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difcovered to have operated on each writer, and have caufed him 

 to deviate from the opinions of the reft. The love of fyftem 

 appears to have narrowed the view of the philofophical enquirer. 

 He wifhed to fimpHfy the principle of fublimity, and perceiving 

 that fome terrible objeds were highly fublime, he concluded that 

 terror was that principle. The fame difpofition feems to have 

 operated, though in a different manner, on Lord Kaims. Anxious 

 to unite in'one elegant fyftem the principles of tafte and morality, 

 and to difcover in every part of our nature a new fource of 

 happinefs, he was led to pronounce that no difagreeable paflion 

 could produce the fublime ^ and to diftinguifh it from beauty, 

 the other fpccies of agrceablenefs, only by a fmgle circumflance, 

 that of greatnefs. Dodor Prieftley, with the cool obfervation of 

 a metaphyfician, confiders merely the degree of exercife which 

 great objeds give to our faculties : and Longinus, in the ardour 

 of literary compofition, attending only to the tranfport which a 

 writer experiences when a noble idea prefcnts itfelf to his view, 

 has defcribed the fublime by faying, » that the mind is elevated 

 " by it, and fo fenfibly affeded as to fwell in tranfport and 

 « inward pride, as if what is only heard or read were its own 

 " invention " A defire of reconciling the various fyftems of 

 former writers, fuggefted to Dodor Blair the conjedure, that 

 power was the fundamental quality, but he himfelf doubted of 

 its fufficiency. Thefe opinions I propofe to confider, and perhaps 

 the refult may be a fyftem which, though lefs fimplc, ftiall have 

 the advantage, to ufe the language of philofophy, of explaining 

 all the phaenomena. 



( C 2 ) Doctor 



