There are many animals, who, though far from being large, are yet capable of rais ing ideas of the sublime, because they are
considered
as objects of terror.
Edmund Burke
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SECTION XIII. BYMPATHY.
117
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 suffered to be indif ferent 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 passion may either par take of the nature of those which regard self-preser vation, and turning upon pain may be a source of the sublime; or it may turn upon ideas of
and then whatever has been said of the social affec tions, whether they regard society in general, or only
some particular modes of may be applicable here. by this principle chiefly that poetry, painting,
and other affecting arts, transfuse their passions from one breast to another, and are often capable of graft ing delight on wretchedness, misery, and death itself. It common observation, that objects which in the reality would shock, are in tragical, and such like representations, the source of very high species of
? This, taken as fact, has been the cause of much reasoning. The satisfaction has been com monly attributed, first, to the comfort we receive in
considering that so melancholy story no more than fiction and, next, to the contemplation of our own freedom from the evils which we see represented.
am afraid practice much too common in in quiries of this nature, to attribute the cause of feel ings which merely arise from the mechanical struc
pleasure.
pleasure;
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ture 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 nothing near so extensive as it is commonly believed.
'
SECTION XIV.
THE EFFECTS OF SYMPATHY IN THE DISTRESSES OF OTHERS
T0 examine this point concerning the effect of tragedy in a proper manner, we must previously con sider 11ow we are affected by the feelings of our fel low-creatures in circumstances 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 ap pearance, 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 we not read the authentic histories of scenes of this nature with as much pleasure as romances 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 height ened, if the sufferer be some excellent person who
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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 adhered to, than with the de served triumphs and uninterrupted prosperity of the other : for terror is a passion which always produces delight when it does not press too closely; and pity is a passion accompanied with pleasure, because it arises from love and social affection. Whenever we are formed by nature to any active purpose, the pas sion which animates 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 designed that we shouldbe united by the bond of sympathy, he has
? that bond by a proportionable delight; and there most where our sympathy is most wanted,
-_---in the distresses of others. If this passion was
simply painful, we would shun with the greatest care all persons and places that could excite such a pas sion; as some, who are so far gone in indolence as not to endure any strong impression, actually do. But the case is widely different with the greater part of mankind ; there is no spectacle we so eagerly pur sue, as that of some uncommon and grievous calam ity ; so that whether the misfortune is before our eyes, or whether they are turned back to it in history,
it always touches with delight. This is not an un mixed 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 with out our concurrence.
strengthened
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SECTION XV.
OF THE EFFECTS OF TRAGEDY
IT is thus in real calamities. In imitated dis tresses the only difference is the pleasure resulting from the effects of imitation; for it is never so per fect, 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 representations no realities. The nearer it approaches the reality, and the further it removes us from all idea of fiction, the more perfect is its
? But be its power of what kind it will, it never
power.
approaches to what it represents. 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 decorations; 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 expec tation, let it be reported that a state criminal of high rank is on the point of being executed in the adjoin ing square; in a moment the emptiness of the thea tre would demonstrate the comparative 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
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121
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 capital, the pride of England and of Europe, I believe no man is so strangely wicked as to desire 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 either in real or fictitious distresses, our immunity from them which produces our delight; in my own mind can discover nothing like it. apprehend that this mistake owing to sort of sophism, by which we are frequently imposed upon arises from our not distinguishing between what indeed necessary condition to our doing or suffering anything in general, and what the cause of some particular act. If man kills me with sword, necessary condition to this that we should have been both of us alive before the fact; and yet would be absurd to say that our being both living creatures was the cause of his crime and of my death. So certain that absolutely necessary my life should be out of any imminent hazard, before
can take delight in the sulferings of others, real or imaginary, or indeed in anything else from any cause whatsoever. But then sophism to argue from thence that this immunity the cause of my delight either on these or on any occasions. No one can distinguish such cause of satisfaction in his own mind,I believe nay, when we do not suffer any very
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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.
SEOTION XVI. IMITATION.
THE second passion belonging to society is imita tion, or, if you will, a desire of imitating, and conse quently a pleasure in it. This passion arises from much the same cause with sympathy. For as sym pathy makes us take a concern in whatever men feel, so this affection prompts us to copy whatever they do; and consequently we have a pleasure in imitat ing, 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 pur poses 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 each other, without con straint to themselves, and which is extremely flatter ing to al_l. Herein it is that painting and many other agreeable arts have laid one of the principal founda tions of their power. And since, by its influence on
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our manners and our passions, 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 imita tor merely, and when to sympathy, or some other cause in conjunction with it. When the object repre sented 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 dung-hill, 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.
SECTION 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 imita tion entirely, and each followed the other, and so on
? ? ? ? 124 on THE sunmmn AND BEAUTIFUL.
