as nothing so effectually deadens the whole taste of the sublime. SEC. XVII.— SOUND AND LOUDNESS. The eye is not the only organ of sensation, by which a sublime passion may be pro- duced. Sounds have a great power in these as in most other passions. I do not mean words, because words do not affect simply by their sounds, but by means altogether differ- ent. Excessive loundess alone is sufficient to overpower the soul, to suspend its action, and to fill it with terror. The noise of vast cataracts, raging storms, thunder, or artil- lery, awake a great and awful sensation in the mind, though we can observe no nicety or artifice in those sorts of music. The shouting of multitudes has a similar effect; and, by the sole strength of the sound, so amazes and confounds the imagination, that in this stag- gering, and hurry of the mind, the best es- tablished tempers can scarcely forbear being 78 ON THE SUBLIME borne down, and joining in the common cry, and common resolution of the crowd. SEC. XVIII.— SUDDENNESS. A sudden beginning, or sudden cessation of sound of any considerable force, has the same power. The attention is roused by this ; and the faculties driven forward, as it were, on their guard. Whatever either in sights or sounds makes the transition from one extreme to the other easy, causes no terror, and con- sequently can be no cause of greatness. In everything sudden and unexpected, we are apt to start ; that is, we have a perception of danger; and our nature rouses us to guard against it. It may be observed that a single sound of some strength, though but of short duration, if repeated after intervals, has a grand effect. Few things are more awful than the striking of a great clock, when the silence of the night prevents the attention from being too much dissipated. The same may be said of a single stroke on a drum, re- peated with pauses ; and of the successive fir- ing of cannon at a distance. All the effects mentioned in this section have causes very nearly alike. SEC. XIX.— INTERMITTING. A low, tremulous, intermitting sound, though it seems in some respects opposite to that just mentioned, is productive of the sublime. It is w T orth while to examine this a little. The fact itself must be determined by every man’s own experience and reflec- tion. I have already observed that night increases our terror, more perhaps than any- thing else; it is our nature, when we do not know what may happen to us, to fear the AND BEAUTIFUL. 79 worst that can happen ; and hence it is, that uncertainty is so terrible, that we often seek to be rid of it, at the hazard of a certain mis- chief. Now some low, confused, uncertain sounds leaves us in the same fearful anxiety concerning their causes, that no light, or an uncertain light, does concerning the objects that surround us. Quale per incertam lunam sub luce maligna Est iter in sylvis. A faint shadow of uncertain light, Like as a lamp , whose life doth fade ; Or as the moon clothed with cloudy night Doth show to him who walks in fear and great afright. Spenser. But light now appearing, and now leaving us, and so off and on, is even more terrible than total darkness : and a sort of uncertain sounds are, when the necessary dispositions concur, more alarming than a total silence. SEC. XX.— THE CRIES OF ANIMALS. Such sounds as imitate the natural inarticu- late voices of men, or any animals in pain or danger, are capable of conveying great ideas ; unless it be the well-known voice of some creature, on which we are used to look with contempt. The angry tones of wild beasts are equally capable of causing a great and awful sensation. Hinc exaudiri g emit us, ir deque leonum Vincla recusantum, et sera sub node rudentum ; Setigerique sues, atque in prcesepibus ursi Scevire ; etformce magnorumululare luporum. It might seem that these modulations of sound carry some connection with the nature of the things they represent, and are not merely arbitrary ; because the natural cries of all annuals, even of those animals with whom we have not been acquainted, never fail to make themselves sufficiently understood ; 80 ON THE SUBLIME this cannot be said of language. The modifi- cations of sound, which may be productive of the sublime, are almost infinite. Those I have mentioned are only a few instances, to show on what principles they are all built. SEC. XXI.— SMELL AND TASTE.— BIT- TERS AND STENCHES. Smells and Tastes have some share too in ideas of greatness ; but it is a small one, weak in its nature, and confined in its operations. I shall only observe, that no smells or tastes can produce a grand sensation, except exces- sive bitters, and intolerable stenches. It is true, that these affections of the smell and taste, when they are in their full force, and lean directly upon the sensory, are simply painful, and accompanied with no sort of de- light ; but when they are moderated, as in a description or narrative, they become sources of the sublime, as genuine as any other, and upon the very same principle of a moder- ated pain. ‘ ‘ A cup of bitterness ; ” “to drain the bitter cup of fortune ; ” “ the bitter apples of Sodom;” these are all ideas suitable to a sublime description. Nor is this passage of Virgil without sublimity, where the stench of the vapor in Albunea conspires so happily with the sacred horror and gloominess of that proj)hetic forest : At rex solicitus monstris oracula Fauni Fatidici genitoris adit , lucosque sub alta Consulit Albunea , nemorum quce maxima sacro Fonte sonat; ssevamque exhalat opaca Mephitim. In the sixth book, and in a very sublime de- scription, the poisonous exhalation of Ache- ron is not forgot, nor does it at all disagree with the other images amongst which it is in- troduced : AND BEAUTIFUL. 81 Spelunca alta f uit vastoque immanis hiatu Scrupea, tuta lacu nigro, nemorumque tenebris, Quam super hand ullce poterant impune volantes Tendere iter pennis, talis sese halitus atris Faucibus effundens supera ad convexa ferebat. I have added these examples, because some friends, for whose judgment I have great def- erence, were of opinion that if the sentiment stood nakedly by itself, it would be subject, at first view, to burlesque and ridicule; but this I imagine would principally arise from considering the bitterness and stench in com- pany with mean and contemptible ideas, with which it must be owned they are often united ; such an union degrades the sublime in all other instances as well as in those. But it is one of the tests by which the sublim- ity of an image is to be tried, not whether it becomes mean when associated with mean ideas, but whether, when united with images of an allowed grandeur, the whole composi- tion is supported with dignity. Things which are terrible are always great ; but when things possess disagreeable qualities, or such as have indeed some degree of danger, but of a dan- ger easily overcome, they are merely odious , as toads and spiders. SEC. XXII.— FEELING.— PAIN. Of Feeling, little more can be said, than that the idea of bodily pain, in all the modes and degrees of labor, pain, anguish, torment, is productive of the sublime; and nothing else in this sense can produce it. I need not give here any fresh instances, as those given in the former sections abundantly illustrate a remark, that in reality waitts only an atten- tion to nature, to be made by everybody. Having thus run through the causes of the sublime with reference to all the senses, my first observation (Sec. 7) will be found very G 82 OJSf THE SUBLIME nearly true; that the sublime is an idea be- longing to self-preservation ; that it is there- fore one of the most affecting we have ; that its strongest emotion is an emotion of dis- tress; and that no pleasure from a positive cause belongs to it. Numberless examples, besides those mentioned, might be brought in support of these truths, and many perhaps useful consequences drawn from them — Sed fugit interea , fugit irrevocabile tempus Singula dum capti circumvectamur amove . ON THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL. PART III. — SEC. I.— OP BEAUTY. It is my design to consider beauty as dis- tinguished from the sublime; and, in the course of the inquiry, to examine how far it is consistent with it. But previous to this, we must take a short review of the opinions already entertained of this quality ; which I think are hardly to be reduced to any fixed principles ; because men are used to talk of beauty in a figurative manner, that is to say, in a manner extremely uncertain, and inde- terminate. By beauty I mean that quality, or those qualities in bodies, by which they cause love, or some passion similar to it. I confine this definition to the merely sensible qualities of things, for the sake of preserving the utmost simplicity in a subject which must always distract us, whenever we take in those various causes of sympathy which attach us to any persons or things from secondary con- siderations, and not from the direct force which they have merely on being viewed. I AND BEAUTIFUL. 83 likewise distinguish love, by which I mean that satisfaction which arises to the mind upon contemplating anything beautiful, of whatsoever nature it may be, from desire or lust ; which is an energy of the mind, that hurries us on to the possession of certain ob- jects, that do not affect us as they are beauti- ful, but by means altogether different. We shall have a strong desire for a woman of no remarkable beauty ; whilst the greatest beauty in men, or in other animals, though it causes love, yet excites nothing at all of de- sire. Which shows that beauty, and the pas- sion caused by beauty, which I call love, is different from desire, though desire may sometimes operate along with it ; but it is to this latter that we must attribute those vio- lent and tempestuous passions, and the conse- quent emotions of the body which attend what is called love in some of its ordinary ac- ceptations, and not to the effects of beauty merely as it is such. SEC. II.— PPOPOKTION NOT THE CAUSE OF BEAUTY IN VEGETABLES. Beauty hath usually been said to consist in certain proportions of parts. On considering the matter, I have great reason to doubt, whether beauty be at all an idea belonging to proportion. Proportion relates almost wholly to convenience, as every idea of order seems to do , and it must therefore be considered as a creature of the understanding, rather than a primary cause acting on the senses and im- agination. It is not by the force of long at- tention and inquiry that we find any object to be beautiful; beauty demands no assist- ance from our reasoning; even the will is un- concerned ; the appearance of beauty as ef- fectually causes some degree of love in us, as 84 ON THE SUBLIME the application of ice or fire produces the ideas of heat or cold. To gain something like a satisfactory conclusion in this point, it were well to examine, what proportion is; since several who make use of that word, do not always seem to understand very clearly the force of the term, nor to have very distinct ideas concerning the thing itself. Proportion is the measure of relative quantity. Since all quantity is divisible, it is evident that every distinct part into which any quantity is divided, must bear some relation to the other parts, or to the whole. These relations give an origin to the idea of proportion. They are discovered by mensuration, and they are the objects of mathematical inquiry. But whether any part of any determinate quantity be a fourth, or a fifth, or a sixth, or a moiety of the whole ; or whether it be of equal length with any other part, or double its length, or but one half, is a matter merely indifferent to the mind ; it stands neuter in the question ; and it is from this absolute in- difference and tranquillity of the mind, that mathematical speculations derive some of their most considerable advantages ; because there is nothing to interest the imagination ; because the judgment sits free and unbiassed to examine the point. All proportions, every arrangement of quantity, is alike to the under- standing, because the same truths result to it from all; from greater, from lesser, from equality and inequality. But surely beauty is no idea belonging to mensuration ; nor has it anything to do with calculation and ge- ometry. If it had, we might then point out some certain measures which we could dem- onstrate to be beautiful, either as simply considered, or as related to others; and we could call in those natural objects, for whose beauty we have no voucher but the sense, to, AND BEAUTIFUL. 85 this happy standard, and confirm the voice of our passions by the determination of our reason. But since we have not this help, let us see whether proportion can in any sense be considered as the cause of beauty, as hath been so generally, and by some so confidently affirmed. If proportion be one of the constit- uents of beauty, it must derive that power either from some natural properties inherent in certain measures, which operate mechanic- ally ; from the operation of custom ; or from the fitness which some measures have to an- swer some particular ends of conveniency. Our business therefore is to inquire, whether the parts of those objects, which are found beautiful in the vegetable or animal king- doms, are constantly so formed according to such certain measures, as may serve to sat- isfy us that their beauty results from those measures on the principle of a natural me- chanical cause ; or from custom ; or, in fine, from their fitness for any determinate pur- poses. I intend to examine this point under each of these heads in their order. But be- fore I proceed further, I hope it will not be thought amiss, if I lay down the rules which governed me in this inquiry, and which have misled me in it, if I have gone astray. 1. If two bodies produce the same or a similar ef- fect on the mind, and on examination they are found to agree in some of their properties, and to differ in others ; the common effect is to be attributed to the properties in which they agree; and not to those in which they differ. 2. Not to account for the effect of a natural object from the effect of an artificial object. 8. Not to account for the effect of any natural object from a conclusion of our reason concerning its uses, if a natural cause may be assigned. 4. Not to admit any deter- minate quantity, or any relation of quantity, 86 ON THE SUBLIME as the cause of a certain effect, if the effect is produced by different or opposite measures and relations; or if these measures and re- lations may exist, and yet the effect may not be produced. These are the rules which I have chiefly followed, whilst I examined into the power of proportion considered as a natural cause; and these, if he thinks them just, I request the reader to carry with him throughout the following discussion; whilst we inquire in the first place, in what things we find this quality of beauty; next, to see whether in these we can find any as- signable proportions, in such a manner as ought to convince us that our idea of beauty results from them. We shall consider this pleasing power, as it appears in vegetables, in the inferior animals, and in man. Turning our eyes to the vegetable creation, we find nothing there so beautiful as flowers; but flowers are almost of every sort of shape, and of every sort of disposition ; they are turned and fashioned into an infinite variety of forms ; and from these forms botanists have given them their names, which are almost as various. What proportion do we discover between the stalks and the leaves of flowers, or between the leaves and the pistils? How does the slender stalk of the rose agree with the bulky head under which it bends? but the rose is a beautiful flower; and can we undertake to say that it does not owe a great deal of its beauty even to that disproportion ; the rose is a large flower, yet it grows upon a small shrub ; the flower of the apple is very small, and grows upon a large tree ; yet the rose and the apple blossom are both beautiful, and the plants that bear them are most en- gagingly attired, notwithstanding this dispro- portion. What by general consent is allowed to be a more beautiful object than an orange- AND BEAUTIFUL. 87 tree, flourishing' at once with its leaves, its blossoms, and its fruit? hut it is in vain that we search here for any proportion between the height, the breadth, or anything else con- cerning the dimensions of the whole, or con- cerning the relation of the particular parts to each other. 1 grant that we may observe in many flowers something of a regular figure, and of a methodical disposition of the leaves. The rose has such a figure and such a dispo- sition of its petals ; but in an oblique view, when this figure is in a good measure lost, and the order of the leaves confounded, it yet retains its beauty; the rose is even more beautiful before it is full blown ; and the bud, before this exact figure is formed ; and this is not the only instance wherein method and exactness, the soul of proportion, are found rather prejudicial than serviceable to the cause of beauty. SEC. III. — PROPORTION NOT THE CAUSE OF BEAUTY IN ANIMALS. That proportion has but a small share in the formation of beauty, is full as evident among animals. Here the greatest variety of shapes and dispositions of parts, are well fitted to excite this idea. The swan, con- fessedly a beautiful bird, has a neck longer than the rest of his body, and but a very short tail: is this a beautiful proportion? we must allow that it is. But then what shall we say to the peacock, who has comparatively but a short neck, with a tail longer than the neck and the rest of the body taken together? How many birds are there that vary infinitely from each of these standards, and from every other which you can fix; with proportions different, and often directly opposite to each other ! and yet many of these birds are ex- 88 ON THE SUBLIME tremely beautiful; when upon considering them we find nothing in any one part that might determine us, a priori , to say what the others ought to be, nor indeed to guess any- thing about them, but what experience might show to be full of disappointment and mis- take. And with regard to the colors either of birds or flowers, for there is something similar in the coloring of both, whether they are considered in their extension or gradation, there is nothing of proportion to be observed. Some are of but one single color ; others have all the colors of the rainbow ; some are of the primary colors, others are of the mixt; in short, an attentive observer may soon con- clude, that there is as little of proportion in the coloring as in the shapes of these objects. Turn next to beasts ; examine the head of a beautiful horse; find what proportion that bears to his body, and to his limbs, and what relations these have to each other ; and when you have settled these proportions as a stand- ard of beauty, then take a dog or cat, or any other animal, and examine how far the same proportions between their heads and their necks, between those and the body, and so on, are found to hold ; I think we may fairly say, that they differ in every species, yet that there are individuals found in a great many species so differing, that have a very striking beauty. Now if it be allowed that very dif- ferent, and even contrary, forms and disposi- tions are consistent with beauty, it amounts I believe to a concession, that no certain measures, operating from a natural principle, are necessary to produce it, at least so far as the brute species is concerned. AND BEAUTIFUL . 89 SEC. IV.