The second head to which the passions are referred, in relation to their final cause, is society. There are two kinds of society; the first is the society of the sex, the passion belonging to which is called love; it contains a mixture of lust, and its object is the beauty of women. The other is the great society with man, and all other animals; but this has no mixture of lust, though its object be beauty.(1) The passions belonging to the preservation of the individual, which are capable of affecting us with the strong emotions of

passion nearly allied to love: our astonishment at the sublime as often proceeds from an increased love, as from an increased fear. When, after the horrors of a tempestuous night, the poet hails us with a description of the beauties of the morning, we feel double enjoyment from the contrast. Our pleasure here must arise from the beautiful or the sublime. If from the beautiful, then we have a positive pleasure, which has had its origin, contrary to what the author advances, in a diminution of pain. If from the sublime, it is all we contend for; since here is a description, which, though destitute of terror, has the same effect that any increase of terror could have produced.

(1) Self-interest, and not beauty, may be the object of this passion: it is not from beauty in the man, we cement friendships; it is not from beauty in animals, that we value and maintain them; nor from the beauty of vegetables, that we improve them by culture: were this the case, there would be no society betwixt the deformed of mankind; we should entertain an abhorrence of every ill-looking, though useful and inoffensive animal; receive the painted snake to our bosom, and the spotted panther into our dwelling. Even in vegetables, we prefer use to beauty: "alba ligustra cadunt, vaccinia nigra leguntur." Reason, not sensation, certainly suggests our ideas of this species of beauty, and from the dictates of reason it is we admit of new connections. The infant, new to the world, finds all beauty in colour: as he grows older, shape, smoothness, and several other adventitious ideas are superadded, which his reason, not his senses, have suggested. Some, even among the adult, have no idea of what is called beauty in animals with which they are not conversant, as the beauty of horses, dogs, &c.; but an acquaintance with these animals, and a knowledge of their fitness, by particular symmetries, &c. to answer their own or our purposes, soon discover to us beauties of which we could otherwise have had no conception. Hence a great part of our perceptions of beauty arises not from any mechanical operation on the senses, capable of producing positive pleasure, but from a rational inference drawn with an eye to self-interest, and which may, in many instances, be deduced from self-preservation. Therefore, some ideas of beauty have their origin in self-preservation.

the sublime, turn wholly on pain and danger, but those of society, on our desire of enjoyment; hence, as the sublime had its rise in pain, so beauty has its source in positive pleasure.

The passion caused by the great and the sublime in nature, when these causes operate most powerfully, is astonishment; by which all the motions of the soul are suspended, with some degree of horror. Whatever also is terrible with regard to sight, is sublime, whether this cause of terror be endued with greatness of dimensions or not; for it is impossible to look to any thing as trifling,` or contemptible, that may be dangerous. To heighten this terror, obscurity, in general, seems necessary. When we know the full extent of any danger, when we accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension vanishes. Thus, in Pagan worship, the idol is generally placed in the most obscure part of the temple; which is done with a view of heightening the awe of its adorers. Wherefore it is one thing to make an idea clear, and another to make it affecting to the imagination. Nay, so far is clearness of imagery from being absolutely necessary to influence the passions, that they may be considerably operated upon, as in music, without presenting any image at all. Painting never makes such strong impressions on the mind as description, yet painting must be allowed to represent objects more distinctly than any description can do; and even in painting, a judicious obscurity, in some things, contributes to the proper effect of the picture. Thus, in reality, clearness helps but little towards affecting the passions; as it is, in some measure, an enemy to all enthusiasm what

soever. (1)

(1) Distinctness of imagery has ever been held productive of the sublime. The more strongly the poet or orator impresses the picture he would describe upon his own mind, the more apt will he be to paint it on the imagi

All general privations are great, because they are terrible;

Greatness of dimen

as vacuity, darkness, solitude, silence. sion is a powerful cause of the sublime. Infinity is another source; though perhaps it may be resolved into magnitude. In all objects where no boundary can be fixed to the eye, as in the inside of a rotund, there must necessarily arise the idea of greatness. Another source of greatness is difficulty. When any work seems to have required immense force and labour to effect it, as in Stonehenge, the idea is grand. Magnificence, too, or a great profusion of any things which are splendid or valuable in themselves, is sublime.