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 begin ning of the world. To prevent this, God has planted
in man a sense of ambition, and a satisfaction
from the contemplation of his excelling his fellows in something deemed valuable amongst them. It is this passion that drives men to all the ways we see in use of signalizing 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 su preme 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, produces a sort of swelling and triumph, that is extremely grate ful 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 great ness, 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.
arising
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SE CTIO N XVIII. THE REOAPITULATION.
To draw the whole of what has been said into a few distinct p0ints:--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 circum stances; this delight I have not called pleasure, be cause it turns on pain, and because it is different enough from any idea of positive pleasure. What ever excites this delight, I call mblinw. The pas sions belonging 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 the society of sex. The passion belonging to this called love, and contains mixture of lust; its object the beauty of women. The other the great society with man and all other animals. The passion sub servient to this called likewise love, but has no mixture of lust, and its object beauty; which name shall apply to all such qualities in things as
induce in us sense of affection and tenderness, or some other passion the most nearly resembling these. The passion of love has its rise in positive pleasure;
like all things which grow out of pleasure, capa ble of being mixed with mode of uneasiness, that is, when an idea of its object excited in the mind with an idea at the same time of having irretrievably lost
it. This mixed sense of pleasure have not called
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pain, because it turns upon actual pleasure, and be cause it both in its cause and in most of its effects, of nature altogether different.
Next to the general passion we have for society, to 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 to put us in the place of an other in whatever circumstance he 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 Sect. 11. As to imitation and preference, nothing more need be said.
N X X. THE CoNCLUsIoN.
BELIEVED that an attempt to range and methodize some of our most leading passions would be good preparative to such an inquiry as we are going to make in the ensuing discourse. The passions have mentioned are almost the only ones which can be necessary to consider in our present design; though the variety of the passions great, and worthy, in every branch of that variety, of an attentive investi gation. The more accurately we search into the hu man mind, the stronger traces we everywhere find of His wisdom who made it. If discourse on the use of the parts of the body may be considered as hymn to the Creator the use of the passions, which are the organs of the mind, cannot be barren of praise to hiin, nor unproductive to ourselves of that noble and un_
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common union of science and admiration, which a con templation of the works of infinite wisdom alone can afford to a rational mind; whilst, referring 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 discover them clearly, and adoring their profundity
where we are lost in our search, we may be inquis itive without impertinence, and elevated without pride; we may be admitted, if I may dare to say so, into the counsels of the Almighty by a consideration of his works. The elevation of the mind ought to be the principal end of all our studios ; which, if they do not in some measure effect, they are of very little ser vice to us. But, besides this great purpose, a consid eration of the rationale of our passions seems to me very necessary for all who would affcct them upon solid and sure principles. It is not enough to know
them in general; to affect them after a delicate man ner, or to judge properly of any work designed to af fect them, we should know the exact boundaries of their several jurisdictions; we should pursue them tluough all their variety of operations, and pierce into the inmost, and what might appear inaccessible
parts of our nature,
? _
Quod latet arcane non enarrabile fibrfi.
Without all this it is possible for a man, after a con fused manner sometimes to satisfy his own mind of the truth of his work; but he can never have a cer tain determinate rule to go by, nor can he ever make his propositions sufficiently clear to others. Poets, and orators, and painters, and those who cultivate other branches of the liberal arts, have, without this
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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 own, not uncommon to be wrong in theory, and right in practice: and we are happy that so. Men often act right from their feelings, who afterwards reason but ill on them from principle but as impossible to avoid an attempt at such reasoning, and equally impossible to prevent its having some influence on our practice, surely worth taking some pains to have 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 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 among poems, pictures, engravings, statues, and
But art can never give the rules that make an art. This believe, the reason why art ists in general, and poets, principally, have been con fined in so narrow circle: they have been rather imitators of one another than of nature; and this with so faithful an uniformity, and to so remote an antiquity, that hard to say who gave the first model. Critics follow them, and therefore can do lit tle as guides. can judge but poorly of anything, whilst measure by no other standard than itself. The true standard of the arts in every man's pow er; and an easy observation of the most common, sometimes of the meanest things in nature, will give
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the truest lights, where the greatest sagacity and in dustry, that slights such observation, must leave 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 them selves; 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 nothing tends more to the corruption of science than to suffer it to stagnate. These waters must be troubled, be tbre 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 subservient 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 consid ered the affections themselves. I only desire one fa vor,--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 captions controversy, but of a sober and even forgiving examination ; that they are not armed at all points for battle, but dressed to visit those who are willing to give a peaceful entrance to truth.
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PART II.
SECTION I.
or THE PASSION causnn 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. * 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 eifect of the sublime in its highest degree; the inferior effects are admiration, reverence, and respect
SECTION 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. Whateve1' therefore is terrible, with regard to sight, is sublirne 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
"' Part I. sect. 3, 4, 7. T Part IV. sect. 6.