— PROPORTION NOT THE CAUSE OF BEAUTY IN THE HUMAN SPE- CIES. There are some parts of the human body, that are observed to hold certain proportions to each other; but before it can be proved, that the efficient cause of beauty lies in these, it must be shown, that wherever these are found exact, the person to whom they belong is beautiful : I mean in the effect produced on the view, either of any member distinctly considered, or of the whole body together. It must be likewise shown, that these parts stand in such a relation to each other, that the comparison between them may be easily made, and that the affection of the mind may naturally result from it. For my part, I have at several times very carefully ex- amined many of those proportions, and found them hold very nearly, or altogether alike in many subjects, which were not only very different from one another, but where one has been very beautiful, and the other very remote from beauty. With regard to the parts which are found so proportioned, they are often so remote from each other, in situation, nature, and office, that I cannot see how they admit of any comparison, nor consequently how any effect owing to pro- portion can result from them. The neck, say they, in beautiful bodies, should measure with the calf of the leg ; it should likewise be twice the circumference of the wrist. And an infinity of observations of this kind are to be found in the writings and conversations of many. But what relation has the calf of the leg to the neck ; or either of these parts to the wrist? These proportions are certainly to he found in handsome bodies. They are as 90 ON THE SUBLIME certainly in ugly ones ; as any one who will take the pains to try will find. Nay, I do not know but they may he least perfect in some of the most beautiful. You may assign any proportions you please to every part of the human body ; and I undertake that a painter shall religiously observe them all, and not- withstanding produce, if he pleases, a very ugly figure. The same painter shall con- siderably deviate from these proportions, and produce a very beautiful one. And indeed it may be observed in the master-pieces of the ancient and modern statuary, that several of them differ very widely from the proportions of others, in parts very conspicuous and of great consideration ; and that they differ no less from the proportions we find in living men, of forms extremely striking and agree- able. And after all, how are the partisans of proportional beauty agreed amongst them- selves about the proportions of the human body? some hold it to be seven heads; some make it eight ; whilst others extend it even to ten ; a vast difference in such a small number of divisions! Others take other methods of estimating the proportions, and all with equal success. But are these proportions exactly the same in all handsome men; or are they at all the proportions found in beau- tiful women? nobody will say that they are; yet both sexes are undoubtedly capable of beauty, and the female of the greatest ; which advantage I believe will hardly be attributed to the superior exactness of proportion in the fair sex. Let us rest a moment on this point ; and consider how much difference there is, between the measures that prevail in many similar parts of the body, in the two sexes of this single species only. If you assign any determinate proportions to the limbs of a man, and if you limit human beauty to these AND BEAUTIFUL . 91 proportions, when you find a woman who differs in the make and measures of almost every part, you must conclude her not to be beautiful, in spite of the suggestions of your imagination ; or, in obedience to your imagi- nation, you must renounce your rules; you must lay by the scale and compass, and look out for some other cause of beauty. For if beauty be attached to certain measures which operate from a principle of nature , why should similar parts with different measures of proportion be found to have beauty, and this too in the very same species? but to open our view a little, it is worth observing, that almost all animals have parts of very much the same nature, and destined nearly to the same purposes! an head, neck, body, feet, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth ; yet providence, to provide in the best manner for their several wants, and to display the riches of his wisdom and goodness in his creation, has worked out of these few and similar organs, and members, a diversity hardly short of infinite in their disposition, measures, and relation. But, as we have before observed, amidst this infinite diversity, one particular is common to many species: several of the individuals which compose them are capable of affecting us with a sense of loveliness ; and whilst they agree in producing this effect, they differ extremely in the relative measures of those parts which have produced it. These considerations were sufficient to induce me to reject the notion of any particular pro- portions that operated by nature to produce a pleasing effect; but those who will agree with me with regard to a particular propor- tion, are strongly prepossessed in favor of one more indefinite. They imagine, that although beauty in general is annexed to no certain measures common to the several 92 ON THE SUBLIME kinds of pleasing plants and animals; yet that there is a certain proportion in each species absolutely essential to the beauty of that particular kind. If we consider the animal world in general, we find beauty confined to no certain measures ; but as some peculiar measure and relation of parts in what distinguishes each peculiar class of animals, it must of necessity be, that the beautiful in each kind will be found in the measures and proportions of that kind; for otherwise it would deviate from its proper species, and become in some sort monstrous ; however, no species is so strictly confined to any certain proportions, that there is not a considerable variation amongst the indi- viduals; and as it has been shown of the human, so it may be shown of the brute kinds, that beauty is found indifferently in all the proportions which each kind can admit, without quitting its common form; and it is this idea of a common form that makes the proportion of parts at all regarded, and not the operation of any natural cause : indeed a little consideration will make it appear, that it is not measure but manner that creates all the beauty which belongs to shape. What light do we borrow from these boasted proportions, when we study orna- mental design? It seems amazing to me, that artists, if they were as well convinced as they pretend to be, that proportion is a principal cause of beauty, have not by them at all times accurate measurements of all sorts of beautiful animals to help them to proper proportions, when they would con- trive anything elegant, especially as they frequently assert, that it is from an observa- tion of the beautiful in nature they direct their practice. I know that it has been said long since, and echoed backward and forward AND BEAUTIFUL . 93 from one writer to another a thousand times, that the proportions of building have been taken from those of the human body. To make this forced analogy complete, they represent a man with his arms raised and extended at full length, and then describe a sort of square, as it is formed by passing lines along the extremities of this strange figure. But it appears very clearly to me, that the human figure never supplied the architect with any of his ideas. For in the first place, men are very rarely seen in this strained posture; it is not natural to them; neither is it at all becoming. Secondly, the view of the human figure so disposed, does not naturally suggest the idea of a square,- hut rather of a cross; as that large space between the arms and the ground, must be filled with something before it can make anybody think of a square. Thirdly, several buildings are by no means of the form of that particular square, which are notwithstanding planned by the best architects, and produce an effect altogether as good, and perhaps a better. And certainly nothing could be more whimsical, than for an architect to model his performance by the human figure, since no two things can have less resemblance or analogy, than a man, and an house or temple: do we need to observe, that their purposes are entirely different? What I am apt to suspect is this: that these analogies were devised to give a credit to the works of art, by showing a conformity between them and the noblest works of nature; not that the latter served at all to supply hints for the perfection of the former. And I am the more fully convinced, that the patrons of proportion have transferred their artificial ideas to nature, and not borrowed from thence the proportions they use in works of 94 OJV THE SUBLIME art ; because in any discussion of this subject they always quit as soon as possible the open field of natural beauties, the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and fortify themselves within the artificial lines and angles of archi- tecture. For there is in mankind an unfortu- nate propensity to make themselves, their views, and their works, the measure of excel- lence in everything whatsoever. Therefore having observed that their dwellings were most commodious and firm when they were thrown into regular figures, with parts answerable to each other; they transferred these ideas to their gardens; they turned their trees into pillars, pyramids, and obelisks; they formed their hedges into so many green walls, and fashioned their walks into squares, triangles, and other mathemat- ical figures, with exactness and symmetry; and they thought, if they were not imitating, they were at least improving nature, and teaching her to know her business. But nature has at last escaped from their disci- pline and their fetters; and our gardens, if nothing else, declare, we begin to feel that mathematical ideas are not the true measures of beauty. And surely they are full as little so in the animal, as the vegetable world. For is it not extraordinary, that in these fine descriptive pieces, these innumerable odes and elegies which are in the mouths of all the world, and many of which have been the entertainment of ages, that in these pieces which describe love with such a passionate energy, and represent its object in such an infinite variety of lights, not one word is said of proportion, if it be, what some insist it is, the principal component of beauty ; whilst at the same time, several other qualities are very frequently and warmly mentioned ! But if proportion has not this power, it may AND BEAUTIFUL. 95 appear odd how men came originally to be so prepossessed in its favor. It arose, I imagine, from the fondness I have just mentioned, which men bear so remarkably to their own works and notions ; it arose from false reason- ings on the effects of the customary figure of animals ; it arose from the Platonic theory of fitness and aptitude. For which reason, in the next section, I shall consider the effects of custom in the figure of animals ; and after- wards the idea of fitness : since if proportion does not operate by a natural power attend- ing some measures, it must be either by custom, or the idea of utility; there is no other way. SEC. V.— PROPORTION FURTHER CON- SIDERED. If I am not mistaken, a great deal of the prejudice in favor of proportion has arisen, not so much from the observation of any certain measures found in beautiful bodies, as from a wrong idea of the relation which deformity bears to beauty, to which it has been considered as the opposite; on this principle it was concluded, that where the causes of deformity were removed, beauty must naturally and necessarily be introduced. This I believe is a mistake. For deformity is opposed not to beauty, but to the complete , common form. If one of the legs of a man be found shorter than the other, the man is de- formed ; because there is something wanting to complete the whole idea we form of a man ; and this has the same effect in natural faults, as maiming and mutilation produce from accidents. So if the back be humped, the man is deformed; because his back has an unusual figure, and what carries with it the idea of some disease or misfortune; so if a 96 ON THE SUBLIME man’s neck may be considerably longer or shorter than usual, we say he is deformed in that part, because men are not commonly made in that manner. But surely every hour’s experience may convince us, that a man may have his legs of an equal length, and resembling each other in all respects, and his neck of a just size, and his back quite straight, without having at the same time the least perceivable beauty. Indeed beauty is so far from belonging to the idea of custom, that in reality what affects us in that manner is extremely rare and uncommon. The beautiful strikes us as much by its nov- elty as the deformed itself. It is thus in those species of animals with which we are ac- quainted ; and if one of a new species were represented, we should by no means wait until custom had settled an idea of proportion, before we decided concerning its beauty or ugliness : which shows that the general idea of beauty can be no more owing to custom- ary than to natural proportion. Deformity arises from the want of the common propor- tions ; but the necessary result of their exist- ence in any object is not beauty. If we sup- pose proportion in natural things to be rela- tive to custom and use, the nature of use and custom will show, that beauty, which is a positive and powerful quality, cannot result from it. We are so wonderfully formed, that, whilst we are creatures vehemently de- sirous of novelty, we are as strongly at- tached to habit and custom. But it is the nature of things which hold us by custom, to affect us very little whilst we are in posses- sion of them, but strongly when they are ab- sent. I remember to have frequented a certain place, every day for a long time to- gether ; and I may truly say, that so far from finding pleasure in it, I was affected with AND BEAUTIFUL . 97 a sort of weariness and disgust; I came, I went, I returned, without pleasure ; yet if by any means I passed by the usual time of going thither, I was remarkably uneasy, and was not quiet till I had got into my old track. They who use snuff, take it almost without being sensible that they take it, and the acute sense of smell is deadened, so as to feel hardly anything from so sharp a stimu- lus ; yet deprive the snuff -taker of his box, and he is the most uneasy mortal in the world. Indeed so far are use and habit from being causes of pleasure, merely as such, that the effect of constant use is to make all things of whatever kind entirely unaffecting. For as use at last takes off the painful effect of many things, it reduces the pleasurable effect in others in the same manner, and brings both to a sort of mediocrity and indifference. Very justly is use called a second nature; and our natural and common state is one of absolute indifference, equally prepared for pain or pleasure. But when we are thrown out of this state, or deprived of anything req- uisite to maintain us in it ; when this chance does not happen by pleasure from some me- chanical cause, we are always hurt. It is so with the second nature, custom, in all things which relate to it. Thus the want of the usual proportions in men and other animals is sure to disgust, though their presence is by no means any cause of real pleasure. It is true, that the proportions laid down as causes of beauty in the human body, are frequently found in beautiful ones, because they are gen- erally found in all mankind ; but if it can be shown too, that they are found without beau- ty, and that beauty frequently exists with- out them, and that this beauty, where it exists, always can be assigned to other less equivocal causes, it will naturally lead us to conclude, 7 98 ON THE SUBLIME that proportion and beauty are not ideas of the same nature. The true opposite to beauty is not disproportion or deformity, but ugliness ; and as it proceeds from causes opposite to those of positive beauty, we cannot consider it until we come to treat of that. Between beauty and ugliness there is a sort of medioc- rity, in which the assigned proportions are most commonly found ; but this has no effect upon the passions. SEC. VI.— FITNESS NOT THE CAUSE OF BEAUTY. It is said that the idea of utility, or of a part’s being well adapted to answer its end, is the cause of beauty, or indeed beauty itself. If it were not for this opinion, it had been im- possible for the doctrine of proportion to have held its ground very long ; the world would be soon weary of hearing of measures which related to nothing either of a natural prin- ciple, or of a fitness to answer some end ; the idea which mankind most commonly conceive of proportion, is the suitableness of means to certain ends, and, where this is not the ques- tion, very seldom trouble themselves about the effect of different measures of things. Therefore it was necessary for this theory to insist that not only artificial, but natural ob- jects took their beauty from the fitness of the parts for their several purposes. But in framing this theory, I am apprehensive that experience was not sufficiently con- sulted. For, on that principle, the wedge- like snout of a swine, with its tough cartilage at the end, the little sunk eyes, and the whole make of the head, so well adapted to its of- fices of digging and rooting, would be ex- tremely beautiful. The great bag hanging to the bill of a pelican, a thing highly useful to AND BEAUTIFUL. 99 this animal, would be likewise as beautiful in our eyes. The hedge-hog, so well secured against all assaults by his prickly hide, and the porcupine with his missile quills, would be then considered as creatures of no small elegance. There are few animals whose parts are better contrived than those of a monkey ; he has the hands of a man, joined to the springy limbs of a beast ; he is admirably cal- culated for running, leaping, grappling, and climbing ; and yet there are few animals which seem to have less beaut in the eyes of all mankind. I need say little to the trunk of the elephant, of such various usefulness, and which is so far from contributing to his beauty. How well fitted is the wolf for run- ning and leaping S how admirably is the lion armed for battle S but will any one therefore call the elephant, the wolf, and the lion, beau- tiful animals ? I believe nobody will think the form of a man’s leg so well adapted to running as those of a horse, a dog, a deer, and several other creatures; at least they have not that appearance: yet, I believe, a well-fashioned human leg will be allowed far to exceed all these in beauty. If the fitness of parts was what constituted the loveliness of their form, the actual employment of them would undoubtedly much augment it; but this, though it is sometimes so upon another principle, is far from being always the case. A bird on the wing is not so beautiful as when it is perched ; nay, there are several of the domestic fowls which are seldom seen to fly, and which are nothing the less beautiful on that account ; yet birds are so extremely dif- ferent in their form from the beast and hu- man kinds, that you cannot, on the prin- ciple of fitness, allow them anything agree- able, but in consideration of their parts being designed for quite other purposes. I never in 100 ON THE SUBLIME my life chanced to see a peacock fly ; and yet before, very long before I considered any apt- itude in his form for the serial life, I was struck with the extreme beauty which raises that bird above many of the best flying fowls in the world; though, for anything I saw, his way of living was much like that of the swine, which fed in the farm-yard along with him. The same may be said of cocks, hens, and the like; they are of the flying kind in figure; in their manner of moving not very different from men and beasts. To leave these foreign examples; if beauty in our own species was annexed to use, men would be much more lovely than women; and strength and agility would be considered as the only beauties. But to call strength by the name of beauty, to have but one denomi- nation for the qualities of a Venus and Her- cules, so totally different in almost all re- spects, is surely a strange confusion of ideas, or abuse of words. The cause of this confu- sion, I imagine, proceeds from our frequently perceiving the parts of the human and other animal bodies to be at once very beautiful, and very well adapted to their purposes ; and we are deceived by a sophism, which makes us take that for a cause which is only a con- comitant : this is the sophism of the fly, who imagined he raised a great dust, because he stood upon the chariot that really raised it. The stomach, the lungs, the liver, as well as other parts, are incomparably well adapted to their purposes ; yet they are far from having any beauty. Again, many things are very beautiful, in which it is impossible to discern any idea of use. And I appeal to the first and most natural feelings of mankind, whether, on beholding a beautiful eye, or a well-fash- ioned mouth, or a well-turned leg, any ideas of their being well fitted for seeing, eating, or AND BEAUTIFUL . 