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, 

 b b 4 