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131
may be dangerous.
There are many animals, who, though far from being large, are yet capable of rais ing ideas of the sublime, because they are considered as objects of terror. As serpents and poisonous ani mals of almost'all kinds. And to things of great
dimensions, if we annex an adventitious idea of ter ror, 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
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 indiffer ently the modes of astonishment or admiration and
? object
those of terror. Qdpfloq is in Greek either fear or wonder; 561. 1/dc is terrible or respectable; alde? w, to reverence or to fear. Vereor in Latin is what aZ5e? ru is in Greek. The Romans used the verb
stupeo, a term which strongly marks the state of an aston
ished mind, to express the effect either of simple fear,
or of astonishment; the word attonitus
struck) is equally expressive of the alliance of these ideas; and do not the French e? tonnement, 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.
(thunder
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SECTION 111. OBSCURITY.
T0 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 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 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 prin cipally 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. A1 most all the heathen temples were dark. Even in the barbarous temples of the Americans at this day, they keep their idol in dark part of the hut, which 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 set ting terrible things, may use the expression, in their strongest light, by the force of judicious obscurity than Milton. His description of death in the second book admirably studied; astonish ing with what gloomy pomp, with what sign1ficant and expressive uncertainty of strokes and coloring, he has finished the portrait of the king of terrors
Part IV. sect. 14, 15, 16.
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" 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 description all is dark, uncertain, confused, terrible, and sublime to the last degree.
SECTION IV.
OF THE DIFFERENCE BF. T\VEl? N CLEARNESS AND OBSCU RITY wITH REGARD TO THE PASSIONS
Ir is one thing to make an idea clear, and another to make it afectirtg 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 some thing) 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 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 e'mott'on by the description than I could do by the best paint ing. This experience constantly evinces. The proper manner of conveying the a_fl"ect'ions of the mind from one to another is by words; there is a great insuffi ciency 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
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passions.
_
"1
presenting any image at all, by certain sounds adapted to that purpose; of which we have a suffi cient proof in the acknowledged and powerful effects of instrumental music. In reality, a great clearness helps but little towards affecting the passions, as it is in some sort an enemy to all enthusiasms whatsoever.
SECTION
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
THERE are two verses in Horace's Art of Poetry that seem to contradict this opinion; for which rea son I shall take a little more pains in clearing it up. The verses are,
Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures, Quam qua: sunt oculis subjects. fidelibus.
On this the Abbe? du Bos founds a criticism, wherein he gives painting the preference to poetry in the article of moving the passions ; principally on account of the greater clearness of the ideas it repre sents. 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 to 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 influence on their
[IV].
? It is true that the best sorts of painting, as well as the best sorts of poetry, are not much under stood in that sphere. But it is most certain that
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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 obscurity, 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 eter nity, and infinity, are among the most affecting we have: and yet perhaps there is nothing of which we really understand so little, as of infinity and eternity. We do not anywhere meet a more sublime descrip tion than this justly-celebrated one of Milton, wherein he gives the portrait of Satan with a dignity so suit able to the subject:
" He above the rest In shape and gesture proudly eminent
Stood like a tower; his form had yet not lost All her original brightness, nor appeared
Less than archangel ruined, and th' excess
Of glory obscured: as when the sun new risen Looks through the horizontal misty air
Shorn of his beams; or from behind the moon In dim eclipse disastrous twilight sheds
On half the nations ; and with fear of change Perplexes monarchs. "
Here is a very noble picture ; and in what does this
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poetical picture consist? In images 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 sepa rate them, and you lose much of the greatness ; and
join them, and you infallibly lose the clearness. The images raised by poetry 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 here after. * But painting, when we have allowed 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 passions, than those have which are more clear and deter minate. But where and when this observation may
? be applied to practice, and how far it shall be ex tended, will be better deduced from the nature of the subject, and from the occasion, than from any rulesbthat can be given.
I am sensible that this idea has met with opposi tion, and is likely still to be rejected by several. But let it be considered that hardly anything can strike the mind with its greatness, which does not make some sort of approach towards infinity ; which nothing can do whilst we are able to perceive its bounds; but to see an object distinctly, and to per
* Part V.
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ceive its bounds, is one and the same thing. A clear idea is therefore another name for a little idea. There is a passage in the book of Job amazingly sublime, and this sublimity is principally due to the terrible uncertainty of the thing described: In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth 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 ;
mine eyes ; there was silence; and heard a voice, Shall mortal man be more just than
an image was
I before
--
? God? We are first prepared with the utmost so lemnity for the vision ; we are first terrified, be fore 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 incomprehensible 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, to determine whether the painter did not intend something ludicrous. Sev eral painters have handled a subject of this kind, with aview of assembling as many horrid phantoms as their imagination could suggest; but all the designs I have chanced to meet of the temptations of St. Anthony
were rather a sort of odd, wild grotesques, than any thing capable of producing a serious passion. In all these subjects poetry is very happy. Its apparitions, its chimeras, its harpies, its allegorical figures, are
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grand and affecting ; and though Virgil 7s Fame and Homer's Discord are obscure, they are magnificent figures. These figures in painting would be clear enough, but I fear they might become ridiculous.
