SUBLIME AND PLEASING SENSATIONS. 375 
explore, a new set of emotions, totally unlike those 
he before experienced, arise in his mind. In his 
long and gradual approach, the mountain itself 
seems to have changed its shape and its character: 
instead of one sublime and simple whole, it appears 
to have separated itself into innumerable ridges of 
gradual slopes, abrupt cones, or frightful precipices ; 
these again, as he advances further, seem to contract 
themselves more into ordinary dimensions, until, but 
for an occasional opening, from whence the appa- 
rently sunken summit peeps forth, he might fancy 
he was merely traversing a hilly or mountainous 
country. His pleasurable feelings alone are now 
excited, as he passes through the little villages, talks 
with the people, gathers a plant, catches an insect, 
or picks up a mineral. He enters, in short, into 
details which he can understand. He can now 
examine and explore what he sees; he is busied 
with things more suited to his every-day powers of 
contemplation, and, if his thoughts do not rest on 
the purely sublime, they are not pained by being 
overstretched. 
(257.) Such may not be thought an unapt illus- 
tration of the different effects produced upon us by 
the respective studies of astronomy and zoology: 
both have immediate reference to the power and 
wisdom of God; but the one is more suited to the 
generality of mankind than the other, and brings 
His attributes more home to their understandings. 
This quality being granted, does it not follow that 
it should be encouraged, fostered, and protected, as 
the most appropriate adjunct to revealed religion of 
all the physical sciences? Should it not, in fact, 
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