![]() ![]() Every one will be sensible of this, who considers how greatly night adds to our dread, in all cases of danger, and how much the notions of ghosts and goblins, of which none can form clear ideas, affect minds which give credit to the popular tales concerning such sorts of beings. When we know the full extent of any danger, when we can accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension vanishes. To make anything very terrible, obscurity seems in general to be necessary. The Romans used the verb stupeo, a term which strongly marks the state of an astonished mind, to express the effect either of simple fear, or of astonishment the word attonitus (thunderstruck) is equally expressive of the alliance of these ideas and do not the French étonnement, 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. ![]() is in Greek either fear or wonder is terrible or respectable, to reverence or to fear. They frequently use the same word to signify indifferently the modes of astonishment or admiration and those of terror. Several languages bear a strong testimony to the affinity of these ideas. Indeed terror is in all cases whatsoever, either more openly or latently, the ruling principle of the sublime. A level plain of a vast extent on land, is certainly no mean idea the prospect of such a plain may be as extensive as a prospect of the ocean but can it ever fill the mind with anything so great as the ocean itself? This is owing to several causes but it is owing to none more than this, that the ocean is an object of no small terror. And to things of great dimensions, if we annex an adventitious idea of terror, they become without comparison greater. As serpents and poisonous animals of almost all kinds. ![]() There are many animals, who, though far from being large, are yet capable of raising ideas of the sublime, because they are considered as objects of terror. Whatever therefore is terrible, with regard to sight, is sublime too, whether this cause of terror be endued with greatness of dimensions or not for it is impossible to look on anything as trifling, or contemptible, that may be dangerous. For fear being an apprehension of pain or death, it operates in a manner that resembles actual pain. No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear. The cause of this I shall endeavor to investigate hereafter. When danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply terrible but at certain distances, and with certain modifications, they may be, and they are, delightful, as we every day experience. But as pain is stronger in its operation than pleasure, so death is in general a much more affecting idea than pain because there are very few pains, however exquisite, which are not preferred to death: nay, what generally makes pain itself, if I may say so, more painful, is, that it is considered as an emissary of this king of terrors. Nay, I am in great doubt whether any man could be found, who would earn a life of the most perfect satisfaction at the price of ending it in the torments, which justice inflicted in a few hours on the late unfortunate regicide in France. ![]() Without all doubt, the torments which we may be made to suffer are much greater in their effect on the body and mind, than any pleasures which the most learned voluptuary could suggest, or than the liveliest imagination, and the most sound and exquisitely sensible body, could enjoy. I say the strongest emotion, because I am satisfied the ideas of pain are much more powerful than those which enter on the part of pleasure. Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling. ![]()
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