SECTION V. rowmz.
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 every thing 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 highest degree, is much stronger than the highest degree of pleasure ; and that it pre serves the same superiority through all the subordi nate gradations. From hence it that where the chances for equal degrees of suffering or enjoyment are in any sort equal, the idea of the suffering must always be prevalent. And indeed the ideas of pain, and, above all, of death, are so very affecting, that whilst we remain in the presence of whatever sup posed to have the power of inflicting either, im possible to be perfectly free from terror. Again, we know by experience, that, for the enjoyment of pleas
"* Part sect.
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1n'e, no great efforts of power are at all necessary; nay, we know that such efforts would go a great way
towardsdestroying our satisfaction: for pleasure must be stolen, and not forced upon us; pleasure follows the will; and therefore we are generally affected with it by many things of a force greatly infe1ior to our own. But pain is always inflicted by a power in some way superior, because we never submit to pain willingly. S0 that strength, violence, pain, 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 lest this enormous strength should be employed to the purposes of * rapine and de struction. That power derives all its sublimity from the terror with which generally accompanied, will appear evidently from its effect in the very few cases, in which may be possible to strip consider able degree of strength of its ability to hurt. When you do this, you spoil of everything sublime, and immediately becomes contemptible. An ox crea ture of vast strength but he an innocent creat1u'e,
extremely serviceable, and not at all dangerous; for which reason the idea of an ox by no means grand. bull strong too; but his strength of another
kind often very destructive, seldom (at least amongst us) of any use in our business; the idea of bull therefore great, and has frequently place in sub lime 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
* Vide Part H1. sect. 21.
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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 af fected with him, whose neck is clothed with thunder, the glory of whose nostrils is terrible, who swalloweth the ground with fiereeness and rage, neither believeth that it is the sound qf the trumpet? In this description, the useful character of the horse entirely disappears, and the terrible and sublime blaze out together. We have continually about us animals 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, or 'rhinoceros. Whenever strength is only useful, and employed for our benefit or our pleasure, then it is never sublime ; for nothing can act agreeably to us, that does not act in conformity to our will; but to act agreeably to our will, it must be subject to us, and therefore can never be the cause of a grand and commanding con ception. The description of the wild ass, in Job, is worked up into no small sublimity, merely by insist ing on his freedom, and his setting mankind at'defi ance; otherwise the description of such an animal could have had nothing noble 'in it. Who hath loosedI (says he) the bands of the wild ass? whose house have made the wilderness and the barren land his dwellings. He scorneth the multitude of the city, nei ther regardeth he the voice of the driver. The range of the mountains is his pasture. The magnificent de scription 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 furrow ? wiltthou
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141
trust him because his strength is great? -- Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? will he make a cove nant with thee? wilt thou take him for a servant for ever? shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him? 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 sub servient and innoxious. The race of (logs, in many of their kinds, have generally a competent degree of strength and swiftness; and they exert these and other valuable qualities which they possess, greatly toour convenience and pleasure. Dogs are indeed
the most social, affectionate, and amiable 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 unmanageable fierceness, the idea of a wolf is not
? it is not excluded from grand descrip tions and similitudes. Thus we are affected by strength, which is natural power. The power which arises from institution in kings and commanders, has the same connection with terror. Sovereigns are fre quently 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 approach men in power, are commonly struck with an awe whichItakes away the free use of their
despicable;
faculties. When
prepared my
seat in the street,
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(says J0b,) 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 consti tution, that very few are able to conquer but by mixing much in the business of the great world, or by using no small violence to their natural disposi tions. know some people are of opinion, that no awe, no degree of terror, accompanies the idea of power; and have hazarded to affirm, that we can
the idea of God himself without any such emotion. purposely avoided,'when first con sidered this subject, to introduce the idea of that
contemplate
? and tremendous Being, as an example in an argument so light as this; though frequently oc curred to me, not as an objection to, but as strong confirmation of, my notions in this matter.
in what am going to say, shall avoid presumption, where almost impossible for any mortal to speak with strict propriety. say then, that whilst we con sider the Godhead merely as he an object of the understanding, which forms complex idea of power. wisdom, justice, goodness, all stretched to degree far exceeding the bounds of our comprehension, whilst we consider the divinity in this refined and ab stracted light, the imagination and passions are little or nothing affected. But because we are bound,
the condition of our nature, to ascend to these pure and intellectual ideas, through the medium of sensi ble images, and to judge of these divine qualities by their evident acts and exertions, 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 sort of
great
hope,
?
