RUBLIU& 



SUBLIMITY. 



.u, while for camphor very thin fllnl-gUW VtiMoto AM tlAe.1, which 

 are called bumbalat, from the Italian kumlxJa t In both cases a vessel is 

 broken after each operation, to obtain the product Among other 

 utwtance* procured by sublimation in boaioiv acid, formerly called 

 jbttm f krjamit>. This add is sublimed in much larger Vewek, and 

 not usually mad* of glass ; while the vapour of sulphur is condensed 

 in a large dumber, or sulphur-house, and adhere* to the walls in the 

 form of a fine powder, known by the name of mhlimed ftrfpAiw, or 

 towen of (H/pAnr. [DrsTlLLATio*.] 



8UBLIMK (Geometry). It may be worth while to state in few 

 word*, and to prevent a reader of the older mathematicians from 

 imagining that they spoke rhaixodically, that the term tvblimt mvmttry 

 was technical, meaning the higher parts of geometry, in which the 

 infinitesimal calculus or something equivalent was employed. 



SUBLIMITY has two ligniflcatlon* : one, that of the quality or 

 circumstance in object*, which raise* the emotion named sublimity ; 

 the other, that of the emotion Itmlf. The nature of the sublime, 

 that is, those conditions of object* which invariably excite in us certain 

 emotion*, to which we give the common name of sublimity, is a subject 

 of great interest and importance in psychology, and has always been a 

 favourite subject of speculation. We shall briefly notice the more 

 celebrated theories which hare professed to embrace and explain all 

 " those conditions which excite the emotions," and endeavour to point 

 out their failures. 



Longinus, whose work (npl Etyovt) is the most ancient, treats only 

 of the sublime in writing. His treatise was meant aa a mipplt mmt 

 to the work of Ctcciliu* on the ' Sublime/ in which he says Cieciliua 

 brought a number of instances to show what i* the sublime, aa if cve.-y 

 one did not know that well enough. 



Burke'a ' Inquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful ' was the first 

 attempt to give philosophical precision to our notions of the sublime. 

 His theory is, that the essence of the sublime consists in terror operat- 

 ing either openly or latently ; and the delight which is .caused by this 

 terror is referred to those principles of human nature which he calls 

 " passions of self-preservation," and which turn on pain and danger. 

 These passions "are simply painful when their causes immediately 

 affect us ; they are delightful when we have an idea of pain and danger, 

 without being actually in such circumstances : this delight I have not 

 called pleasure, because it turns on paiu, and because it is different 

 enough from any idea of positive pleasure whatever excites this 

 delight I call sublime." (' Inquiry/ part i., sect. 18.) " Whatever, there- 

 fore, is terrible, with regard to Might, is sublime too, whether this 

 cause of terror be endued with greatness of dimensions or not" ( Ibid., 

 part ii., sect. 2.) Nothing can be more explicit than these two pas- 

 sages, nor more accurately exhibit the truth and error of his theory. 

 The error is glaring in the second passage. Terror is often one feeling, 

 exciting, in conjunction with other feelings, the emotion of sublimity, 

 but not always. The stars are sublime, yet there is no terror in the 

 emotion they excite. On the other hand there is a terror in a surgeon 

 about to operate, or in a pedagogue about to flog but no sublimity. 

 The gallows is very terrible, but not at all sublime. Yet Burke was 

 so chained down by his theory of terror being the ruling principle of 

 the sublime, as to write " 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 as serpents and 

 poisonous animals of all kinds." (Ibid., part ii., sect. 2.) Now, when 

 a man asserts that a serpent is sublime, bemuse it is terrible, it is 

 . .id. nt that he uses the word sublime in a different sense from 

 the rest of the world ; otherwise we say a serpent is in no case 

 sublime. 



That the terrible is often a constituent of the sublime there can be 

 no doubt, and Burke s error consists in seizing this occasional con- 

 Ktituent, and declaring it to be the " ruling principle." And further, 

 we must observe, that whenever a feeling of terror is found to be a 

 constituent of the sublime, there will also invariably be found another 

 feeling of security, correcting this terror. Thus, when we stand 

 beneath a rock, the terror consists in a natural apprehension of its 

 falling down and crushing us, which apprehension is instantly checked 

 by our feeling of security and confidence of its not falling. If this 

 feeling of security did not momently check the feeling of terror, the 

 effect would be terror only, and not miblimity, and we should escape 

 from it as swiftly as possible. So universal is this accompaniment of a 

 feeling of security correcting the feeling of danger in every case of 

 sublimity wherein terror is a constituent, that we are as much justi- 

 fied in lum-rting that " a feeling of security, either operating openly or 

 latently, is the ruling principle of the sublime," as Burke was in his 

 theory of terror. If terror had been found to be an invariable element 

 of the sublime, the correct statement of the theory would have been 

 " The sublime is the effect of the concurrence of the two fer 

 danger and security." But unfortunately there are many cases in 

 v.hich no f.wling of danger can be found to exist. Infinity and eternity 

 are sublime ; but although, as he says, " infinity has a tendency to fill 

 the mind with that sort of delightful horror which is the most 

 genuine effect and truest test of the sublime," yet it does not 

 necessarily nil the mind with horror; it may or may not, but in 

 either case it is sublime. Helvetius rays, ' When God said, ' Let 

 there IK- light,' and there was light : this image is sublime. But 

 should such an image inspire fearf Yej because it is necessarily 



associated In our minds with the idea of the Creator of such a prodigy ; 