101 running, ever present themselves. What idea of use is it that flowers excite, the most beautiful part of the vegetable world? It is true, that the infinitely wise and good Creator has, of his bounty, frequently joined beauty to those things which he has made useful to us; but this does not prove that an idea of use and beauty are the same thing, or that they are any way dependent on each other. SEC. VIL— THE BEAL EFFECTS OF FIT- NESS. When I excluded proportion and fitness from any share in beauty, I did not by any means intend to say that they were of no value, or that they ought to be disregarded in works of art. Works of art are the proper sphere of their power ; and here it is that they have their full effect. Whenever the wisdom of our Creator intended that we should be ef- fected with anything, he did not confine the execution of his design to the languid and precarious operation of our reason; but he endued it with powers and properties that prevent the understanding, and even the will, which seizing upon the senses and im- agination, captivate the soul before the under- standing is ready either to join with them, or to oppose them. It is by a long deduction, and much study, that we discover the adorable wisdom of God in his works: when we dis- cover it, the effect is very different, not only in the manner of acquiring it, but in its own nature, from that which strikes us without any preparation from the sublime or the beau- tiful. How different is the satisfaction of an anatomist, who discovers the use of the mus- cles and of the skin, the excellent contrivance of the one for the various movements of the body, and the wonderful texture of the other, 102 ON THE SUBLIME at once a general covering, and at once a gen- eral outlet as well as inlet ; how different is this from the affection which possesses an ordinary man at the sight of a delicate smooth skin, and all the other parts of beauty, which require no investigation to be per- ceived ! In the former case, whilst we look up to the Maker with admiration and praise, the object which causes it may be odious and distasteful ; the latter very often so touches us by its power on the imagination, that we examine but little into the artifice of its con- trivance ; and we have need of a strong effort of our reason to disentangle our minds from the allurements of the object, to a consider- ation of that wisdom which invented so powerful a machine. The effect of proportion and fitness, at least so far as they proceed from a mere consideration of the work itself, produce approbation, the acquiescence of the understanding, but not love, nor any passion of that species. When we examine the structure of a watch, when we come to know thoroughly the use of every part of it, satis- fied as we are with the fitness of the whole, we are far enough from perceiving anything like beauty in the watch work itself ; but let us look on the case, the labor of some curious artist in engraving, with little or no idea of use, we shall have a much livelier idea of beauty than we ever could have had from the watch itself, though the masterpiece of Graham. In beauty, as I said, the effect is previous to any knowledge of the use, but to judge of proportion, we must know the end for which any work is designed. According to the end, the proportion varies. Thus there is one proportion of a tower, another of a house ; one proportion of a gallery, another of a hall, another of a chamber. To judge of the proportions of these, you must be first AND BEAUTIFUL. 103 acquainted with the purposes for which they were designed. Good sense and experience acting together, find out what is fit to be done in every work of art. We are rational creat- ures, and in all our works we ought to regard their end and purpose; the gratification of any passion, how innocent soever, ought only to be of secondary consideration. Herein is placed the real power of fitness and propor- tion ; they operate on the understanding con- sidering them, which approves the work and acquiesces in it. The passions, and the im- agination which principally raises them, have here very little to do. When a room appears in its original nakedness, hare walls and a plain ceiling ; let its proportion be ever so ex- cellent, it pleases very little ; a cold approba- tion is the utmost we can reach ; a much worse-proportioned room with elegant mould- ings and fine festoons, glasses and other merely ornamental furniture, will make the imagination revolt against the reason ; it will please much more than the naked proportion of the first room, which the understanding has so much approved, as admirably fitted for its purposes. What I have here said and be- fore concerning proportion, is by no means to persuade people absurdly to neglect the idea of use in the works of art. It is only to show that these excellent things, beauty and proportion, are not the same ; not that they should either of them be disregarded. SEC. VIII.— 1 THE RECAPITULATION. On the whole; if such parts in human bodies as are found proportioned, were like- wise constantly found beautiful, as they cer- tainly are not ; or if they were so situated, as that a pleasure might flow from the compari- son, which they seldom are ; or if any assign- 104 ON THE SUBLIME able proportions were found, either in plants or animals, which were always attended with beauty, which never was the case; or if, where parts were well adapted to their pur- poses, they were constantly beautiful, and when no use appeared, there was no beauty which is contrary to all experience, we might conclude, that beauty consisted in proportion or utility. But since, in all re- spects, the case is quite otherwise ; we may be satisfied that beauty does not depend on these, let it owe its origin to what else it will. SEC. IX.— PERFECTION NOT THE CAUSE OF BEAUTY. There is another notion current, pretty closely allied to the former ; that Perfection is the constituent cause of beauty. This opinion has been made to extend much far- ther than to sensible objects. But in these, so far is perfection, considered as such, from being the cause of beauty, that this quality, where it is highest, in the female sex, almost always carries with it an idea of weakness and imperfection. Women are very sensible of this ; for which reason, they learn to lisp, to totter in their walk, to counterfeit weakness and even sickness. In all this they are guided by nature. Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty. Blushing has little less power ; and modesty in general, which is a tacit allowance of imperfection, is itself considered as an amiable quality, and cer- tainly heightens every other that is so. I know it is in everybody’s mouth, that we ought to love perfection. This is to me a sufficient proof that it is not the proper object of love. Who ever said we ought to love a fine woman, or even any of these beautiful AND BEAUTIFUL. 105 animals which please us ? Here to be affected, there is no need of the concurrence of our will. SEC. X.— HOW FAR THE IDEA OF BEAUTY MAY BE APPLIED TO THE QUALITIES OF THE MIND. Nor is this remark in general less applicable to the qualities of the mind. Those virtues which cause admiration, and are of the sub- limer kind, produce terror rather than love ; such as fortitude, justice, wisdom, and the like. Never was any man amiable by force of these qualities. Those which engage our hearts, which impress us with a sense of love- liness, are the softer virtues; easiness of temper, compassion, kindness, and liberality ; though certainly those latter are of less im- mediate and momentous concern to society, and of less dignity. But it is for that reason that they are so amiable. The great virtues turn principally on dangers, punishments, and troubles, and are exercised rather in prevent- ing the worst mischiefs, than in dispensing favors ; and are therefore not lovely, though highly venerable. The subordinate turn on reliefs, gratifications, and indulgences; and are therefore more lovely, though inferior in dignity. Those persons who creep into the hearts of most people, who are chosen as the companions of their softer hours, and their reliefs from care and anxiety, are never per- sons of shining qualities or strong virtues. It is rather the soft green of the soul on which we rest our eyes that are fatigued with be- holding more glaring objects. It is worth ob- serving how we feel ourselves affected in reading the characters of Caesar and Cato, as they are so finely drawn and contrasted in Sallust. In one the ignoscendo largiundo; in 106 ON THE SUBLIME the other, nil largiundo. In one the miseris perfugium ; in the other, mails perniciem. In the latter we have much to admire, much to reverence, and perhaps something to fear ; we respect him, but we respect him at a dis- tance. The former makes us familiar with him ; we love him, and he leads us whither he pleases. To draw things closer to our first and most natural feelings, I will add a remark made upon reading this section by an ingen- ious friend. The authority of a father, so useful to our well-being, and so justly vener- able upon all accounts, hinders us from hav- ing that entire love for him that we have for our mothers, where the parental authority is almost melted down into the mother’s fond- ness and indulgence. But we generally have a great love for our grandfathers in whom this authority is removed a degree from us, and where the weakness of age mellows it into something of a feminine partiality. SEC. XI.— HOW FAR THE IDEA OF BEAUTY MAY BE APPLIED TO VIR- TUE. From what has been said in the foregoing section, we may easily see how far the applica- tion of beauty to virtue, may be made with propriety. The general application of this quality of virtue, has a strong tendency to confound our ideas of things ; and it has given rise to an infinite deal of whimsical theory ; as the affixing the name of beauty to propor- tion, congruity, and perfection, as well as to qualities of things yet more remote from our natural ideas of it, and from one another, has tended to confound our ideas of beauty, and left us no standard or rule to judge by, that was not even more uncertain and fallacious than our own fancies. This loose and inaccur- AND BEAUTIFUL. 107 ate manner of speaking, has therefore mis- led us both in the theory of taste and of mor- als ; and induced us to remove the science of our duties from their proper basis, (our rea- son, our relations, and our necessities) to rest it upon foundations altogether visionary and unsubstantial. SEC. XII.— THE REAL CAUSE OF BEAUTY. Having endeavored to show what beauty is not, it remains that we should examine, at least with equal attention, in what it really consists. Beauty is a thing much too affect- ing not to depend upon some positive quali- ties. And since it is no creature of our reason, since it strikes us without any reference to use, and even where no use at all can be dis- cerned, since the order and method of nature is generally very different from our measures and proportions we must conclude that beauty is, for the greater part, some quality in bodies acting mechanically upon the human mind by the intervention of the senses. We ought therefore to consider attentively in what manner those sensible qualities are disposed, in such things as by experience we find beau- tiful, or which excite in us the passion of love, or some correspondent affection. SEC. XIII. -BEAUTIFUL OBJECTS SMALL. The most obvious point that presents itself to us in examining any object, is its extent or quantity. And what degree of extent pre- vails in bodies that are held beautiful, may be gathered from the usual manner of expression concerning it. I am told that, in most lan- guages, the objects of love are spoken of under diminutive epithets. It is so in all the lan- 108 ON THE SUBLIME guages of which I have any knowledge. In Greek the iuv and other diminutive terms are almost always the terms of affection and ten- derness. These diminutives were commonly added by the Greeks, to the names of persons with whom they conversed on the terms of friendship and familiarity. Though the Komans were a people of less quick and deli- cate feelings, yet they naturally slid into the lessening termination upon the same occa- sions. Anciently in the English language the diminishing ling was added to the names of persons and things that were the objects of love. Some we retain still, as darling (or little dear), and a few- others. But to this day, in ordinary conversation, it is usual to add the endearing name of little to every- thing we love : the French and Italians make use of these affectionate diminutives even more than we. In the animal creation, out of our own species, it is the small we are in- clined to be fond of ; little birds, and some of the smaller kinds of beasts. A great beauti- ful thing is a manner of expression scarcely ever used ; but that of a great ugly thing, is very common. There is a wide difference be- tween admiration and love. The sublime, which is the cause of the former, always dwells on great objects, and terrible; the lat- ter on small ones, and pleasing ; we submit to what we admire, but we love wdiat submits to us; in one case we are forced, in the other we are flattered, into compliance. In short, the ideas of the sublime and the beautiful stand on foundations so different, that it is hard, I had almost said impossible, to think of reconciling them in the same subject, with- out considerably lessening the effect of the one or the other upon the passions. So that, attending to their quantity, beautiful objects are comparatively small. AND BEAUTIFUL. 109 SEC. XIV. —SMOOTHNESS. The next property constantly observable in such objects is Smoothness; a quality so essen- tial to beauty, that I do not now recollect any- thing beautiful that is not smooth. In trees and flowers, smooth leaves are beautiful; smooth slopes of earth in gardens; smooth streams in the landscape; smooth coats of birds and beasts in animal beauties ; in fine women, smooth skins ; and in several sorts of ornamental furniture, smooth and polished surfaces. A very considerable part of the effect of beauty is owing to this quality ; in- deed the most considerable. For take any beautiful object, and give it a broken and rugged surface ; and however well formed it may be in other respects, it pleases no longer. Whereas, let it want ever so many of the other constituents, if it wants not this, it be- comes more pleasing than almost all the others without it. This seems to me so evi- dent, that I am a good deal surprised, that none who have handled the subject have made any mention of the quality of smooth- ness, in the enumeration of those that go to the forming of beauty. For indeed any ruggedness, any sudden projection, any sharp angle, is in the highest degree contrary to that idea. SEC. XV.— GRADUAL VARIATION. But as perfectly beautiful bodies are not composed of angular parts, so their parts never continue long in the same right line. They vary their direction every moment, and they change under the eye by a devia- tion continually carrying on, but for whose beginning or end you will find it difficult to 110 ON THE SUBLIME ascertain a point. The view of a beautiful bird will illustrate this observation. Here we see the head increasing insensibly to the middle, from whence it lessens gradually until it mixes with the neck ; the neck loses itself in a larger swell, which continues to the middle of the body, when the whole de- creases again to the tail ; the tail takes a new direction ; but it soon varies its new course ; it blends again with the other parts ; and the line is perpetually changing, above, below, upon every side. In this description I have before me the idea of a dove ; it agrees very well with most of the conditions of beauty. It is smooth and downy ; its parts are (to use that expression) melted into one another ; you are presented with no sudden protuberance through the whole, and yet the whole is con- tinually changing. Observe that part of a beautiful woman where shu is perhaps the most beautiful, about the neck and breasts ; the smoothness; the softness; the easy and insensible swell ; the variety of the surface, which is never for the smallest space the same : the deceitful maze, through which the unsteady eye slides giddily, without knowing where to fix or whither it is carried. Is not this a demonstration of that change of sur- face, continual, and yet hardly perceptible at any point, which forms one of the great con- stituents of beauty ? It gives me no small pleasure to find that I can strengthen my theory in this point, by the opinion of the very ingenious Mr. Hogarth ; whose idea of the line of beauty I take in general to be ex- tremely just. But the idea of variation, with- out attending so accurately to the manner of the variation, has led him to consider angular figures as beautiful : these figures, it is true, vary greatly ; yet they vary in a sudden and broken manner; and I do not find any nat- AND BEAUTIFUL. Ill ural object which is angular, and at the same time beautiful. Indeed few natural objects are entirely angular. But I think those which approach the most nearly to it are the ugliest. I must add too, that, so far as I could observe of nature, though the varied line is that alone in which complete beauty is found, yet there is no particular line which is always found in the most completely beauti- ful, and which is therefore beautiful in prefer- ence to all other lines. At least I never could observe it. SEC. XVI.— DELICACY. An air of robustness and strength is very prejudicial to beauty. An appearance of del- icacy . , and even of fragility, is almost essen- tial to it. Whoever examines the vegetable or animal creation, will find this observation to be founded in nature. It is not the oak, the ash, or the elm, or any of the robust trees of the forest, which we consider as beautiful ; they are awful and majestic; they inspire a sort of reverence. It is the delicate myrtle, it is the orange, it is the almond, it is the jas- mine, it is the vine, which we look on as veg- etable beauties. It is the flowery species, so remarkable for its weakness and momentary duration, that gives us the liveliest idea of beauty and elegance. Among animals, the greyhound is more beautiful than the mas- tiff ; and the delicacy of a gennet, a barb, or an Arabian horse, is much more amiable than the strength and stability of some horses of war or carriage. I need here say little of the fair sex, where I believe the point wull be easily allowed me. The beauty of women is considerably owing to their weakness or deli- cacy, and is even enhanced by their timidity, a quality of mind analogous to it. I would 112 ON THE SUBLIME not here be understood to say, that weakness betraying very had health has any share in beauty ; but the ill effect of this is not because it is weakness, but because the ill state of health which produces such weakness, alters the other conditions of beauty ; the parts in such a case collapse; the bright color, the lumen purpureum juventce, is gone; and the fine variation is lost in wrinkles, sudden breaks, and right lines. SEC. XVII.— BEAUTY IN COLOR. As to the colors usually found in beautiful bodies, it may be somewhat difficult to ascer- tain them, because, in several parts of na- ture, there is an infinite variety. However, even in this variety, we may mark out some- thing on which to settle. First, the colors of beautiful bodies must not be dusky or muddy, but clean and fair. Secondly, they must not be of the strongest kind. Those which seem most appropriated to beauty, are the milder of every sort ; light greens ; soft blues ; weak whites; pink reds; and violets. Thirdly, if the colors be strong and vivid, they are always diversified, and the object is never of one strong color; there are almost always such a number of them, (as in variegated flowers) that the strength and glare of each is considerably abated. In a fine complexion, there is not only some variety in the color- ing, but the colors; neither the red nor the white are strong and glaring. Besides, they are mixed in such a manner, and with such gradations, that it is impossible to fix the bounds. On the same principle it is, that the dubious color in the necks and tails of pea- cocks, and about the heads of drakes, is so very agreeable. In reality, the beauty both of shape and coloring are as nearly related, AND BE A UTIFUL. 