SECTION XIII. BYMPATHY.
117
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 suffered to be indif ferent 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 passion may either par take of the nature of those which regard self-preser vation, and turning upon pain may be a source of the sublime; or it may turn upon ideas of
and then whatever has been said of the social affec tions, whether they regard society in general, or only
some particular modes of may be applicable here. by this principle chiefly that poetry, painting,
and other affecting arts, transfuse their passions from one breast to another, and are often capable of graft ing delight on wretchedness, misery, and death itself. It common observation, that objects which in the reality would shock, are in tragical, and such like representations, the source of very high species of
? This, taken as fact, has been the cause of much reasoning. The satisfaction has been com monly attributed, first, to the comfort we receive in
considering that so melancholy story no more than fiction and, next, to the contemplation of our own freedom from the evils which we see represented.
am afraid practice much too common in in quiries of this nature, to attribute the cause of feel ings which merely arise from the mechanical struc
pleasure.
pleasure;
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ture 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 nothing near so extensive as it is commonly believed.
'
SECTION XIV.
THE EFFECTS OF SYMPATHY IN THE DISTRESSES OF OTHERS
T0 examine this point concerning the effect of tragedy in a proper manner, we must previously con sider 11ow we are affected by the feelings of our fel low-creatures in circumstances 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 ap pearance, 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 we not read the authentic histories of scenes of this nature with as much pleasure as romances 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 height ened, if the sufferer be some excellent person who
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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 adhered to, than with the de served triumphs and uninterrupted prosperity of the other : for terror is a passion which always produces delight when it does not press too closely; and pity is a passion accompanied with pleasure, because it arises from love and social affection. Whenever we are formed by nature to any active purpose, the pas sion which animates 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 designed that we shouldbe united by the bond of sympathy, he has
? that bond by a proportionable delight; and there most where our sympathy is most wanted,
-_---in the distresses of others. If this passion was
simply painful, we would shun with the greatest care all persons and places that could excite such a pas sion; as some, who are so far gone in indolence as not to endure any strong impression, actually do. But the case is widely different with the greater part of mankind ; there is no spectacle we so eagerly pur sue, as that of some uncommon and grievous calam ity ; so that whether the misfortune is before our eyes, or whether they are turned back to it in history,
it always touches with delight. This is not an un mixed 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 with out our concurrence.
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SECTION XV.
OF THE EFFECTS OF TRAGEDY
IT is thus in real calamities. In imitated dis tresses the only difference is the pleasure resulting from the effects of imitation; for it is never so per fect, 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 representations no realities. The nearer it approaches the reality, and the further it removes us from all idea of fiction, the more perfect is its
? But be its power of what kind it will, it never
power.
approaches to what it represents. 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 decorations; 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 expec tation, let it be reported that a state criminal of high rank is on the point of being executed in the adjoin ing square; in a moment the emptiness of the thea tre would demonstrate the comparative 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
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121
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 capital, the pride of England and of Europe, I believe no man is so strangely wicked as to desire 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 either in real or fictitious distresses, our immunity from them which produces our delight; in my own mind can discover nothing like it. apprehend that this mistake owing to sort of sophism, by which we are frequently imposed upon arises from our not distinguishing between what indeed necessary condition to our doing or suffering anything in general, and what the cause of some particular act. If man kills me with sword, necessary condition to this that we should have been both of us alive before the fact; and yet would be absurd to say that our being both living creatures was the cause of his crime and of my death. So certain that absolutely necessary my life should be out of any imminent hazard, before
can take delight in the sulferings of others, real or imaginary, or indeed in anything else from any cause whatsoever. But then sophism to argue from thence that this immunity the cause of my delight either on these or on any occasions. No one can distinguish such cause of satisfaction in his own mind,I believe nay, when we do not suffer any very
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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.
SEOTION XVI. IMITATION.
THE second passion belonging to society is imita tion, or, if you will, a desire of imitating, and conse quently a pleasure in it. This passion arises from much the same cause with sympathy. For as sym pathy makes us take a concern in whatever men feel, so this affection prompts us to copy whatever they do; and consequently we have a pleasure in imitat ing, 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 pur poses 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 each other, without con straint to themselves, and which is extremely flatter ing to al_l. Herein it is that painting and many other agreeable arts have laid one of the principal founda tions of their power. And since, by its influence on
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our manners and our passions, 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 imita tor merely, and when to sympathy, or some other cause in conjunction with it. When the object repre sented 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 dung-hill, 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.
SECTION 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 imita tion entirely, and each followed the other, and so on
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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 begin ning of the world. To prevent this, God has planted
in man a sense of ambition, and a satisfaction
from the contemplation of his excelling his fellows in something deemed valuable amongst them. It is this passion that drives men to all the ways we see in use of signalizing 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 su preme 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, produces a sort of swelling and triumph, that is extremely grate ful 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 great ness, 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.
arising
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SE CTIO N XVIII. THE REOAPITULATION.