 ami being then seized in an involuntary manner with a dread of the 

 :iuth..r of light, we feel the sensation of a commencing terror." r DII 

 Man,' vol. ii.) Now we contend that although fear would arise 

 from such a train of thought, yet this train of thought is by no 

 mean* a MMMtory sequence to the image" Uod said, Let then- 

 be light, and there was light" It may or may not arise in the 

 mind, but the sublimity produced by the image is not at all dependent 

 upon it 



Lord Kames has a chapter in his ' Elements of Criticism/ on the 

 sublime. He says, " A beautiful object plaeed AtjA, appearing more 

 agreeable than formerly, produces in the spectator a new emotion, 

 termed the emotion of sublimity ; and every other emotion mtmlJin;/ 

 this emotion of elevation, is called by the same name." He has here 

 the mere etymological notion of sublimity as something elevated, 

 (See Or. Parr's observations on the derivation of sublime from 

 limnm, in the Appendix to Dugald Stewart's ' I'hilo*. Kssays.') That 

 there is little to be learnt from such an inquiry is evident. 



Mr. Payne Kuight, in his ' Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of 

 Taste/ puts forth the theory that the sublime is the effect of the influ- 

 ence of nuntid entry;/ exulting a sympathetic energy in the mind of the 

 spectator or reader. The objections to this are the same aa those to 

 Burke's theory, namely, that it embraces a portion of the truth, which 

 it would substitute for the whole truth. We have only to reflect an 

 instant, and numberless instances of the sublime arise in which no 

 mental energy is implied. Solitude, for example, is certainly sublime ; 

 so are infinity, eternity, Mont Blanc, &c. Mental energy is perhaps a 

 more comprehensive formula for sublimity than terror, but it is still 

 incomplete ; and if one instance of sublimity can be quoted which dors 

 not contain the element asserted to be its ' ruling principle,' it is 

 obvious that the theory must be erroneous. 



Dugald Stewart's ' Essay on the Sublime ' is entirely philological, 

 and as such alone worthy of attention. 



Dr. Thomas Brown combats the notion of a universal sublime, but 

 avoids the real question altogether. All that is positive in his 1 

 on the subject is that the sublime and beautiful are not two < i 

 classes of emotions, but the same class, differing only in degree. " It 

 is," says he, " as in the thermometric scale, by adding one portion of 

 caloric after another, we arise at last, after no very long progress, from 

 the cold of freezing to the heat at which water boils ; though ovir feel- 

 ings at these two points are as different as if they had arisen from 

 causes that had no resemblance ; certainly as different as our emotions 

 of sublimity and beauty." (' Lectures on Philos. of Mind,' h ii.) 

 Nothing can well be more erroneous than to take an analogy as a proof. 

 Misled by his analogy, Dr. Brown has falsified the whole nature of tin- 

 sublime, which, according to him, is but a larger or intmsrr form of 

 the beautiful, whereas it differs essentially and antagonistically. He 

 takes the instance of a stream gently gliding through fields rich with 

 all the luxuriance of summer, overshadowed at times by the foliage 

 that hangs over it from bank to bank. This is beautiful. He then 

 traces it on to a majestic river, which flows on and deposits itself in 

 the ocean. Here it becomes sublime. And this sublimity he thinks 

 merely the last in the progressive series of emotions, as the boiling- 

 point is the last in the progressive series of ascending heat. " If we 

 were to contemplate this continued progress, we should have a series 

 of emotions which might at each moment be similar to the preceding 

 emotion, but which would become at last so different from our earliest 

 feelings that we should scarcely think of them as feelings of one class." 

 (Ibid.) 



The answer to this is, that upon a similar principle of analogical 

 reasoning, you might trace the " progressive series " of feelings which 

 the man underwent from his earliest childhood; and when this scries 

 had conducted him to the gallows, you might say that his feelings at 

 that moment were so different from his earliest feelings, that we .should 

 scarcely think of them as feelings of one class. Probably not. Nor 

 should we, in our ethical philosophy, class the crimes which brought 

 him to the gallows, with the innocence which commenced the " pro- 

 gressive series " of his emotions. 



The whole of Dr. Brown's lecture on this subject is trivial or con- 

 fused ; and because he is unable to analyse the feeling itself, he boldly 

 pronounces it not to be analysed. " It is the vain attempt to define 

 what cannot be defined," he says, " that has led to all the erroi 

 supposed mysteries in the theory of sublimity. Sublimity is not one 

 emotion, but various emotions, that have a certain resemblance the 

 sublime in itself is nothing ; or at least it is only a mere name, indica- 

 tive of our feeling of the resemblance of certain affections of our mind, 

 excited by objects material or mental, that agree perhaps in no 

 circumstance, but in that analogous undefinable emotion which they 

 excite." We maintain, on the contrary, that sublimity i." unr emotion, 

 not various similar emotions. It is itself complex, made np of various 

 feelings ; but it is one specific feeling, which preserves its cliaran 

 throughout the various shades of difference in the objects \vhirh 

 excite it. 



Mr. Alison's ' Essays on the Principles of Taste ' avoid the real 



tion of sublimity, and the same must be said of his reviewer, Franris 



. who sums up his theory in these words : " The emotions which 



we experience from the contemplation of sublimity or beauty are not 



produced by any physical or intrinsic quality in the objects which wo 