113 as we can well suppose it possible for things of such different natures to be. SEC. XVIII. — RECAPITULATION. On the whole, the qualities of beauty, as they are merely sensible qualities, are the following: First, to be comparatively small. Secondly, to be smooth. Thirdly, to have a variety in the direction of the parts; but, fourthly, to have those parts not angular, but melted as it were into each other. Fifthly, to be of a delicate frame, without any re- markable appearance of strength. Sixthly, to have its colors clear and bright, but not very strong and glaring. Seventhly, or if it should have any glaring color, to have it diversified with others. These are, I believe, the properties on which beauty depends; properties that operate by nature, and are less liable to be altered by caprice, or con- founded by a diversity of tastes, than any other. SEC. XIX.— THE PHYSIOGNOMY. The Physiognomy has a considerable share in beauty, especially in that of our own spe- cies. The manners give a certain determina- tion to the countenance ; which being observ- ed to correspond pretty regularly with them, is capable of joining the effects of certain agree- able qualities of the mind to those of the body. So that to form a finished human beauty, and to give it its full influence, the face must be expressive of such gentle and amiable qualities, as correspond with the softness, smoothness, and delica-cy of the out- ward form. 8 114 ON THE SUBLIME SEC. XX.— THE EYE. I have hitherto purposely omitted to speak of the Eye , which has so great a share in the beauty of the animal creation, as it did not fall so easily under the foregoing heads, though in fact it is reducible to the same prin- ciples. I think then, that the beauty of the eye consists, first, in its clearness; what colored eye shall please most, depends a good deal on particular fancies; but none are pleased with an eye whose water (to use that term) is dull and muddy. We are pleased with the eye in this view, on the principle upon which we like diamonds, clear water, glass, and such like transparent substances. Secondly, the motion of the eye contributes to its beauty, by continually shifting its di- rection; but a slow and languid motion is more beautiful than a brisk one ; the latter is enlivening ; the former lovely. Thirdly, with regard to the union of the eye with the neigh- boring parts, it is to hold the same rule that is given of other beautiful ones ; it is not to make a strong deviation from the line of the neighboring parts; nor to verge into any ex- act geometrical figure. Besides all this, the eye affects, as it is expressive of some quali- ties of the mind, and its principal power gen- erally arises from this ; so that what we have just said of the physiognomy is applicable here. SEC. XXI.— UGLINESS. It may perhaps appear like a sort of repe- tition of what we have before said, to insist here upon the nature of Ugliness ; as I imag- ine it to be in all respects the opposite to those qualities which we have laid down for AND BEAUTIFUL. 115 the constituents of beauty. But though ugli- ness be the opposite to beauty, it is not the opposite to proportion and fitness. For it is possible that a thing may be very ugly with any proportions, and with a perfect fitness to any uses. Ugliness I imagine likewise to be consistent enough with an idea of the sub- lime. But I would by no means insinuate that ugliness of itself is a sublime idea, unless united with such qualities as excite a strong terror. SEC. XXII.— GRACE. Gracefulness is an idea not very different from beauty ; it consists in much the same things. Gracefulness is an idea belonging to posture and motion. In both these, to be graceful, it is requisite that there be no ap- pearance of difficulty; there is required a small inflexion of the body ; and a composure of the parts in such a manner, as not to in- cumber each other, not to appear divided by sharp and sudden angles. In this ease, this roundness, this delicacy of attitude and mo- tion, it is that all the magic of grace consists, and what is called its je ne seal quoi ; as will be obvious to any observer, who considers attentively the Venus de Medicis, the Anti- nous, or any statue generally allowed to be graceful in a high degree. SEC. XXIII. — ELEGANCE AND SPE- CIOUSNESS. When anybody is composed of parts smooth and polished, without pressing upon each other, without showing any ruggedness or confusion, and at the same time affecting some regular shape , I call it elegant. It is closely allied to the beautiful, differing from 116 01 V THE SUBLIME it only in this regularity; which, however, as it makes a very material difference in the affection produced, may very well constitute another species. Under this head I rank those delicate and regular works of art, that imitate no determinate object in nature, as elegant buildings, and pieces of furniture. When any object partakes of the above men- tioned qualities, or of those of beautiful bodies, and is withal of great dimensions, it is full as remote from the idea of mere beauty ; I call it fine or specious. SEC. XXIV.— THE BEAUTIFUL IN FEEL- ING. The foregoing description of beauty, so far as it is taken in by the eye, may be greatly illustrated by describing the nature of ob- jects, which produce a similar effect through the touch. This I call the beautiful in Feel- ing. It corresponds wonderfully with what causes the same species of pleasure to the sight. There is a chain in all our sensations ; they are all but different sorts of feelings cal- culated to be affected by various sorts of ob- jects, but all to be affected after the same manner. All bodies that are pleasant to the touch, are so by the slightness of the resist- ance they make. Resistance is either to mo- tion along the surface, or to the pressure of the parts on one another; if the former be slight, we call the body smooth ; if the latter, soft. The chief pleasure we receive by feel- ing, is in the one or the other of these qual ities ; and if there be a combination of both, our pleasure is greatly increased. This is so plain, that it is rather more fit to illustrate other things, than to be illustrated itself by an example. The next source of pleasure in this sense, as in every other, is the continu- AND BEAUTIFUL. 117 ally presenting somewhat new ; and we find that bodies which continually vary their sur- face, are much the most pleasant or beautiful to the feeling, as any one that pleases may experience. The third property in such ob- jects is, that though the surface continually varies its direction, it never varies it suddenly. The application of anything sudden, even though the impression itself have little or nothing of violence, is disagreeable. The quick application of a finger a little warmer or colder than usual, without notice, makes us start ; a slight tap on the shoulder, not ex- pected, has the same effect. Hence it is that angular bodies, bodies that suddenly vary the direction of the outline, afford so little pleas- ure to the feeling. Every such change is a sort of climbing or falling in miniature; so that squares, triangles, and other angular figures, are neither beautiful to the sight nor feeling. Whoever compares his state of- mind, on feeling soft, smooth, variegated, un- angular bodies, with that in which he finds himself on the view of a beautiful object, will perceive a very striking analogy in the effects of both ; and which may go a good way tow- ards discovering their common cause. Feel- ing and sight, in this respect, differ in but a few points. The touch takes in the pleasure of softness, which is not primarily an object of sight; the sight, on the other hand, comprehends color, which can hardly be made perceptible to the touch ; the touch again has the advantage in a new idea of pleasure resulting from a moderate degree of warmth ; but the eye triumphs in the infinite extent and multiplicity of its objects. But there is such a similitude in the pleasures of these senses, that I am apt to fancy, if it were possible that one might discern color by feel- ing (as it is said some blind men have done) 118 ON THE SUBLIME that the same colors, and the same disposition of coloring, which are found beautiful to the sight, would be found likewise most grateful to the touch. But, setting aside conjectures, let us pass to the other sense ; of hearing. SEC. XXV.— 1 THE BEAUTIFUL IN SOUNDS. In this sense we find an equal aptitude to be affected in a soft and delicate manner; and how far sweet or beautiful sounds agree with our descriptions of beauty in other senses, the experience of every one must de- cide. Milton has described this species of music in one of his juvenile poems (L’ Alle- gro.) I need not say that Milton was per- fectly well versed in that art; and that no man had a finer ear, with a happier manner of expressing the affections of one sense by metaphors taken from another. The descrip- tion is as follows : And ever against eating cares. Lap me in soft Lydian airs ; In notes with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out; With wanton heed, and giddy cunning, The melting voice through mazes running; Untwisting all the chains that tie The hidden soul of harmony. Let us parallel this with the softness, the winding surface, the unbroken continuance, the easy gradation of the beautiful in other things ; and all the diversities of the several senses, with all their several affections, will rather help to throw lights from one another to finish one clear, consistent idea of the whole, than to obscure it by their intricacy and variety. To the above mentioned description I shall add one or two remarks. The first is; that the beautiful in music will not bear that loud- AND BEAUTIFUL. 119 ness and strength of sounds, which may be used to raise other passions ; nor notes which are shrill or harsh, or deep; it agrees best with such as are clear, even, smooth, and weak. The second is ; that great variety, and quick transitions from one measure or tone to another, are contrary to the genius of the beautiful in music. Such* transitions often excite mirth, or other sudden and tumultuous passions ; but not that sinking, that melting, that languor, which is the characteristical ef- fect of the beautiful as it regards every sense. The passion excited by beauty is in fact nearer to a species of melancholy, than to jollity and mirth. I do not here mean to con- fine music to any one species of notes, or tones, neither is it an art in which I can say I have any great skill. My sole design in this remark is, to settle a consistent idea of beauty. The infinite variety of the affections of the soul will suggest to a good head, and skilful ear, a variety of such sounds as are fitted to raise them. It can be no prejudice to this to clear and distinguish some few particulars, that belong to the same class, and are consist- ent with each other, from the immense crowd of different, and sometimes contradictory ideas, that rank vulgarly under the standard of beauty. And of these it is my intention to mark such only of the leading points as show the conformity of the sense of hearing, with all the other senses in the article of their pleasures. SEC. XXVI.— TASTE AND SMELL. This general agreement of the senses is yet more evident on minutely considering those of taste and smell. We metaphorically apply * “ I ne’er am merry, when I hear sweet music. ’’—S hakes- peare. 120 ON THE SUBLIME the idea of sweetness to sights and sounds; but as the qualities of bodies by which they are fitted to excite either pleasure or pain in these senses, are not so obvious as they are in the others, we shall refer an explanation of their analogy, which is a very close one, to that part, wherein we come to consider the common efficient cause of beauty, as it regards all the senses. I do not think anything better fitted to establish a clear and settled idea of visual beauty, than this way of examining the similar pleasures of other senses ; for one part is sometimes clear in one of the senses, that is more obscure in another; and where there is a clear concurrence of all, we may with more certainty speak of any one of them. By this means, they bear witness to each other; nature is, as it were scrutinized; and we report nothing of her but what we re- ceive from her own information. SEC. XXVII. — THE SUBLIME AND BEAU- TIFUL COMPARED. On closing this general view of beauty, it naturally occurs, that we should compare it with the sublime: and in this comparison there appears a remarkable contrast. For sublime objects are vast in their dimensions, beautiful ones comparatively small: beauty should be smooth and polished; the great, rugged and negligent ; beauty should shun the right line, yet deviate from it insensibly ; the great in many cases loves the right line ; and when it deviates, it often makes a strong devi- ation : beauty should not be obscure ; the great ought to be dark and gloomy : beauty should be light and delicate ; the great ought to be solid, and even massive. They are indeed ideas of a very different nature, one being founded on pain, the other on pleasure; and AND BEAUTIFUL. 121 however they may vary afterwards from the direct nature of their causes, yet these causes keep up an eternal distinction between them, a distinction never to be forgotten by any whose business it is to affect the passions. In the infinite variety of natural combinations, we must expect to find the qualities of things the most remote imaginable from each other united in the same object. We must expect also to find combinations of the same kind in the works of art. But when we consider the power of an object upon our passions, we must know that when anything is intended to affect the mind by the force of some pre- dominant property, the affection produced is like to be the more uniform and perfect, if all the other properties or qualities of the object be of the same nature, and tending to the same design as the principal. If black and white blend , soften , and unite , A thousand ways , are there no black and white ? If the qualities of the sublime and beautiful are sometimes found united, does this prove that they are the same; does it prove that they are any way allied ; does it prove even that they are not opposite and contradictory? Black and white may soften, may blend ; but they are not therefore the same. Nor, when they are so softened and blended with each other, or with different colors, is the power of black as black, or of white as white, so strong as when each stands uniform and distin- guished. 122 ON THE SUBLIME ON THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL. PAET IV.— SEC. I. —OP THE EFFICIENT CAUSE OF THE SUBLIME AND BEAU- TIFUL. When I say, I intend to inquire into the efficient cause of sublimity and beauty, I would not be understood to say, that I can come to the ultimate cause. I do not pretend that I shall ever be able to explain, why cer- tain affections of the body produce such a distinct emotion of mind, and no other; or why the body is at all affected by the mind, or the mind by the body. A little thought will show this to be impossible. But I con- ceive, if we can discover what affections of the mind produce certain emotions of the body ; and what distinct feelings and qualities of body shall produce certain determinate passions in the mind, and no others, I fancy a great deal will be done ; something not un- useful towards a distinct knowledge of our passions, so far at least as we have them at present under our consideration. This is all, I believe, we can do. If we could advance a step farther, difficulties would still remain, as we should be still equally distant from the first cause. When Newton first discovered the property of attraction, and settled its laws, he found it served very well to explain several of the most remarkable phenomena in nature; but yet with reference to the gen- eral system of things, he could consider at- traction but as an effect, whose cause at that time he did not attempt to trace. But when AND BEAUTIFUL. 123 he afterwards began to account for it by a subtile elastic ether, this great man (if in so" great a man it be not impious to discover any- thing like a blemish) seemed to have quitted his usual cautious manner of philosophizing ; since, perhaps, allowing all that has been ad- vanced on this subject to be sufficiently proved, I think it leaves us with as many difficulties as it found us. That great chain of causes, which links one to another, even to the throne of God himself, can never be unravelled by any industry of ours. When we go but one step beyond the immediate sen- sible qualities of things, we go out of our depth. All we do after is but a faint strug- gle, that shows we are in an element which does not belong to us. So that when I speak of cause, and efficient cause, I only mean cer- tain affections of the mind, that cause certain changes in the body ; or certain powers and properties in bodies, that work a change in the mind. As if I were to explain the motion of a body falling to the ground, I would say it was caused by gravity; and I would en- deavor to show after what manner this power operated, without attempting to show why it operated in this manner : or if I were to ex- plain the effects of bodies striking one anoth- er by the common laws of percussion, I should not endeavor to explain how motion itself is communicated. SEC. II.— ASSOCIATION. It is no small bar in the way of our inquiry into the cause of our passions, that the oc- casion of many of them are given, and that their governing motions are communicated at a time when we have not capacity to re- flect on them ; at a time of which all sort of memory is worn out of our minds. For be 124 ON THE SUBLIME sides such things as affect us in various man- ners, according to their natural powers, there are associations made at that early season, which we find it very hard afterwards to dis- tinguish from natural effects. Not to men- tion the unaccountable antipathies which we find in many persons, we all find it impossible to remember when a steep became more ter- rible than a plain ; or fire or water more ter- rible than a cloud of earth ; though all these are very probably either conclusions from experience, or arising from the premonitions of others ; and some of them impressed, in all likelihood, pretty late. But as it must be ah lowed that many things affect us after a cer- tain manner, not by any natural powers they have for that purpose, but by association ; so it would be absurd, on the other hand, to say that all things affect us by association only ; since some things must have been originally and naturally agreeable or disagreeable, from which the others derive their associated pow- ers; and it would be, I fancy, to little pur- pose to look for the cause of our passions in association, until we fail of it in the natural properties of things. SEC. III.— CAUSE OF PAIN AND FEAR I have before observed, that whatever is qualified to cause terror, is a foundation ca- pable of the sublime; to which I add, that not only these, but many things from which we cannot probably apprehend any danger, have a similar effect, because they operate in a, similar manner. I observed too, that what- ever produces pleasure, positive and original pleasure, is fit to have beauty engrafted on it. Therefore, to clear up the nature of these qualities, it may be necessary to explain the nature of pain and pleasure on which they AND BEAUTIFUL . 