With respect to colours, such as are soft or cheerful (except, perhaps, a strong red, which is cheerful), are unfit to produce great images. An immense mountain, covered with a shining green turf, as the author expresses it, is nothing in this respect to one dark and gloomy. The cloudy sky is more grand than the blue; and night more sublime and solemn than day; therefore, in historical painting, a gay or gaudy drapery can never have a happy effect and in buildings, where an uniform degree of the most striking sublimity is intended, the materials should consist of sad and fuscous colours; and as darkness is productive of more sublime ideas than light, the inside should have all that gloom which may be consistent, at the

nation of his reader. Not that, like Ovid, he should be minute in description; which, instead of impressing our imagination with a grand whole, divides our idea into several littlenesses, We only think the bold yet distinct strokes of a Virgil far surpass the equally bold but confused ones of Lucan. The term painting, in poetry, perhaps implies more than the mere assemblage of such pictures as affect the sight; sounds, tastes, feelings, all conspire to complete a poetical picture: hence, this art takes the imagination by every inlet, and while it paints the picture, can give it motion and succession too. What wonder, then, it should strike us so powerfully! Therefore, not from the confusion or obscurity of the description, but from being able to place the object to be described in a greater variety of views, is poetry superior to all other descriptive arts.

same time, with showing the particular beauties of the architecture. Sounds also have a great power in producing the sublime: the noise of cataracts, raging storms, thunder; these overpower the soul, suspend its action, and fill all with terror. A sudden beginning also, or ceasing of sound, puts all our faculties on their guard. Low, tremulous, intermitting sounds, and the yelling of animals, all, as they inspire some degree of horror, conduce to exalt us into the sublime. Smells and tastes, particularly the ideas of excessive bitters or intolerable stenches, have some, though but a small share, in our ideas of greatness.

With respect to feeling, the idea of bodily pain in all the modes and degrees of labour, anguish, torment, is productive of the sublime; and nothing else in this sense can produce it. Hence, every cause of the sublime, with reference to the senses, evinces that the sublime is an idea belonging to self-preservation: that is therefore one of the most affecting we have; that its strongest emotion is an emotion of distress, and that no positive or absolute pleasure belongs to it.

Beauty is that quality, or those qualities, of bodies, by which they cause love, or some passion similar to it. This idea cannot arise from proportion, since in vegetables and animals there is no standard by which we can measure our ideas of proportion; and in man, exact proportion is not always the criterion of beauty; neither can it arise from fitness, since then all animals would have beauty; for every one seems best adapted to its own way of living; and in man, strength would have the name of beauty, which, however, presents a very different idea. Nor is it the result of perfection, for we are often charmed with the imperfections of an agreeable object. Nor, lastly, of the qualities of the mind; since such rather conciliate our esteem than our love. Beauty, therefore, is no criterion of reason, but

some merely sensible quality acting mechanically upon the human mind, by the intervention of the senses. I shall consider, therefore, says the author, in what manner these sensible qualities are disposed in such things as, by experience, we find beautiful, or which excite in us the passion of love, or some correspondent affection.

First, then, the qualities of beauty, as they are merely sensible qualities, are comparative smallness. Thus the diminutives of every language express affection. In the animal creation, exclusive of their own species, it is the small we are inclined to be fond of. Secondly, they must be smooth; a quality so essential, that few things are beautiful that are not smooth in trees and flowers, smooth leaves are beautiful, smooth slopes in gardens, smooth streams in landscapes. Thirdly, to have a variety in the direction of parts. Fourthly, to have those parts not angular, but melted, as it were, into each other. Fifthly, to be of a delicate frame, without any remarkable appearance of strength. Sixthly, to have its colours clear and bright, but not very strong and glaring. Seventhly, or if it should have any gloomy colours, to have it diversified with others. In sounds, the most beautiful are the soft and delicate; not that strength of note required to raise other passions, nor notes which are shrill, or harsh, or deep. It agrees best with such as are clear, even, smooth, and weak. Thus there is a remarkable contrast between the beautiful and the sublime: sublime objects are vast in their dimensions; beautiful ones comparatively small. Beauty should be smooth and polished; the great, rugged and negligent. Beauty should not be obscure; the great ought to be dark and gloomy. Beauty should be light and delicate; the great ought to be solid, and even massive.

The author comes next to consider in what manner the sublime and beautiful are produced. As the sublime is 2 A

VOL. IV.