I
Of the Passion Caused by the Sublime The passion caused by the great and sublime in nature,when those causes operate most powerfully,is astonishment;and astonishment is that state of the soul,in which all its motions are suspended,with some degree of horror.1
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 being produced by them,it anticipates our reasonings,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.
II
Terror [Footnote 1:Part I.sect.3,4,7.]
[Footnote 2:Part IV.sect.3-6.]
No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.2For 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 animals,who though far from being large,are yet capable of raising ideas of the sublime,because they are considered as objects of terror.As serpents and poisonous animals of almost all kinds.And to things of great dimensions,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 prospect 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 strong 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.Oaubos is in Greek,either fear or wonder;delvos is terrible or respectable;aidew,to reverence or to fear.Vereor in Latin,is what aidew is in Greek.The Romans used the verb stupeo,a term which strongly marks the state of an astonished mind,to express the effect of 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 etonnement,and the English astonishment and amazement,point out as clearly the kindred emotions which attend fear and wonder?They who have a more general knowledge of languages,could produce,I make no doubt,many other and equally striking examples.
III
Obscurity [Footnote 1:Part IV.sect.14-16.]
To make anything very terrible,obscurity1seems 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 danger,and how much the notions of ghosts and goblins,of which none can form clear ideas,affect minds which give credit to the popular tales concerning 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 Americans 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 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 deion of Death in the second book is admirably studied;it is astonishing with what a gloomy pomp,with what a significant and expressive uncertainty of strokes and colouring,he has finished the portrait of the king of terrors:
The other shape,If shape it might be called that shape had none Distinguishable,in member,joint,or limb;Or substance might be called that shadow seemed;For each seemed either;black he stood as night;Fierce as ten furies;terrible as hell;And shook a deadly dart.What seemed his head The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
In this deion all is dark,uncertain,confused,terrible,and sublime to the last degree.
IV
Of The Difference Between Clearness And Obscurity With Regard To The Passions It is one thing to make an idea clear,and another to make it affecting to the imagination.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 palace,temple,or landscape would have affected in the reality.On the other hand,the most lively and spirited verbal deion 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 deion than I could do by the best painting.