125 depend. A man who suffers under violent bodily ,pain (I suppose the most violent, be- cause the effect may be the more obvious ;) I say a man in great pain has his teeth set, his eye-brows are violently contracted, his fore- head is wrinkled, his eyes are dragged in- wards, and rolled with great vehemence, his hair stands on end, the voice is forced out in short shrieks and groans, and the whole fab- ric totters. Fear or terror, which is an ap- prehension of pain or death, exhibits exactly the same effects, approaching in violence to those just mentioned, in proportion to the nearness of the cause, and the weakness of the subject. This is not only so in the human species; but I have more than once observed in dogs, under an apprehension of punish- ment, that they have writhed their bodies, and yelped, and howled, as if they had actu- ally felt the blows. From hence I conclude, that pain and fear act upon the same parts of the body, and in the same manner, though somewhat differing in degree : that pain and fear consist in an unnatural tension of the nerves; that this is sometimes accompanied with an unnatural strength, which sometimes suddenly changes into an extraordinary weakness; that these effects often come on alternately, and are sometimes mixed with each other. This is the nature of all convul- sive agitations, especially in weaker subjects, which are the most liable to the severest im- pressions of pain and fear. The only differ- ence between pain and terror is, that things which cause pain operate on the mind, by the intervention of the body; whereas things that cause terror, generally affect the bodily organs by the operation of the mind suggest- ing the danger; but both agreeing, either primarily, or secondarily, in producing a ten- sion, contraction, or violent emotion of the 126 ON THE SUBLIME nerves, they agree likewise in everything else. For it appears very clearly to me, from this, as well as from many other examples, that when the body is disposed, by any means whatsoever, to such emotions as it would ac- quire by the means of a certain passion ; it will of itself excite something very like that passion in the mind.* SEC. IV.— CONTINUED. To this purpose Mr. Spon, in his Becherches d’Antiquite, gives us a curious story of the celebrated physiognomist Campanella. This man, it seems, had not only made very ac- curate observations on human faces, but was very expert in mimicking such as were any way remarkable. When he had a mind to penetrate into the inclinations of those he had to deal with, he composed his face, his gest- ure, and his whole body, as nearly as he could into the exact similitude of the person he intended to examine; and then carefully observed what turn of mind he seemed to ac- quire by this change. So that, says my au- thor, he was able to enter into the dispositions and thoughts of people as effectually as if he had been changed into the very men. 1 have often observed, that on mimicking the looks and gestures of angry, or placid, or fright- ened, or daring men, I have involuntarily found my mind turned to that passion, whose appearance I endeavored to imitate; nay, I am convinced it is hard to avoid it, though one strove to separate the passion from its correspondent gestures. Our minds and bod- * I do not here enter into the question debated among physiologists, whether pain be the effect of a contraction, or a tension of the nerves. Either will serve my purpose ; for by tension, I mean no more L than a violent pulling of the fibres, which compose any muscle or membrane, in whatever way this is done. AND BEAUTIFUL. 127 ies are so closely and intimately connected, that one is incapable of pain or pleasure with- out the other. Campanella, of whom we have been speaking, could so abstract his at- tention from any sufferings of his body, that he was able to endure the rack itself without much pain; and in lesser pains everybody must have observed, that when we can em- ploy our attention on anything else, the pain has been for a time suspended : on the other hand, if by any means the body is indisposed to perform such gestures, or to be stimulated into such emotions as any passion usually produces in it, that passion itself never can arise, though its cause should be never so strongly in action; though it should be merely mental, and immediately affecting none of the senses. As an opiate, or spirituous liquors, shall suspend the operation of grief, or fear, or anger, in spite of all our efforts to the contrary; and this by inducing in the body a disposition contrary to that which it receives from these passions. SEC. V.-IIOW THE SUBLIME IS PRO- DUCED. Having considered terror as producing an unnatural tension and certain violent emo- tions of the nerves; it easily follows, from what we have just said, that whatever is fitted to produce such a tension must be pro- ductive of a passion similar to terror, and consequently must be a source of the sublime, though it should have no idea of danger con- nected with it. So that little remains towards showing the cause of the sublime, but to show that the instances we have given of it in the second part relate to such things, as are fitted by nature to produce this sort of tension, either by the primary operation of the mind 128 ON THE SUBLIME or the body. With regard to such things as affect by the associated idea of danger, there can be no doubt but that they produce terror, and act by some modification of that passion ; and that terror, when sufficiently violent, raises the emotions of the body just men- tioned, can as little be doubted. But if the sublime is built on terror, or some passion like it, which has pain for its object, it is pre- viously proper to inquire how any species of delight can be derived from a cause so appar- ently contrary to it. I say delight , because as I have often remarked, it is very evidently different in its cause, and in its own nature, from actual and positive pleasure. SEC. VI.— HOW PAIN CAN BE A CAUSE OF DELIGHT. Providence has so ordered it, that a state of rest and inaction, however it may flatter our indolence, should be productive of many in- conveniences ; that it should generate such dis- orders, as may force us to have recourse to some labor, as a thing absolutely requisite to make us pass our lives with tolerable satis- faction ; for the nature of rest is to suffer all the parts of our bodies to fall into a relaxation, that not only disables the members from per- forming their functions, but takes away the vigorous tone of fibre which is requisite for carrying on the natural and necessary secre- tions. At the same time, that in this languid inactive state, the nerves are more liable to the most horrid convulsions, than when they are sufficiently braced and strengthened. Melancholy, dejection, despair, and often self-murder is the consequence of the gloomy view we take of things in this relaxed state of body. The best remedy for all these evils is exercise or labor; and labor is a sur- AND BEAUTIFUL. 129 mounting of difficulties, an exertion of the contracting power of the muscles; and as such resembles pain, which consists in tension or contraction, in everything but degree. Labor is not only requisite to preserve the coarser organs in a state fit for their func- tions ; but it is equally necessary to these finer and more delicate organs, on which, and by which, the imagination and perhaps the other mental powers act. Since it is probable, that not only the inferior parts of the soul, as the passions are called, but the understanding itself makes use of some fine corporeal instru- ments in its operation ; though what they are, and where they are may be somewhat hard to settle : but that it does make use of such, ap- pears from hence ; that a long exercise of the mental powers induces a remarkable lassitude of the whole body ; and on the other hand that great bodily labor, or pain, weakens and sometimes actually destroys the mental faculties. Now, as a due exercise is essential to the coarse muscular parts of the constitu- tion, and that without this rousing they would become languid and diseased, the very same rule holds with regard to those finer parts we have mentioned; to have them in proper order, they must be shaken and worked to a proper degree. SEC. VII.— EXERCISE NECESSARY FOR THE FINER ORGANS. As common labor, which is a mode of pain, is the exercise of the grosser, a mode of terror is the exercise of the finer parts of the system ; and if a certain mode of pain be of such a nature as to act upon the eye or the ear, as they are the most delicate organs, the affec- tion approaches more nearly to that which has a mental cause. In all these cases, if the 9 130 ON THE SUBLIME pain and terror are so modified as not to be actually noxious ; if the pain is not carried to violence, and the terror is not conversant about the present destruction of the person, as these emotions clear the parts, whether fine or gross, of a dangerous and troublesome in- cumbrance, they are capable of producing delight ; not pleasure, but a sort of delightful horror, a sort of tranquillity tinged with ter- ror ; which, as it belongs to self-preservation, is one of the strongest of all the pas- sions. Its object is the sublime. Its highest degree I call astonishment; the subordinate degrees are awe, reverence, and respect, which by the very etymology of the words, show from what source they are derived, and how they stand distinguished from positive pleasure. SEC. VIII. — WHY THINGS NOT DAN- GEROUS PRODUCE A PASSION LIKE TERROR. A mode of terror or pain is always the cause of the sublime. For terror, or associated danger, the foregoing explanation is, I believe, sufficient. It will require something more trouble to show, that such examples as I have given of the sublime in the second part, are capable of producing a mode of pain, and of being thus allied to terror, and to be ac- counted for on the same principles. And first of such objects as are great in their dimen- sions. I speak of visual objects. SEC. IX.— WHY VISUAL OBJECTS OF GREAT DIMENSIONS ARE SUBLIME. Vision is performed by having a picture formed by the rays of light which are re- flected from the object painted in one piece, AND BEAUTIFUL. 131 instantaneously,' on the retina, or least nerv- ous part of the eye. Or, according to others, there is but one point of any object painted on the eye in such a manner as to be perceived at once ; but by moving the eye, we gather up, with great celerity, the several parts of the object, so as to form one uniform piece. If the former opinion be allowed, it will be considered, that though all the light reflected from a large body should strike the eye in one instant; yet we must suppose that the body itself is formed of a vast number of dis- tinct points, every one of which, or the ray from every one, makes an impression on the retina. So that, though the image of one point should cause but a small tension of this membrane, another, and another, and another stroke, must in their progress cause a very great one, until it arrives at last to the highest degree ; and the whole capacity of the eye, vibrating in all its parts, must approach near to the nature of what causes pain, and con- sequently must produce an idea of the sublime. Again, if we take it, that one point only of an object is distinguishable at once; the matter will amount nearly to the same thing, or rather it will make the origin of the sublime from greatness of dimension yet clearer. For if but one point is observed at once, the eye must traverse the vast space of such bodies with great quickness, and consequently the fine nerves and muscles destined to the mo- tion of that part must be very much strained ; and their great sensibility must make them highly affected by this straining. Besides, it signifies just nothing to the effect produced, whether a body has its parts connected and makes its impression at once; or, making but one impression of a point at a time, it causes a succession of the same or others so quickly as to make them seem united ; as is 132 ON THE SUBLIME evident from the common effect of whirling about a lighted torch or piece of wood : which, if done with celerity, seems a circle of fire. SEC. X.— UNITY, WHY REQUISITE TO YASTNESS. It may be objected to this theory, that the eye generally receives an equal number of rays at all times, and that therefore a great object cannot affect it by the number of rays more than that variety of objects which the eye must always discern whilst it remains open. But to this I answer, that admitting an equal number of rays, or an equal quan- tity of luminous particles to strike the eye at all times, yet if these rays frequently vary their nature, now to blue, now to red, and so on, or their manner of termination, as to a number of petty squares, triangles, or the like, at every change, whether of color or shape, the organ has a sort of relaxation or rest ; but this relaxation and labor so often interrupted, is by no means productive of ease ; neither has it the effect of vigorous and uniform labor. Whoever has remarked the different effects of some strong exercise, and some little piddling action, will understand why a teasing fretful employment, which at once wearies and weakens the body, should have nothing great ; these sorts of impulses, which are rather teasing than painful, by continually and suddenly altering their tenor and direction, prevent that full tension, that species of uniform labor, which is allied to strong pain, and causes the sublime. The sum total of things of various kinds, though it should equal the number of the uniform parts composing some one entire object, is not equal in its effect upon the organs of our bodies. Besides the one already assigned, AND BEAUTIFUL. 133 there is another very strong reason for the difference. The mind in reality hardly ever can attend diligently to more than one thing at a time ; if this thing be little, the effect is little, and a number of other little objects cannot engage the attention; the mind is bounded by the bounds of the object; and what is not attended to, and what does not exist, are much the same in the effect; but the eye or the mind (for in this case there is no difference) in great uniform objects does not readily arrive at their bounds : it has no rest, whilst it contemplates them ; the image is much the same everywhere . So that every- thing great by its quantity must necessarily be one, simple and entire. SEC. XI.— THE ARTIFICIAL INFINITE. We have observed, that a species of great- ness arises from the artificial infinite; and that this infinite consists in an uniform suc- cession of great parts : we observed too, that the same uniform succession had a like power in sounds. But because the effects of many things are clearer in one of the senses than in another, and that all the senses bear analogy to, and illustrate one another, I shall begin with this power in sounds, as the cause of the sublimity from succession is rather more ob- vious in the sense of hearing. And I shall here, once for all, observe, that an investiga- tion of the natural and mechanical causes of our passions, besides the curiosity of the sub- ject, gives, if they are discovered, a double strength and lustre to any rules we deliver on such matters. When the ear receives any simple sound, it is struck by a single pulse of the air, which makes the ear-drum and the other membranous parts vibrate according to the nature and species of the stroke. If the 134 01 V THE SUBLIME stroke be strong, the organ of hearing suffers a considerable degree of tension. If the stroke be repeated pretty soon after, the repetition causes an expectation of another stroke. And it must be observed, that expectation itself causes a tension. This is apparent in many animals, who, when they prepare for hearing any sound, rouse themselves, and prick up their ears: so that here the effect of the sounds is considerably augmented by a new auxiliary, the expectation. But though after a number of strokes, we expect still more, not being able to ascertain the exact time of their arrival, when they arrive they produce a sort of surprise which increases this tension yet further. For I have observed, that when at any time I have waited very earnestly for some sound, that returned at intervals, (as the successive firing of cannon) though I fully expected the return of the sound, when it came it always made me start a little ; the ear-drum suffered a convulsion, and the whole body consented with it. The tension of the part thus increasing at every blow, by the united forces of the stroke itself, the expectation, and the surprise, it is worked up to such a pitch as to be capable of the sublime; it is brought just to the verge of pain. Even when the cause has ceased, the organs of hearing being often successively struck in a similar manner, continue to vibrate in that manner for some time longer; this is an additional help to the greatness of the effect. SEC. XII.— THE VIBRATIONS MUST BE SIMILAR. But if the vibration be not similar at every impression, it can never be carried beyond the number of actual impressions ; for move anybody as a pendulum, in one way, and it AND BEAUTIFUL. 135 will continue to oscillate in an arc of the same circle, until the known causes make it rest ; but if after first putting it in motion in one direction, you push it into another, it can never reassume the first direction ; because it can never move itself, and consequently it can have but the effect of that last motion ; whereas, if in the same direction you act upon it several times, it will describe a greater arc, and move a longer time. SEC. XIII.— THE EFFECT OF SUCCESSION IN VISUAL OBJECTS EXPLAINED. If we can comprehend clearly how things operate upon one of our senses, there can be very little difficulty in conceiving in what manner they affect the rest. To say a great deal therefore upon the corresponding affec- tions of every sense, would tend rather to fatigue us by an useless repetition, than to throw any new light upon the subject, by that ample and diffuse manner of treating it ; but as in this discourse we chiefly attach our- selves to the sublime, as it affects the eye, we shall consider particularly why a successive disposition of uniform parts in the same right line should be sublime, and upon what prin- ciple this disposition is enabled to make a comparatively small quantity of matter pro- duce a grander effect, than a much larger quantity disposed in another manner. To avoid the perplexity of general notions; let us set before our eyes a colonnade, of uniform pillars planted in a right line ; let us take our stand in such a manner, that the eye may shoot along this colonnade, for it has its best effect in this view. In our present situation it is plain, that the rays from the first round pillar will cause in the eye a vibration of that species; an image of the pillar itself. The 136 ON THE SUBLIME pillar immediately succeeding increases it; that which follows renews and enforces the impression ; each in its order as it succeeds, repeats impulse after impulse, and stroke aft- er stroke, until the eye, long exercised in one particular way, cannot lose that object imme- diately; and being violently roused by this continued agitation, it presents the mind with a grand or sublime conception. But instead of viewing a rank of uniform pillars ; let us suppose that they succeed each other, a round and a square one alternately. In this case the vibration caused by the first round pillar per- ishes as soon as it is formed ; and one of quite another sort (the square) directly occupies its place ; which however it resigns as quickly to the round one ; and thus the eye proceeds, al- ternately, taking up one image, and laying down another, as long as the building contin- ues. From whence it is obvious, that at the last pillar, the impression is as far from con- tinuing as it was at the very first ; because in fact, the sensory can receive no distinct im- pression but from the last ; and it can never of itself reassume a dissimilar impression: besides every variation of the object is a rest and relaxation to the organs of sight; and these reliefs prevent that powerful emotion so necessary to produce the sublime. To pro- duce therefore a perfect grandeur in such things as we have been mentioning, there should be a perfect simplicity, an absolute uniformity in disposition, shape, and coloring. Upon this principle of succession and uniform- ity it may be asked, why a long bare wall should not be a more sublime object than a colonnade; since the succession is no way interrupted; since the eye meets no check; since nothing more uniform can be conceived? A long bare wall is certainly not so grand an object as a colonnade of the same length and AND BEAUTIFUL. 