СНАР. I. blime and Pathetic. with either; but that men, in the laxity of colloquial speech, seize upon some impressive of the Suword, and use it as an augmentative, or superlative; or, perhaps, merely for the sake of emphasis, without any regard to its strict meaning or etymology. For this purpose words and objects of terror would naturally be adopted: for nothing is so impressive as fear; although the impression, which it makes, is invariably the opposite of sublime. 59. This notion of pain and terror being the cause of the sublime, appears, indeed, to me, to be, in every respect, so strange and unphilosophical, that were it not for the great name, under which it has been imposed on the world, I should feel shame in seriously controverting it. But, when I consider the deserved authority of that name, and the influence, which it has had, in spreading this notion, with the practical bad taste, that has resulted from it, I am rather apprehensive of not controverting it effectually. I admit, however, that this influence has principally appeared among artists, and other persons not much conversant with philosophical inquiries: for, except my friend before mentioned, I have never met with any man of learning, by whom the philosophy of the Inquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful was not as much despised and ridiculed, as the brilliancy and animation of its style were applauded, and admired. CHAP. I 60. It is, indeed, no easy matter to underOf the Su- stand this philosophy, so far as relates to the blime and sublime; which is first stated to proceed from Pathetic whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger; that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror*. But, nevertheless, as the author immediately adds, when danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply terrible; but at certain distances, and with certain modifications, they may be, and they are delightful, as we every day experience. 61. It were to be wished that the author had informed us, what these particular delights are, which danger and pain every day afford us; and at what specific distances, or under what particular modifications, they do afford them: for, in the common acceptation of these words, danger means the probability of evil, and pain the actual sensation of it; and how the sense or feeling either of the probability of the evil, or of the evil itself, can exist any where but in * P. I. f. vii. When so clear and acute a writer, as Mr. Burke generally is, gives so indistinct and unphilosophical a definition, we may be assured that he had entangled himself in his own subtilties, and was more anxious to conceal his perplexity than explain his meaning. the mind, no common understanding can conceive; and, indeed, the author himself does not, in his subsequent arguments, consider them as existing any where else; and, as he speaks of sensations being moderated in description, and so rendered sublime*, we may reasonably suppose that he here confounded distance and degree; a stout instance of confusion even with every allowance that can be made for the ardour of youth in an Hibernian philosopher of five and twenty. Certain degrees, however, would have answered his purpose no better: for be the degree of danger ever so small; that is, be the evil apprehended, or the probability of its happening ever so slight, the sentiment excited by it must be equally fear: since, if it do not excite some degree of fear, the sense of danger, as it is called, is mere perception or knowledge, not either a sentiment, sensation, or passion. Aristotle defines fear to be mental pain or trouble, arising from an idea of future evil, either destructive or afflictive; and if this definition be just, as it has hitherto been held to be, the differences in its degrees cannot anywise change the mode of its existence, nor alter the nature, though they may lessen the effect * P. II. f. xxi. Η φυβος, λύπη τις η ταραχη εκ φαντασίας μέλλοντος κακού, η φθαρτικού η λυπηρον. Rhetor. 1. ii. CHAP. I. Of the Sublime and Pathetic. CHAP. I. Of the Su of its operation. Fear, therefore, which is humiliating and depressive in one degree, must be blime and proportionally so in another; and consequently, Pathetic. in every degree, the opposite of sublime. 62. As corporeal pain and physical evil are, according to the system in question, the means of the sublime, and self-preservation its principle *; all the sentiments excited by it must, of consequence, be merely corporeal, organic, or nervous sensations; as the author endeavours to prove them to bet; and so far, his system is consistent in itself, though not with his general principles for it leads directly to materialism; from which no man was ever more averse. 63. The highest degree of these sublime sensations, he states to be astonishment; and the subordinate degrees, awe, reverence, and respect; all which, he considers as modes of terror, which exercise the finer parts of the system, as common labour does the grosser : and thus, by a physical process, which he explains at length, but which no physiologist has been able to understand, become capable of producing delight, not pleasure; but a sort of delightful horror, a sort of tranquillity tinged with terror; which, as it belongs to self-preservation, is one of the strongest of all the passions §. P. I. f. vi. and P. IV. f. vii. † P. IV. f. v. ix. et seq. Ibid. § Ibid. СНАР. I. Of the Su All this, however, obscure as, I confess, it is to me, seems perfectly clear to the more acute penetration of his disciple and commentator; who observes, in terms more direct and explicit Pathetic. than the author, perhaps, would have desired, that the sublime, being founded on ideas of pain and terror, like them operates by stretching the fibres beyond their natural tone. The passion excited by beauty is love and complacency: it acts by relaxing the fibres somewhat below their natural tone; and this is accompanied by an inward sense of melting and languor*. This stretching power of ideas of terror, no pathologist has, I believe, discovered or even surmised, though the laxative power of terror itself is so well known, as to have been celebrated even by poets; with more, indeed, of the accuracy of philosophy than the delicacy of poetry. The laxative powers of beauty, the author has illustrated by the difference of our feelings on a warm genial day in a spot full of the softest beauties of nature, and, when the fibres are braced by a keen air in a wild romantic situation : but I apprehend that this difference, so far as it depends upon the Essays on the Picturesque, Vol. i. p. 103, + Aristoph. Cargax. 479. Ed. Brunk. Gay's Fab. True Story, &c. Essays on the Picturesque, Vol. i. p. 104. blime and |