To draw the whole of what has been said into a few distinct p0ints:--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 circum stances; this delight I have not called pleasure, be cause it turns on pain, and because it is different enough from any idea of positive pleasure. What ever excites this delight, I call mblinw. The pas sions belonging 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 the society of sex. The passion belonging to this called love, and contains mixture of lust; its object the beauty of women. The other the great society with man and all other animals. The passion sub servient to this called likewise love, but has no mixture of lust, and its object beauty; which name shall apply to all such qualities in things as
induce in us sense of affection and tenderness, or some other passion the most nearly resembling these. The passion of love has its rise in positive pleasure;
like all things which grow out of pleasure, capa ble of being mixed with mode of uneasiness, that is, when an idea of its object excited in the mind with an idea at the same time of having irretrievably lost
it. This mixed sense of pleasure have not called
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pain, because it turns upon actual pleasure, and be cause it both in its cause and in most of its effects, of nature altogether different.
Next to the general passion we have for society, to 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 to put us in the place of an other in whatever circumstance he 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 Sect. 11. As to imitation and preference, nothing more need be said.
N X X. THE CoNCLUsIoN.
BELIEVED that an attempt to range and methodize some of our most leading passions would be good preparative to such an inquiry as we are going to make in the ensuing discourse. The passions have mentioned are almost the only ones which can be necessary to consider in our present design; though the variety of the passions great, and worthy, in every branch of that variety, of an attentive investi gation. The more accurately we search into the hu man mind, the stronger traces we everywhere find of His wisdom who made it. If discourse on the use of the parts of the body may be considered as hymn to the Creator the use of the passions, which are the organs of the mind, cannot be barren of praise to hiin, nor unproductive to ourselves of that noble and un_
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common union of science and admiration, which a con templation of the works of infinite wisdom alone can afford to a rational mind; whilst, referring 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 discover them clearly, and adoring their profundity
where we are lost in our search, we may be inquis itive without impertinence, and elevated without pride; we may be admitted, if I may dare to say so, into the counsels of the Almighty by a consideration of his works. The elevation of the mind ought to be the principal end of all our studios ; which, if they do not in some measure effect, they are of very little ser vice to us. But, besides this great purpose, a consid eration of the rationale of our passions seems to me very necessary for all who would affcct them upon solid and sure principles. It is not enough to know
them in general; to affect them after a delicate man ner, or to judge properly of any work designed to af fect them, we should know the exact boundaries of their several jurisdictions; we should pursue them tluough all their variety of operations, and pierce into the inmost, and what might appear inaccessible
parts of our nature,
? _
Quod latet arcane non enarrabile fibrfi.
Without all this it is possible for a man, after a con fused manner sometimes to satisfy his own mind of the truth of his work; but he can never have a cer tain determinate rule to go by, nor can he ever make his propositions sufficiently clear to others. Poets, and orators, and painters, and those who cultivate other branches of the liberal arts, have, without this
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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 own, not uncommon to be wrong in theory, and right in practice: and we are happy that so. Men often act right from their feelings, who afterwards reason but ill on them from principle but as impossible to avoid an attempt at such reasoning, and equally impossible to prevent its having some influence on our practice, surely worth taking some pains to have 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 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 among poems, pictures, engravings, statues, and
But art can never give the rules that make an art. This believe, the reason why art ists in general, and poets, principally, have been con fined in so narrow circle: they have been rather imitators of one another than of nature; and this with so faithful an uniformity, and to so remote an antiquity, that hard to say who gave the first model. Critics follow them, and therefore can do lit tle as guides. can judge but poorly of anything, whilst measure by no other standard than itself. The true standard of the arts in every man's pow er; and an easy observation of the most common, sometimes of the meanest things in nature, will give
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the truest lights, where the greatest sagacity and in dustry, that slights such observation, must leave 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 them selves; 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 nothing tends more to the corruption of science than to suffer it to stagnate. These waters must be troubled, be tbre 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 subservient 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 consid ered the affections themselves. I only desire one fa vor,--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 captions controversy, but of a sober and even forgiving examination ; that they are not armed at all points for battle, but dressed to visit those who are willing to give a peaceful entrance to truth.
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PART II.
SECTION I.
or THE PASSION causnn 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. * 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 eifect of the sublime in its highest degree; the inferior effects are admiration, reverence, and respect
SECTION 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. Whateve1' therefore is terrible, with regard to sight, is sublirne 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
"' Part I. sect. 3, 4, 7. T Part IV. sect. 6.
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may be dangerous.