137 height. It is not altogether difficult to ac- count for this difference. When we look at a naked wall, from the evenness of the object, the eye runs along its whole space, and ar- rives quickly at its termination ; the eye meets nothing which may interrupt its progress ; but then it meets nothing which may detain it a proper time to produce a very great and last- ing effect. The view of a bare wall, if it be of a great height and length, is undoubtedly grand: but this is only one idea, and not a repetition of similar ideas: it is therefore great, not so much upon the principle of in- finity \ as upon that of vastness. But we are not so powerfully affected with any one im- pulse, unless it be one of a prodigious force indeed, as we are with a succession of similar impulses; because the nerves of the sensory do not (if I may use the expression) acquire a habit of repeating the same feeling in such a manner as to continue it longer than its cause is in action ; besides all the effects which I have attributed to expectation and surprise in Sec. 11, can have no place in a bare wall. SEC. XIV.— LOCKE’S OPINION CONCERN- ING- DARKNESS CONSIDERED. It is Mr. Locke’s opinion, that darkness is not naturally an idea of terror : and that though an excessive light is painful to the sense, that the greatest excess of darkness is no ways troublesome. He observes indeed in another place, that a nurse or an old woman having once associated the ideas of ghosts and gob- lins with that of darkness, night ever after be- comes painful and horrible to the imagination. The authority of this great man is doubtless as great as that of any man can be, and it seems to stand in the way of our general prin- ciple. We have considered darkness as a 138 ON THE SUBLIME cause of the sublime ; and we have all along considered the sublime as depending on some modification of pain or terror: so that if darkness be no way painful or terrible to any, who have not had their minds early tainted with superstitions, it can be no source of the sublime to them. But with all deference to such an authority, it seems to me, that an association of a more general nature, an asso- ciation which takes in all mankind, may make darkness terrible ; for in utter darkness it is impossible to know in what degree of safety we stand ; we are ignorant of the ob- jects that surround us; we may every mo- ment strike against some dangerous obstruc- tion ; we may fall down a precipice the first step we take ; and if an enemy approach, we know not in what quarter to defend ourselves ; in such a case strength is no sure protection ; wisdom can only act by guess ; the boldest are staggered, and he who would pray for noth- ing else towards his defence is forced to pray for light. As to the association of ghosts and goblins ; surely it is more natural to think, that dark- ness, being originally an idea of terror, was chosen as a fit scene for such terrible repre- sentations, than that such representations have made darkness terrible. The mind of man very easily slides into an error of the former sort ; but it is very hard to imagine, that the effect of an idea so universally terrible in all times, and in all countries, as darkness, could possibly have been owing to a set of idle stories, or to any cause of a nature so trivial, and of an operation so precarious. AND BEAUTIFUL. 139 SEC. XV.— DARKNESS TERRIBLE IN ITS OWN NATURE. Perhaps it may appear on inquiry, that blackness and darkness are in some degree painful by their natural operation, independ- ent of any associations whatsoever. I must observe, that the ideas of darkness and black- ness are much the same; and they differ only in this, that blackness is a more confined idea. Mr. Cheselden has given us a very curi- ous story of a boy, who had been born blind, and continued so until he was thirteen or four- teen years old ; he was then couched for a cataract, by which operation he received his sight. Among many remarkable particulars that attended his first perceptions and judg- ments on visual objects, Cheselden tells us, that the first time the boy saw a black object* it gave him great uneasiness ; and that some time after, upon accidentally seeing a negro woman, he was struck with great horror at the sight. The horror, in this case, can scarcely be supposed to arise from any association. The boy appears by the account to have been particularly observing and sensible for one of his age; and therefore it is probable, if the great uneasiness he felt at the first sight of black had arisen from its connection with any other disagreeable ideas, he would have ob- served and mentioned it. For an idea, disa- greeable only by association, has the cause of its ill effect on the passions evident enough at the first impression ; in ordinary cases it is indeed frequently lost; but this is, because the original association was made very early, and the consequent impression repeated often. In our instance, there was no time for such a habit; and there is no reason to think that the ill effects of black on his imagination were 140 ON THE SUBLIME more owing to its connection with any disa- greeable ideas, than that the good effects of more cheerful colors were derived from their connection with pleasing ones. They had both probably their effects from their natural operation. SEC. XVI.— WHY DARKNESS IS TERRI- BLE. It may be worth while to examine how dark- ness can operate in such a manner as to cause pain. It is observable, that still as we recede from the light, nature has so contrived it that the pupil is enlarged by the retiring of the iris, in proportion to our recess. Now, instead of declining from it but a little, sup- pose that we withdraw entirely from the light ; it is reasonable to think, that the con- traction of the radial fibres of the iris is pro- portionably greater ; and that this part may by great darkness come to be so contracted, as to strain the nerves that compose it beyond their natural tone ; and by this means to pro- duce a painful sensation. Such a tension it seems there certainly is, whilst we are in- volved in darkness ; for in such a state whilst the eye remains open, there is a continual nisus to receive light ; this is manifest from the flashes and luminous appearances which often seem in these circumstances to play before it ; and which can be nothing but the effect of spasms, produced by its own efforts in pursuit of its object ; several other strong impulses will produce the idea of light in the eye, besides the substance of light itself, as we experience on many occasions. Some who allow darkness to be a cause of the sublime, would infer, from a dilation of the pupil, that a relaxation may be productive of the sublime, as well as convulsion ; but they AND BEAUTIFUL. 141 do not I believe consider that although the circular ring of the iris be in some sense a sphincter, which may possibly be dilated by a simple relaxation, yet in one respect it dif- fers from most of the other sphincters of the body, that it is furnished with antagonist muscles, which are the radial fibres of the iris : no sooner does the circular muscle begin to relax, than these fibres, wanting their counterpoise, are forcibly drawn back, and open the pupil to a considerable wideness. But though we were not apprized of this, I believe any one will find, if he opens his eyes and makes an effort to see in a dark place, that a very perceivable pain ensues. And I have heard some ladies remark, that after having worked a long time upon a ground of black, their eyes were so pained and weak- ened, they could hardly see. It may perhaps be objected to this theory of the mechanical effect of darkness that the ill effects of dark- ness or blackness seem rather mental than corporeal : and I own it is true, that they do so ; and so do all those that depend on the affections of the finer parts of our system. The ill effects of bad weather appear often no otherwise, than in a melancholy and de- jection of spirits; though without doubt, in this case, the bodily organs suffer first, and the mind through these organs. SEC. XVII.— THE EFFECTS OF BLACK- NESS. Blackness is but a partial darkness; and therefore it derives some of its powers from being mixed and surrounded with colored bodies. In its own nature, it cannot be con- sidered as a color. Black bodies, reflecting none, or but a few rays, with regard to sight, are but as so many vacant spaces dispersed 142 ON THE SUBLIME among the objects we view. When the eye lights on one of these vacuities, after having been kept in some degree of tension by the play of the adjacent colors upon it, it sud- denly falls into a relaxation ; out of which it as suddenly recovers by a convulsive spring. To illustrate this ; let us consider, that when we intend to sit on a chair, and find it much lower than we expected, the shock is very violent; much more violent than could be thought from so slight a fall as the difference between one chair and another can possibly make. If, after descending a flight of stairs, we attempt inadvertently to take another step in the manner of the former ones, the shock is extremely rude and disagreeable; and by no art can we cause such a shock by the same means when we expect and prepare for it. When I say that this is owing to hav- ing the change made contrary to expecta- tion; I do not mean solely, when the mind expects. I mean likewise, that when an order of sense is for some time affected in some one manner, if it be suddenly affected otherwise, there ensues a convulsive motion ; such a convulsion as is caused when any- thing happens against the expectance of the mind. And though it may appear strange that such a change as produces a relaxation, should immediately produce a sudden con- vulsion ; it is yet most certainly so, and so in all the senses. Every one knows that sleep is a relaxation ; and that silence, where noth- ing keeps the organs of hearing in action, is in general fittest to bring on this relaxa- tion ; yet when a sort of murmuring sounds dispose a man to sleep, let these sounds cease suddenly, and the person immediately awakes ; that is, the parts are braced up sud- denly, and he awakes. This I have often ex- perienced myself, and I have heard the same AND BEAUTIFUL. 143 from observing persons. In like manner, if a person in broad daylight were falling asleep, to introduce a sudden darkness would prevent his sleep for that time, though silence and darkness in themselves, and not sud- denly introduced, are very favorable to it. This I knew only by conjecture on the an- alogy of the senses when I first digested these observations; but I have since experi- enced it. And I have often experienced, and so have a thousand others, that on the first inclining toward sleep, we have been sud- denly awakened by a most violent start ; and that this start was generally preceded by a sort of dream of our falling down a precipice : whence does this strange motion arise, but from the too sudden relaxation of the body, which by some mechanism in nature restores itself by as quick and vigorous an exertion of the contracting power of the muscles! The dream itself is caused by this relaxation : and it is of too uniform a nature to be attributed to any other cause. The parts relax too sud- denly, which is in the nature of falling ; and this accident of the body induces this image in the mind. When we are in a confirmed state of health and vigor, as all changes are then less sudden, and less on the extreme, we can seldom complain of this disagreeable sensation. SEC. XVIII.— THE EFFECTS OF BLACK- NESS MODERATED. Though the effects of black be painful originally, we must not think they always continue so. Custom reconciles us to every- thing. After we have been used to the sight of black objects, the terror abates, and the smoothness or glossiness or some agreeable accident of bodies so colored, softens in some 144 ON THE SUBLIME measure the horror and sternness of their original nature ; yet the nature of their orig- inal impression still continues. Black will always have something melancholy in it, be- cause the sensory will always find the change to it from other colors too violent; or if it occupy the whole compass of the sight, it will then be darkness ; and what was said of darkness will be applicable here. I do not purpose to go into all that might be said to illustrate this theory of the effects of light and darkness; neither will I' examine all the different effects produced by the various modifications and mixtures of these two causes. If the foregoing observations have any foundation in nature, I conceive them very sufficient to account for all the phenom- ena that can arise from all the combinations of black with other colors. To enter into every particular, or to answer every objec- tion, would be an endless labor. We have only followed the most leading roads; and we shall observe the same conduct in our in- quiry into the cause of beauty. SEC. XIX.— THE PHYSICAL CAUSE OF LOVE. W 7 hen we have before us such objects as excite love and complacency; the body is affected, so far as I could observe, much in the following manner: The head reclines something on one side ; the eyelids are more closed than usual, and the eyes roll gently with an inclination to the object ; the mouth is a little opened, and the breath drawn slowly, with now and then a low sigh; the whole body is composed, and the hands fall idly to the sides. All this is accompanied with an inward sense of melting and languor. These appearances are always proportioned AND BEAUTIFUL. 145 to the degree of beauty in the object, and of sensibility in the observer. And this grada- tion from the highest pitch of beauty and sensibility, even to the lowest of mediocrity and indifference, and their correspondent effects, ought to be kept in view, else this description will seem exaggerated, which it certainly is not. But from this description it is almost impossible not to conclude, that beauty acts by relaxing the solids of the whole system. There are all the appearances of such a relaxation; and a relaxation some- what below the natural tone seems to me to be the cause of all positive pleasure. Who is a stranger to that manner of expression so common in all times and in all countries, of being softened, relaxed, enervated, dissolved, melted away by pleasure ? The universal voice of mankind faithful to their feelings, concurs in affirming this uniform and gen- eral effect : and although some odd and par- ticular instance may perhaps be found, wherein there appears a considerable degree of positive pleasure, without all the charac- ters of relaxation, we must not therefore re- ject the conclusion we had drawn from a concurrence of many experiments; but we must still retain it, subjoining the exceptions which may occur according to the judicious rule laid down by Sir Isaac Newton in the third book of his Optics. Our position will, I conceive, appear confirmed beyond any rea- sonable doubt, if we can show that such things as we have already observed to be the genuine constituents of beauty, have each of them, separately taken, a natural tendency to relax the fibres. And if it must be allowed us, that the appearance of the human body, when all these constituents are united to- gether before the sensory, further favors this opinion, we may venture. I believe, to con- 10 146 ON THE SUBLIME elude, that the passion called love is pro- duced by this relaxation. By the same method of reasoning which we have used in the in- quiry into the causes of the sublime, we may likewise conclude, that as a beautiful object presented to the sense, by causing a relaxa- tion of the body, produces the passion of love in the mind ; so if by any means the passion should first have its origin in the mind, a re- laxation of the outward organs will as cer- tainly ensue in a degree proportioned to the cause. SEC. XX.— WHY SMOOTHNESS IS BEAU- TIFUL. It is to explain the true cause of visual beauty, that I call in the assistance of the other senses. If it appears that smoothness is a principal cause of pleasure to the touch, taste, smell, and hearing, it will be easily admitted a constituent of visual beauty; es- pecially as we have before shown, that this quality is found almost without exception in all bodies that are by general consent held beautiful. There can be no doubt that bodies which are rough and angular, rouse and vel- licate the organs of feeling, causing a sense of pain, which consists in the violent tension or contraction of the muscular fibres. On the contrary, the application of smooth bodies relaxes ; gentle stroking with a smooth hand allays violent pains and cramps, and relaxes the suffering parts from their unnatural ten- sion ; and it has therefore very often no mean effect in removing swellings and obstruc- tions. The sense of feeling is highly grati- fied with smooth bodies. A bed smoothly laid, and soft, that is, where the resistance is every way inconsiderable, is a great luxury, disposing to an universal relaxation, and in- AND BEAUTIFUL . 147 ducing beyond anything else, that species of it called sleep. SEC. XXI.— SWEETNESS, ITS NATURE. Nor is it only in the touch, that smooth bodies cause positive pleasure by relaxation. In the smell and taste, we find all things agreeable to them, and which are commonly called sweet, to be of a smooth nature, and that they all evidently tend to relax their re- spective sensories. Let us first consider the taste. Since it is most easy to inquire into the property of liquids, and since all things seem to want a fluid vehicle to make them tasted at all, I intend rather to consider the liquid than the solid parts of our food. The vehicles of all tastes are water and oil. And what determines the taste is some salt, which affects variously according to its nature, or its manner of being combined with other things. Water and oil, simply considered, are capable of giving some pleasure to the taste. Water, when simple, is insipid, inodorous, colorless, and smooth ; it is found, when not cold , to be a great resolver of spasms, and lubricator of the fibres : this power it probably owes to its smoothness. For as its fluidity depends, according to the most general opin- ion, on the roundness, smoothness, and weak cohesion of the component parts of anybody ; and as water acts merely as a simple fluid ; it follows, that the cause of its fluidity is like- wise the cause of its relaxing quality ; namely, the smoothness and slippery texture of its parts. The other fluid vehicle of tastes is oil. This too, when simple, is insipid, inodorous, colorless, and smooth to the touch and taste. It is smoother than water, and in many cases yet more relaxing. Oil is in some degree pleasant to the eye, the touch, and the taste, 148 ON THE SUBLIME insipid as it is. Water is not so grateful; which I do not know on what principle to ac- count for, other than that water is not so soft and smooth. Suppose that to this oil or water were added a certain quantity of a specific salt, which had a power of putting the ner- vous papillae of the tongue into a gentle vibra- tory motion ; as suppose sugar dissolved in it. The smoothness of the oil, and the vibratory power of the salt, cause the sense we call sweetness. In all sweet bodies, sugar, or a substance very little different from sugar, is constantly found; every species of salt, ex- amined by the microscope, has its own dis- tinct, regular, invariable form. That of nitre is a pointed oblong; that of sea-salt an exact cube ; that of sugar a perfect globe. If you have tried how smooth globular bodies, as the marbles with which boys amuse them- selves, have affected the touch when they are rolled backward and forward and over one another, you will easily conceive how sweetness, which consists in a salt of such nature, affects the taste : for a single globe, (though somewhat pleasant to the feeling) yet by the regularity of its form, and the somewhat too sudden deviation of its parts from a right line is nothing near so pleasant to the touch as several globes, where the hand gently rises to one and falls to another : and this pleasure is greatly increased if the globes are in motion, and sliding over one another ; for this soft variety prevents that weariness, which the uniform disposition of the several globes would otherwise produce. Thus in sweet liquors, the parts of the fluid vehicle, though most probably round, are yet so minute, as to conceal the figure of their component parts from the nicest inquisition of the micro- scope : and consequently being so excessively minute, they have a sort of flat simplicity to AND BEAUTIFUL. 149 the taste, resembling the effects of plain smooth bodies to the touch ; for if a body be composed of round parts excessively small, and packed pretty closely together, the sur~ face will be both to the sight and touch as if it were nearly plain and smooth. It is clear from their unveiling their figure to the microscope, that the particles of sugar are considerably larger than those of water or oil, and consequently, that their effects from their roundness will be more distinct and palpable to the nervous papillae of that nice organ, the tongue : they will induce that sense called sweetness, which in a weak man- ner we discover in oil, and in a yet weaker in water ; for, insipid as they are, water and oil are in some degree sweet ; and it may be observed, that insipid things of all kinds approach more nearly to the nature of sweet ness than to that of any other taste. SEC. XXII.— SWEETNESS RELAXING. In the other senses we have remarked, that smooth things are relaxing. Now it ought to appear that sweet things, which are the smooth of taste, are relaxing too. It is remarkable, that in some languages soft and sweet have but one name. Doux in French signifies soft as well as sweet. The Latin Dulcis , and the Italian Dolce , have in many cases the same double signification. That sweet things are generally relaxing, is evident ; because all such, especially those which are most oily, taken frequently, or in a large quantity, very much enfeeble the tone of the stomach. Sweet smells, which bear a great affinity to sweet tastes, relax very remark- ably. The smell of flowers disposes people to drowsiness ; and this relaxing effect is rather apparent from the prejudice which people of 150 ON THE SUBLIME weak nerves receive from their use. It were worth while to examine, whether tastes of this kind, sweet ones, tastes that are caused by smooth oils and a relaxing salt, are not the originally pleasant tastes. For many, which use has rendered such, were not at all agreeable at first. The way to examine this is, to try what nature has originally provided for us, which she has undoubtedly made originally pleasant ; and to analyze this pro- vision. Milk is the first support of our child- hood. The component parts of this are water, oil, and a sort of a very sweet salt, called the sugar of milk. All these when blended have a great smoothness to the taste, and a relaxing quality to the skin. The next thing children covet is fruit, and of fruits those principally which are sweet ; and every one knows that the sweetness of fruit is caused by a subtle oil, and such salt as that mentioned in the last section. Afterwards, custom, habit, the desire of novelty, and a thousand other causes, confound, adulterate, and change our palates, so that we can no longer reason with any satisfaction about them. Before we quit this article, we must observe, that as smooth things are, as such, agreeable to the taste, and are found of a relaxing quality; so, on the other hand, things which are found by experience to be of a strengthening quality, and fit to brace the fibres, are almost uni- versally rough and pungent to the taste, and in many cases rough even to the touch. We often apply the quality of sweetness, met- aphorically, to visual objects. For the bet- ter carrying on this remarkable analogy of the senses, we may here call sweetness the beauti- ful of the taste. AND BEAUTIFUL. 151 SEC. XXIII.— VARIATION, WHY BEAU- TIFUL. Another principal property of beautiful ob- jects is, that the line of tbeir parts is continu- ally varying its direction ; but it varies it by a very insensible deviation ; it never varies it so quickly as to surprise, or by the sharp- ness of its angle to cause any twitching or convulsion of the optic nerve. Nothing long continued in the same manner, nothing very suddenly varied, can be beautiful ; because both are opposite to that agreeable relaxation which is the characteristic effect of beauty. It is thus in all the senses. A motion in a right line, is that manner of moving next to a very gentle descent, in which we meet the least resistance ; yet it is not that manner of moving, which, next to a descent, wearies us the least. Rest certainly tends to relax : yet there is a species of motion which relaxes more than rest ; a gentle oscillatory motion, a rising and falling. Rocking sets children to sleep better than absolute rest ; there is in- deed scarce anything at that age, which gives more pleasure than to be gently lifted up and down ; the manner of playing which their nurses use with children, and the weighing and swinging used afterwards by themselves as a favorite amusement, evince this very sufficiently. Most people must have observed the sort of sense they have had on being swiftly drawn in an easy coach on a smooth turf, with gradual ascents and declivities. This will give a better idea of the beautiful, and point out its probable cause better, than almost anything else. On the contrary when one is hurried over a rough, rocky, broken road, the pain felt by these sudden inequali- ties shows why similar sights, feelings, and 152 ON TIIE SUBLIME sounds, are so contrary to beauty : and with regard to the feeling, it is exactly the same in its effect, or very nearly the same, whether, for instance, I move my hand along the sur- face of a body of a certain shape, or whether such a body is moved along my hand. But to bring this analogy of the senses home to the eye : if a body presented to that sense has such a waving surface, that the rays of light reflected from it are in a continual in- sensible deviation from the strongest to the weakest (which is always the case in a sur- face gradually unequal), it must be exactly similar in its effects on the eye and touch ; upon the one of which it operates directly, on the other indirectly. And this body will be beautiful if the lines which compose its sur- face are not continued, even so varied, in a manner that may weary or dissipate the at- tention. The variation itself must be con- tinually varied. SEC. XXIV.— CONCERNING SMALLNESS. To avoid a sameness which may arise from the too frequent repetition of the same reas- onings, and of illustrations of the same na- ture, I will not enter very minutely into every particular that regards beauty, as it is founded on the disposition of its quantity, or its quan- tity itself. In speaking of the magnitude of bodies there is great uncertainty because the ideas of great and small are terms almost en- tirely relative to the species of the objects, which are infinite. It is true, that having once fixed the species of any object, and the dimensions common in the individuals of that- species, we may observe some that exceed, and some that fall short of, the ordinary standard : those which greatly exceed, are by that excess, provided the species itself be AND BEAUTIFUL. 153 not very small, rather great and terrible than beautiful ; but as in the animal world, and in a good measure in the vegetable world like- wise, the qualities that constitute beauty may possibly be united to things of greater dimen- sions ; when they are so united, they consti- tute a species something different both from I the sublime and beautiful, which I have be- fore called Fine; but this kind, I imagine, has not such a power on the passions, either as vast bodies have which are endued with the correspondent qualities of the sublime ; or as the qualities of beauty have when united in a small object. The affection produced by large bodies adorned with the spoils of beauty, is a tension continually relieved ; which approaches to the nature of medioc- rity. But if I were to say how I find myself affected upon such occasions, I should say, that the sublime suffers less by being united to some of the qualities of beauty, than beauty does by being joined to greatness of quantity, or any other properties of the sublime. There is something so over-ruling in what- ever inspires us with awe, in all things which belong ever so remotely to terror, that noth- ing else can stand in their presence. There lie the qualities of beauty either dead or un- operative ; or at most exerted to mollify the rigor and sternness of the terror, which is the natural concomitant of greatness. Be- sides the extraordinary great in every spe- cies, the opposite to this, the dwarfish and diminutive ought to. be considered. Little- ness, merely as such, has nothing contrary to the idea of beauty. The humming-bird, both in shape and coloring, yields to none of the winged species, of which he is the least ; and perhaps his beauty is enhanced by his small- ness. But there are animals, which when they are extremely small are rarely (if ever) 154 ON THE SUBLIME beautiful. There is a dwarfish size of men and women, which is almost constantly so gross and massive in comparison of their height, that they present us with a very dis- agreeable image. But should a man be found not above two or three feet high, supposing such a person to have all the parts of his body of a delicacy suitable to such a size, and other- wise endued with the common qualities of other beautiful bodies, I am pretty well con- vinced that a person of such a stature might be considered as beautiful ; might be the ob- ject of love ; might give us very pleasing ideas on viewing him. The only thing which could possibly interpose to check our pleasure is, that such creatures, however formed, are un- usual, and are often therefore considered as something monstrous. The large and gigan- tic, though very compatible with the sublime, is contrary to the beautiful. It is impossible to suppose a giant the object of love. When we let our imagination loose in romance, the ideas we naturally annex to that size are those of tyranny, cruelty, injustice, and every- thing horrid and abominable. We paint the giant ravaging the country, plundering the innocent traveller, and afterwards gorged with his half-living flesh: such are Polyphe- mus, Cacus, and others, who make so great a figure in romances and heroic poems. The event we attend to with the greatest satisfac- tion is their defeat and death. I do not re- member, in all that multitude of deaths with which the Iliad is filled, that the fall of any man, remarkable for his great stature and strength, touches us with pity; nor does it appear that the author, so well read in human nature, ever intended it should. It is Simoi- sius, in the soft bloom of youth, torn from his parents, who tremble for a courage so ill- suited to his strength; it is another hurried AND BEAUTIFUL. 155 by war from the new embraces of his bride, young and fair, and a novice to the field, who melts us by his untimely fate. Achilles, in spite of the many qualities of beauty, which Homer has bestowed on his outward form, and the many great virtues with wdiich he has adorned his mind, can never make us love him. It may be observed, that Homer has given the Trojans, whose fate he has de- signed to excite our compassion, infinitely more of the amiable social virtues than he has distributed among his Greeks. With re- gard to the Trojans, the passion he chooses to raise is pity; pity is a passion founded on love; and these lesser , and if I may say do- mestic virtues, are certainly the most amia- ble. But he has made the Greeks far their superiors in politic and military virtues. The councils of Priam are weak; the arms of Hector comparatively feeble ; his courage far below that of Achilles. Yet we love Priam more than Agamemnon, and Hector more than his conqueror Achilles. Admiration is the passion which Homer would excite in favor of the Greeks, and he has done it by bestowing on them the virtues which have but little to do with love. This short digres- sion is perhaps not wholly beside our purpose, where our business is to show that objects of great dimensions are incompatible with beau- ty, the more incompatible as they are greater ; whereas the small, if ever they fail of beauty, this failure is not to be attributed to their size. SEC. XXV.— OF COLOR With regard to color, the disquisition is al- most infinite; but I conceive the principles laid down in the beginning of this part are sufficient to account for the effects of them 156 OiV THE SUBLIME all, as well as for the agreeable effects of trans- parent bodies, fluid or solid. Suppose I look at a bottle of muddy liquor, of a blue or red color: the blue or red rays cannot pass clearly to the eye, but are suddenly and un- equally stopped by the intervention of little opaque bodies, which without preparation change the idea, and change it too into one disagreeable in its own nature, conformable to the principles laid down in Sec. 24. But when the ray passes without such opposition through the glass or liquor, when the glass or liquor are quite transparent, the light is sometimes softened in the passage, which makes it more agreeable even as light ; and the liquor reflecting all the rays of its proper color evenly , it has such an effect on the eye, as smooth opaque bodies have on the eye and touch. So that the pleasure here is com- pounded of the softness of the transmitted and the evenness of the reflected light. This pleasure may be heightened by the common principles in other things, if the shape of the glass which holds the transparent liquor be so judiciously varied, as to present the color gradually and interchangeably, weakened and strengthened with all the variety which judgment in affairs of this nature shall sug- gest. On a review of all that has been said of the effects, as well as the causes of both, it will appear, that the sublime and beautiful are built on principles very different, and that their affections are as different: the great has terror for its basis ; which, when it is modified, causes that emotion in the mind, which I have called astonishment ; the beau- tiful is founded on mere positive pleasure, and excites in the soul that feeling which is called love. Their causes have made the sub- ject of this fourth part. AND BEAUTIFUL. 157 ON THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL. PART V.— SEC. I.— OF WORDS. Natural objects affect us, by the laws of that connection which Providence has established between certain motions and configurations of bodies, and certain conse- quent feelings in our mind. Painting affects in the same manner, but with the superadded pleasure of imitation. Architecture affects by the laws of nature, and the law of reason ; from which latter result the rules of propor- tion, which make a work to be praised or cen- sured, in the whole or in some part, when the end for which it was designed is or is not prop- erly answered. But as to words ; they seem to me to affect us in a manner very different from that in which we are affected by natural objects, or by painting or architecture; yet words have as considerable a share in exciting ideas of beauty and of the sublime as any . of those, and sometimes a much greater than any of them ; therefore an inquiry into the manner by which they excite such emotions is far from being unnecessary in a discourse of this kind. SEC. II.— THE COMMON EFFECT OF POETRY, NOT BY RAISING IDEAS OF THINGS. The notion of the power of poetry and elo- quence, as well as that of words in ordinary conversation, is, that they affect the mind by raising in it ideas of those things for which custom has appointed them to stand. To ex- 158 ON THE SUBLIME amine the truth of this notion, it may be re- quisite to observe, that words may be divided into three sorts. The first are such as repre- sent many simple ideas united by nature to form some one determinate composition, as man, horse, tree, castle, etc. These I call aggregate words. The second are they that stand for one simple idea of such composi- tions, and no more ; as red, blue, round, square, etc. These I call simple abstract words. The third, are those which are formed by an union, an arbitrary union of both the others, and of the various relations between them in greater or lesser degrees of complex- ity ; as virtue, honor, persuasion, magistrate, and the like. These I call compound abstract words. Words, I am sensible, are capable of being classed into more curious distinctions ; but these seem to be natural, and enough for our purpose: and they are disposed in that order in which they are commonly taught, and in which the mind gets the ideas they are substituted for. I shall begin with the third sort of words, compound abstracts, such as virtue, honor, persuasion, docility. Of these I am convinced, that whatever power they may have on the passions, they do not derive it from any representation raised in the mind of the things for which they stand. As compo- sitions, they are not real essences, and hardly cause, I think, any real ideas. Nobody, I believe, immediately on hearing the sounds, virtue, liberty, or honor, conceives any precise notions of the particular modes of action and thinking, together with the mixt and simple ideas, and the several relations of them for which these words are substituted; neither has he any general idea, compounded of them : for if he had, then some of those particular ones, though indistinct perhaps, and confused, might come soon to be perceived. But this, I AND BEAUTIFUL. 159 take it, is hardly ever the case. For, put yourself upon analyzing one of these words, and you must reduce it from one set of general words to another, and then into the simple abstracts and aggregates, in a much longer series than may be at first imagined, before any real idea emerges to light, before you come to discover anything like the first prin- ciples of such compositions; and when you have made such a discovery of the original ideas, the effect of the composition is utterly lost. A train of thinking of this sort, is much too long to be pursued in the ordinary ways of conversation, nor is it at all necessary that it should. Such words are in reality but mere sounds ; but they are sounds which being used on particular occasions, wherein we receive some good, or suffer some evil ; or see others affected with good or evil ; or which we hear applied to other interesting things or events ; and being applied in such a variety of cases, that we know readily by habit to what things they belong, they produce in the mind, when- ever they are afterwards mentioned, effects similar to those of their occasions. The sounds being often used without reference to any particular occasion, and carrying still their first impressions, they at last utterly lose their connection with the particular occasions that give rise to them; yet the sound, with- out any annexed notion, continues to operate as before. SEC. III.— GENERAL WORDS BEFORE IDEAS. Mr. Locke has somewhere observed, with his usual sagacity, that most general words, those belonging to virtue and vice, good and evil, especially, are taught before the partic- ular modes of action to which they belong are 160 ON THE SUBLIME presented to the mind : and with them, the love of the one, and the abhorrence of the other ; for the minds of children are so ductile, that a nurse, or any person about a child, by seeming pleased or displeased with anything, or even any word, may give the disposition of the child a similar turn. When afterwards, the several occurrences in life come to be ap- plied to these words, and that which is pleasant often appears under the name of evil ; and what is disagreeable to nature is called good and virtuous; a strange confusion of ideas and affections arises in the minds of many; and an appearance of no small con- tradiction between their notions and their actions. There are many who love virtue and who detest vice, and this not from hypocrisy or affectation, who notwithstanding very fre- quently act ill, and wickedly in particulars without the least remorse ; because these par- ticular occasions never came into view, when the passions on the side of virtue were so warmly affected by certain words heated or- iginally by the breath of others ; and for this reason, it is hard to repeat certain sets of words, though owned by themselves unopera- tive, without being in some degree affected, especially if a warm and affecting tone of voice accompanies them, as suppose, Wise, valiant , generous , good , and great. These words, by having no application, ought to be unoperative, but when words commonly sacred to great occasions are used, we are af- fected by them even without the occasions. When words which have been generally so applied are put together without any rational view, or in such a manner that they do not rightly agree with each other, the style is called bombast. And it requires in several cases much good sense and experience to be AND BEAUTIFUL. 