There are many animals, who, though far from being large, are yet capable of rais ing ideas of the sublime, because they are considered as objects of terror. As serpents and poisonous ani mals of almost'all kinds. And to things of great
dimensions, if we annex an adventitious idea of ter ror, 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
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 indiffer ently the modes of astonishment or admiration and
? object
those of terror. Qdpfloq is in Greek either fear or wonder; 561. 1/dc is terrible or respectable; alde? w, to reverence or to fear. Vereor in Latin is what aZ5e? ru is in Greek. The Romans used the verb
stupeo, a term which strongly marks the state of an aston
ished mind, to express the effect either of simple fear,
or of astonishment; the word attonitus
struck) is equally expressive of the alliance of these ideas; and do not the French e? tonnement, 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.
(thunder
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ON THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL.
SECTION 111. OBSCURITY.
T0 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 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 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 prin cipally 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. A1 most all the heathen temples were dark. Even in the barbarous temples of the Americans at this day, they keep their idol in dark part of the hut, which 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 set ting terrible things, may use the expression, in their strongest light, by the force of judicious obscurity than Milton. His description of death in the second book admirably studied; astonish ing with what gloomy pomp, with what sign1ficant and expressive uncertainty of strokes and coloring, he has finished the portrait of the king of terrors
Part IV. sect. 14, 15, 16.
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" 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 description all is dark, uncertain, confused, terrible, and sublime to the last degree.
SECTION IV.
OF THE DIFFERENCE BF. T\VEl? N CLEARNESS AND OBSCU RITY wITH REGARD TO THE PASSIONS
Ir is one thing to make an idea clear, and another to make it afectirtg 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 some thing) 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 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 e'mott'on by the description than I could do by the best paint ing. This experience constantly evinces. The proper manner of conveying the a_fl"ect'ions of the mind from one to another is by words; there is a great insuffi ciency 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
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passions.
_
"1
presenting any image at all, by certain sounds adapted to that purpose; of which we have a suffi cient proof in the acknowledged and powerful effects of instrumental music. In reality, a great clearness helps but little towards affecting the passions, as it is in some sort an enemy to all enthusiasms whatsoever.
SECTION
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
THERE are two verses in Horace's Art of Poetry that seem to contradict this opinion; for which rea son I shall take a little more pains in clearing it up. The verses are,
Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures, Quam qua: sunt oculis subjects. fidelibus.
On this the Abbe? du Bos founds a criticism, wherein he gives painting the preference to poetry in the article of moving the passions ; principally on account of the greater clearness of the ideas it repre sents. 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 to 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 influence on their
[IV].
? It is true that the best sorts of painting, as well as the best sorts of poetry, are not much under stood in that sphere. But it is most certain that
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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 obscurity, 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 eter nity, and infinity, are among the most affecting we have: and yet perhaps there is nothing of which we really understand so little, as of infinity and eternity. We do not anywhere meet a more sublime descrip tion than this justly-celebrated one of Milton, wherein he gives the portrait of Satan with a dignity so suit able to the subject:
" He above the rest In shape and gesture proudly eminent
Stood like a tower; his form had yet not lost All her original brightness, nor appeared
Less than archangel ruined, and th' excess
Of glory obscured: as when the sun new risen Looks through the horizontal misty air
Shorn of his beams; or from behind the moon In dim eclipse disastrous twilight sheds
On half the nations ; and with fear of change Perplexes monarchs. "
Here is a very noble picture ; and in what does this
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poetical picture consist? In images 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 sepa rate them, and you lose much of the greatness ; and
join them, and you infallibly lose the clearness. The images raised by poetry 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 here after. * But painting, when we have allowed 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 passions, than those have which are more clear and deter minate. But where and when this observation may
? be applied to practice, and how far it shall be ex tended, will be better deduced from the nature of the subject, and from the occasion, than from any rulesbthat can be given.
I am sensible that this idea has met with opposi tion, and is likely still to be rejected by several. But let it be considered that hardly anything can strike the mind with its greatness, which does not make some sort of approach towards infinity ; which nothing can do whilst we are able to perceive its bounds; but to see an object distinctly, and to per
* Part V.
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ceive its bounds, is one and the same thing. A clear idea is therefore another name for a little idea. There is a passage in the book of Job amazingly sublime, and this sublimity is principally due to the terrible uncertainty of the thing described: In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth 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 ;
mine eyes ; there was silence; and heard a voice, Shall mortal man be more just than
an image was
I before
--
? God? We are first prepared with the utmost so lemnity for the vision ; we are first terrified, be fore 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 incomprehensible 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, to determine whether the painter did not intend something ludicrous. Sev eral painters have handled a subject of this kind, with aview of assembling as many horrid phantoms as their imagination could suggest; but all the designs I have chanced to meet of the temptations of St. Anthony
were rather a sort of odd, wild grotesques, than any thing capable of producing a serious passion. In all these subjects poetry is very happy. Its apparitions, its chimeras, its harpies, its allegorical figures, are
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grand and affecting ; and though Virgil 7s Fame and Homer's Discord are obscure, they are magnificent figures. These figures in painting would be clear enough, but I fear they might become ridiculous.