161 guarded against the force of such language ,* for when propriety is neglected, a greater number of these affecting words may be taken into the service, and a greater variety may be indulged in combining them. SEC. IV.— 1 THE EFFECT OF WORDS. If words have all their possible extent of power, three effects arise in the mind of the hearer. The first is, the sound; the second, the picture , or representation of the thing signified by the sound ; the third is, the affec- tion of the soul produced by one or by both of the foregoing. Compounded abstract words, of which we have been speaking, (honor, jus- tice, liberty, and the like) produce the first and the last of these effects, but not the second. Simple abstracts , are used to signify some one simple idea without much adverting to others which may chance to attend it, as blue, green, hot, cold, and the like; these are ca- pable of affecting all three of the purposes of words ; as the aggregate words, man, castle, horse, etc. , are in a yet higher degree. But I am of opinion, that the most general affect even of these words, does not arise from their forming pictures of the several things they would represent in the imagination ; because, on a very diligent examination of my own mind, and getting others to consider theirs, I do not find that once in twenty times any such picture is formed, and when it is there is most commonly a particular effort of the imagination for that purpose. But the ag- gregate words operate, as I said of the com- pound-abstracts, not by presenting any image to the mind, but by having from use the same effect on being mentioned, that their original has when it is seen. Suppose we were to rea d a passage to this effect: “The river Danube 162 ON THE SUBLIME rises in a moist and mountainous soil in the heart of Germany, where winding to and fro, it waters several principalities, until, turning into Austria, and leaving the walls of Vienna, it passes into Hungary ; there with a vast flood, augmented by the Saave and the Drave, ^ it quits Christendom, and rolling through the barbarous countries which border on Tartary, it enters by many mouths in the Black Sea.” In this description many things are men- tioned, as mountains, rivers, cities, the sea, etc. But let anybody examine himself, and see whether he has had impressed on his im- agination any picture of a river, mountain, watery soil, Germany, etc. Indeed it is im- possible, in the rapidity and quick succession of words in conversation, to have ideas both of the sound of the word, and of the thing rep- resented ; besides, some words, expressing real essences, are so mixed with others of a general and nominal import, that it is im- practicable to jump from sense to thought, from particulars to generals, from things to words, in such a manner as to answer the purposes of life ; nor is it necessary that we should. SEC. V. — EXAMPLES THAT WORDS MAY AFEECT WITHOUT RAISING IMAGES. It is very hard to persuade several that their passions are affected by words from whence they have no ideas, and yet harder to convince them, that in the ordinary course of conversation we are sufficiently under- stood without raising any images of the things concerning which we speak. It seems to be an odd subject of dispute with any man, whether he has ideas in his mind or not. Of this, at first view, every man in his own AND BEAUTIFUL . 163 forum, ought to judge without appeal. But, strange as it may appear, we are often at a loss to know what ideas we have of things, or whether we have any ideas at all upon some subjects. It even requires a good deal of attention to be thoroughly satisfied on this head. Since I wrote these papers, I found two very striking instances of the possibility there is, that a man may hear words without having any idea of the things which they rep- resent, and yet afterwards be capable of re- turning them to others, combined in a new way, and with great propriety, energy, and instruction. The first instance is that of Mr. Blacklock, a poet blind from his birth. Few men blessed with the most perfect sight can describe visual objects with more spirit and justness than this blind man; which cannot possibly be attributed to his having a clearer conception of the things he describes than is common to other persons. Mr. Spence, in an elegant preface which he has written to the works of this poet, reasons very ingeniously, and, I imagine, for the most part very rightly, upon the cause of this extraordinary phenom- enon ; but I cannot altogether agree with him, that some improprieties in language and thought, which occur in these poems, have arisen from the blind poet’s imperfect con- ception of visual objects, since such impro- prieties, and much greater, may be found in writers even of an higher class than Mr. Blacklock, and who notwithstanding pos- sessed the faculty of seeing in its full per- fection. Here is a poet doubtless as much af- fected by his own descriptions as any that reads them can be ; and yet he is affected with this strong enthusiasm by things of which he neither has, nor can possibly have any idea further than that of a bare sound ; and why may not those who read his works be affected 104 ON THE SUBLIME in the same manner that he was ; with as little of any real ideas of the things described ? The second instance is of Mr. Saunderson, profes- sor of mathematics in the university of Cam- bridge. This learned man had acquired great knowledge in natural philosophy, in astron- omy, and whatever sciences depend upon mathematical skill. What was the most ex- traordinary and the most to my purpose, he gave excellent lectures upon light and colors ; and this man taught others the theory of those ideas which they had, and which he himself undoubtedly had not. But it is prob- able that the words red, blue, green, an- swered to him as well as the ideas of the col- ors themselves; for the ideas of greater or lesser degrees of refrangibility being applied to these words, and the blind man being in- structed in what other respects they were found to agree or to disagree, it was as easy for him to reason upon the words, as if he had been fully master of the ideas. Indeed it must be owned he could make no new dis- coveries in the way of experiment. Me did nothing but what we do every day in com- mon discourse. When I wrote this last sen- tence, and used the words every day and com- mon discourse , I had no images in my mind of any succession of time ; nor of men in con- ference with each other; nor do I imagine that the reader will have any such ideas on reading it. Neither when I spoke of red, or blue and green, as well as refrangibility, had I these several colors or the rays of light pass- ing into a different medium and there diverted from their course, painted before me in the way of images. I know very well that the mind possesses a faculty of raising such im- ages at pleasure ; but then an act of the will is necessary to this ; and in ordinary conver- sation or reading it is very rarely that any AND BEAUTIFUL. 165 image at all is excited in the mind. If I say “ I shall go to Italy next summer;” I am well understood. Yet I believe nobody has by this painted in his imagination the exact figure of the speaker passing by land or by water, or both ; sometimes on horseback, sometimes in a carriage ; with all the particulars of the journey. Still less has he any idea of Italy, the country to which I proposed to go ; or of the greenness of the fields, the ripening of the fruits, and the warmth of the air, with the change to this from a different season, which are the ideas for which the word summer is substituted ; but least of all has he any image from the word next; for this word stands for the idea of many summers with the exclusion of all but one ; and surely the man who says next summer , has no images of such a suc- cession, and such an exclusion. In short, it is not only of those ideas which are commonly called abstract, and of which no image at all can be formed, but even of particular real beings, that we converse without having any idea of them excited in the imagination ; as will certainly appear on a diligent exami- nation of our own minds. Indeed, so little does poetry depend for its effect on the power of raising sensible images, that I am convinced it would lose a very considerable part of its energy if this were the necessary result of all description. Because that union of affecting words, which is the most powerful of all poet- ical instruments, would frequently lose its force along with its propriety and consistency, if the sensible images were always excited. There is not perhaps in the whole Eneid a more grand and labored passage than the de- scription of Vulcan’s cavern in Etna, and the works that are there carried on. Virgil dwells particularly on the formation of the thunder, which he describes unfinished under 166 ON THE SUBLIME the hammers of the Cyclops. But what are the principles of this extraordinary compo- sition? Tres imbris torti radios , tres nubis acquosce Addiderant ; rutili tres ignis et alitis austri; Fulgores nunc terrificos, sonitumque , metumque Miscebant operi, slammisque sequacibus iras. This seems to me admirably sublime ; yet if we attend coolly to the kind of sensible images which a combination of ideas of this sort must form, the chimeras of madmen cannot appear more wild and absurd than such a picture. “ three rays of twisted showers , three of watery clouds , three of fire , and three of the winged south winds; then mixed they in the work ter- rific lightnings , and sound and fear , and an- ger , with pursuing flames. ” This strange com- position is formed into a gross body ; it is hammered by the Cyclops, it is in part pol- ished, and partly continues rough. The truth is, if poetry gives us a noble assemblage of words corresponding to many noble ideas, which are connected by circumstances of time or place, or related to each other as cause and effect, or associated in any natural way, they may be moulded together in any form, and perfectly answer their end. The picturesque connection is not demanded ; because no real picture is formed ; nor is the effect of the de- scription at all the less upon this account. What is said of Helen by Priam and the old men of his council, is generally thought to give us the highest possible idea of that fatal beauty. They cry'd, no wonder such celestial charms For nine long years have set the world in arms ; What winning graces ! what majestic mien / She moves a goddess , and she looks a queen. — Pope. Here is not one word said of the particulars of her beauty ; nothing which can in the least help us to any precise idea of her person ; but AND BEAUTIFUL . 167 yet we are much more touched by this man- ner of mentioning her than by those long and labored descriptions of Helen, whether hand- ed down by tradition, or formed by fancy, which are to be met with in some authors. I am sure it affects me much more than the minute description which Spenser has given of Belphebe; though I own that there are parts in that description, as there are in all the descriptions of that excellent writer, ex- tremely fine and poetical. The terrible pict- ure which Lucretius has drawn of religion, in order to display the magnanimity of his philosophical hero in opposing her, is thought to be designed with great boldness and spirit : Humana ante oculos foede cum vita jaceret, In terris oppressa gravi sub religione, Quae caput e cceli regionibus ostendebat Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans; Primus Graius homo mortales tollere contra Est oculos ausus. What idea do you derive from so excellent a picture? none at all, most certainly, neither has the poet said a single word which might in the least serve to mark a single limb or feature of the phantom, which he intended to represent in all the horrors imagination can conceive. In reality, poetry and rhetoric do not succeed in exact description so well as painting does ; their business is, to affect rath- er by sympathy than imitation; to display rather the effect of things on the mind of the speaker, or of others, than to present a clear idea of the things themselves. This is their most extensive province, and that in which they succeed the best. 168 ON THE SUBLIME SEC. VI.— POETRY NOT STRICTLY AN IMITATIVE ART. Hence we may observe that poetry, taken in its most general sense, cannot with strict propriety be called an art of imitation. It is indeed an imitation so far as it describes the manners and passions of men which their words can express ; where animi motus effert interprete lingua . There it is strictly imita- tion ; and all merely dramatic poetry is of this sort. But descriptive poetry operates chiefly by substitution , by means of sounds, which by custom have the effect of realities. Noth- ing is an imitation further than as it resembles some other thing; and words undoubtedly have no sort of resemblance to the ideas for which they stand. SEC. VII. —HOW WORDS INFLUENCE THE PASSIONS. Now, as words affect, not by any original power, but by representation, it might be sup- posed, that their influence over the passions should be but light ; yet it is quite otherwise ; for we find by experience that eloquence and poetry are as capable, nay indeed much more capable, of making deep and lively impres- sions than any other arts, and even than na- ture itself, in very many cases. And this arises chiefly from these three causes. First, that we take an extraordinary part in the passions of others, and that we are easily af- fected and brought into sympathy by any tokens which are shown of them ; and there are no tokens which can express all the cir- cumstances of most passions so fully as words ; so that if a person speaks upon any subject, AND BEAUTIFUL. 169 he cannot only convey the subject to you, but likewise the manner in which he is him- self affected by it. Certain it is, that the in- fluence of most things on our passions is not so much from the things themselves, as from our opinions concerning them ; and these again depend very much on the opinions of other men, conveyable for the most part by words only. Secondly there are many things of a very affecting nature, which can seldom oc- cur in the reality, but the words which rep- resent them often do; and thus they have an opportunity of making a deep impression and taking root in the mind, whilst the idea of the reality was transient ; and to some per- haps never really occurred in any shape, to whom it is notwithstanding very affecting, as war, death, famine, etc. Besides many ideas have never been at all presented to the senses of any men but by words, as G-od, angels, devils, heaven, and hell, all of which have however a great influence over the passions. Thirdly, by words we have it in our power to make such combinations as we cannot possibly do otherwise. By this power of combining we are able, by the addition of well-chosen circumstances, to give a new life and force to the simple object. In painting we may rep- resent any fine figure we please ; but we nev- er can give it those enlivening touches which it may receive from words. To represent an angel in a picture, you can only draw a beauti- ful young man winged: but what painting can furnish anything so grand as the addition of one word, “the angel of the Lordt ” It is true, I have here no clear idea; but these words affect the mind more than the sensible image did ; which is all I contend for. A pict- ure of Priam dragged to the altar’s foot, and there murdered, if it were well executed, would undoubtedly be very moving ; but there 170 ON TEE SUBLIME are very aggravating circumstances, which it could never represent : Sanguine fcedantem quos ipse sacraverat ignes. As a further instance, let us consider those lines of Milton, where he describes the travels of the fallen angels through their dismal habitation : O'er many a dark and dreary vale They pass'd , and many a region dolorous; >. O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp; Rocks, caves, lakes, fens , bogs, dens, and shades of death , A universe of death. Here is displayed the force of union in Rocks, caves, lakes, dens, bogs, fens, and shades; which yet would lose the greatest part of the effect, if they were not the Rocks, caves, lakes, dens, bogs, fens, and shades of Death. This idea or this affection caused by a word, which nothing but a word could annex to the others, raises a very great degree of the sub- lime ; and this sublime is raised yet higher by what follows, a “ universe of Death.” Here are again two ideas not presentable but by language; and an union of them great and amazing beyond conception ; if they may prop- erly be called ideas which present no distinct image to the mind ; — but still it will be difficult to conceive how words can move the passions which belong to real objects, without repre- senting these objects clearly. This is diffi- cult to us, because we do not sufficiently dis- tinguish, in our observations upon language, between a clear expression, and a strong ex- pression. These are frequently confounded with each other, though they are in reality extremely different. The former regards the understanding ; the latter belongs to the pas- sions. The one describes a thing as it is; the latter describes it as it is felt. Now, as AND BEAUTIFUL . 171 there is a moving tone of voice, an impas- sioned countenance, an agitated gesture, which affect independently of the things about which they are exerted, so there are words, and certain dispositions of words, which being peculiarly devoted to passionate subjects, and always used by those who are under the influence of any passion, touch and move us more than those which far more clearly and distinctly express the subject matter. We yield to sympathy what we re- fuse to description. The truth is, all verbal description, merely as naked description, though never so exact, conveys so poor and insufficient an idea of the thing described, that it could scarcely have the smallest effect, if the speaker did not call in to his aid those modes of speech that mark a strong and live- ly feeling in himself. Then, by the contagion of our passions, we catch a fire already kin- dled in another, which probably might never have been struck out by the object described. Words, by strongly conveying the passions, by those means which we haVe already men- tioned, fully compensate for their weakness in other respects. It may be observed, that very polished languages, and such as are praised for their superior clearness and per- spicuity, are generally deficient in strength. The French language has that perfection and that defect. Whereas the Oriental tongues, and in general the languages of most un- polished people, have a great force and energy of expression ; and this is but natural. Un- cultivated people are but ordinary observers of things, and not critical in distinguishing them ; but, for that reason, they admire more, and are more affected with what they see, and therefore express themselves in a warmer and more passionate manner. If the affection be well conveyed, it will work its effect with- 172 ON THE SUBLIME AND BE A UTIFUL. out any clear idea ; often without any idea at all of the thing which has originally given rise to it. It might be expected from the fertility of the subject, that I should consider poetry as it regards the sublime and beautiful, more at large; but it must be observed that in this light it has been often and well handled al- ready. It was not my design to enter into the criticism of the sublime and beautiful in any art, but to attempt to lay down such principles as may tend to ascertain, to dis- tinguish, and to form a sort of standard for them; which purposes I thought might be best effected by an inquiry into the properties of such things in nature, as raise love and as- tonishment in us; and by showing in what manner they operated to produce these pas- sions. Words were only so far to be con- sidered, as to show upon what principle they were capable of being the representatives of these natural things, and by what powers they were able to affect us often as strongly as the things they represent, and sometimes much more strongly.