SECTION V. rowmz.
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 every thing 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 highest degree, is much stronger than the highest degree of pleasure ; and that it pre serves the same superiority through all the subordi nate gradations. From hence it that where the chances for equal degrees of suffering or enjoyment are in any sort equal, the idea of the suffering must always be prevalent. And indeed the ideas of pain, and, above all, of death, are so very affecting, that whilst we remain in the presence of whatever sup posed to have the power of inflicting either, im possible to be perfectly free from terror. Again, we know by experience, that, for the enjoyment of pleas
"* Part sect.
? ? ? I. 7.
it is is
is,
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1n'e, no great efforts of power are at all necessary; nay, we know that such efforts would go a great way
towardsdestroying our satisfaction: for pleasure must be stolen, and not forced upon us; pleasure follows the will; and therefore we are generally affected with it by many things of a force greatly infe1ior to our own. But pain is always inflicted by a power in some way superior, because we never submit to pain willingly. S0 that strength, violence, pain, 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 lest this enormous strength should be employed to the purposes of * rapine and de struction. That power derives all its sublimity from the terror with which generally accompanied, will appear evidently from its effect in the very few cases, in which may be possible to strip consider able degree of strength of its ability to hurt. When you do this, you spoil of everything sublime, and immediately becomes contemptible. An ox crea ture of vast strength but he an innocent creat1u'e,
extremely serviceable, and not at all dangerous; for which reason the idea of an ox by no means grand. bull strong too; but his strength of another
kind often very destructive, seldom (at least amongst us) of any use in our business; the idea of bull therefore great, and has frequently place in sub lime 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
* Vide Part H1. sect. 21.
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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 af fected with him, whose neck is clothed with thunder, the glory of whose nostrils is terrible, who swalloweth the ground with fiereeness and rage, neither believeth that it is the sound qf the trumpet? In this description, the useful character of the horse entirely disappears, and the terrible and sublime blaze out together. We have continually about us animals 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, or 'rhinoceros. Whenever strength is only useful, and employed for our benefit or our pleasure, then it is never sublime ; for nothing can act agreeably to us, that does not act in conformity to our will; but to act agreeably to our will, it must be subject to us, and therefore can never be the cause of a grand and commanding con ception. The description of the wild ass, in Job, is worked up into no small sublimity, merely by insist ing on his freedom, and his setting mankind at'defi ance; otherwise the description of such an animal could have had nothing noble 'in it. Who hath loosedI (says he) the bands of the wild ass? whose house have made the wilderness and the barren land his dwellings. He scorneth the multitude of the city, nei ther regardeth he the voice of the driver. The range of the mountains is his pasture. The magnificent de scription 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 furrow ? wiltthou
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141
trust him because his strength is great? -- Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? will he make a cove nant with thee? wilt thou take him for a servant for ever? shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him? 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 sub servient and innoxious. The race of (logs, in many of their kinds, have generally a competent degree of strength and swiftness; and they exert these and other valuable qualities which they possess, greatly toour convenience and pleasure. Dogs are indeed
the most social, affectionate, and amiable 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 unmanageable fierceness, the idea of a wolf is not
? it is not excluded from grand descrip tions and similitudes. Thus we are affected by strength, which is natural power. The power which arises from institution in kings and commanders, has the same connection with terror. Sovereigns are fre quently 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 approach men in power, are commonly struck with an awe whichItakes away the free use of their
despicable;
faculties. When
prepared my
seat in the street,
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(says J0b,) 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 consti tution, that very few are able to conquer but by mixing much in the business of the great world, or by using no small violence to their natural disposi tions. know some people are of opinion, that no awe, no degree of terror, accompanies the idea of power; and have hazarded to affirm, that we can
the idea of God himself without any such emotion. purposely avoided,'when first con sidered this subject, to introduce the idea of that
contemplate
? and tremendous Being, as an example in an argument so light as this; though frequently oc curred to me, not as an objection to, but as strong confirmation of, my notions in this matter.
in what am going to say, shall avoid presumption, where almost impossible for any mortal to speak with strict propriety. say then, that whilst we con sider the Godhead merely as he an object of the understanding, which forms complex idea of power. wisdom, justice, goodness, all stretched to degree far exceeding the bounds of our comprehension, whilst we consider the divinity in this refined and ab stracted light, the imagination and passions are little or nothing affected. But because we are bound,
the condition of our nature, to ascend to these pure and intellectual ideas, through the medium of sensi ble images, and to judge of these divine qualities by their evident acts and exertions, 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 sort of
great
hope,
?
