SUBLIMITY. 



SUBSIDIARY. 



670 



contemplate, but by the recollection or conception of other objects 

 which are associated in our imaginations with those before us, and con- 

 sequently suggested by their appearance, and which are interesting or 

 affecting, on the common and familiar principle of being the natural 

 object* of love, or of pity, or of fear, or veneration, or some other 

 common and lively sensation of the mind." (' Edin. Rev.,' vol. xviii., 

 and ' Essays.') 



The first part of this passage is either a truism or an absurdity. A 

 truism, if it be meant to state that as a mere sensation (without any 

 respect to all the sentient being had previously undergone, and which 

 that sensation would necessarily excite) an object in itself is not sub- 

 lime (a truism however which Mr. Alison asserts to be the conclusion 

 on which his speculations rest : chap, v., sec. 6) ; an absurdity, if it 

 be meant to state that an object has no intrinsic quality capable of 

 exciting that emotion. The size of .1 rock, for instance, is the condition 

 of its sublimity ; BO with the cataract make it a waterfall, and it 

 ceases to be sublime ; yet this difference of size is surely an intrinsic 

 quality in the object which excites the emotion ? 



The fundamental principle of Mr. Alison's theory is " that all objects 

 re beautiful or sublime which signify or suggest to us some simple 

 emotion of love, pity, terror, or any other social or selfish affection of 

 our nature ; and that the beauty or sublimity which we ascribe to 

 them consists entirely in the power they have acquired by association 

 or otherwise, of reminding us of the proper objects of these familiar 

 affections." (Ibid., and Alison's ' Essays,' i.) 



This theory is in the highest degree vague. It does not discriminate 

 what constitutes the sublime it doea not analyse that complex emo- 

 tion, and draw forth its characteristic ; and, moreover, in its sweeping 

 ity includes much that it cannot apply to. All objects which 

 excite terror are not beautiful nor sublime ; neither are all objects 

 which excite pity beautiful ; and so of the rest. To discriminat 

 which are from those which are not, is impossible on this theory. To 

 resolve the emotion of sublimity into association of ideas, is to say that 

 this special emotion is resolvable into the general law of the human 

 mind, but to avoid an analysis or characteristic statement of this special 

 emotion altogether. It is saying that theft is a crime, and referrible 

 to the general law of criminality, without once demarcating what con- 

 stitutes theft as a crime, distinguished from murder as a crime. 

 Attraction is the law which regulates the descent of an apple, and 

 association of ideas in like manner is the law which regulates the 

 operation of memory and the flights of imagination ; yet as memory 

 and imagination are distinct from the general law, as well as from each 

 other, BO also is the emotion of sublimity distinct from the emotion of 

 hatred or beauty. Burke, Knight, Kames, and Price endeavoured to 

 ascertain this distinction. Brown overlooked it, and Alison evades it. 

 Had the special law of sublimity been found, and it was then attempted 

 to be classed in its relation to the general law of the mind, the efforts 

 of Alison and Jeffrey would have been of great importance ; but in the 

 meanwhile it was assumed. 



It appears to us that the true method of attaining the knowledge of 

 this special law of emotion, is the method of all psychological inquiries, 

 namely, induction. Before attempting to detect the law which regulates 

 it, we must collect all, or a vast number of instances of the sublime, 

 and analysing the elements of each case, endeavour to discover one 

 primal element which u invariably a constituent of the emotion, and 

 without which all the other constituents wotdd not be able to form 

 that special emotion of sublimity. 



In noticing the theories of former writers we have found their 

 inductions imperfect ; they have selected too few instances, anil cou- 

 aequently when we came to select others, these theories were sub- 

 verted by the mere statement of them. It was sufHcient to di-|,m\ . 

 the theory of terror, to quote one instance wherein the terrible had no 

 place, and the same with the theory of mental energy. But these 

 theories, though incomplete, contain much that is true in their 

 analyse*. 



In proposing a new theory, founded on a wider range of induction, 

 we may observe that if any one instance of the universally acknow- 

 ledged sublime can be found in which no such element (as the one we 

 awert to be the ruling principle) be detected, then that single instance 

 is a proof of the incompleteness of our theory, and a more extensive 

 .!! will be necessary. 



It will be necessary for the sake of clearness to make use of purely 

 mental distinctions in treating this subject, though they are liable to 

 be misinterpreted as real distinctions ; accordingly we divide the 

 question of the sublime into three : 1. The material sublime or the 

 nuUiuie of nature. 2. The moral sublime or the sublime in human 

 i -i and ideas. 3. The emotion of sublimity, which these external 

 excite in us or that feeling in the mind which gives to certain 

 pin nomena of nature, or deeds of man, the attribute of sublimity. 

 i-lii-rly, the exciting cause of sublimity is vastness ; speak- 

 ing iuhjrrtirrly, the emotion excited is a sense of insignificance. 



I The material sublime. Examine every case of material sub- 

 limity, aiid the most primitive fact will be found to be vastnesa; 

 whatever feelings may simultaneously concur, this of vantness is in- 

 variable. Mere vastness is sublime. Vastness either of form or of 

 power. Hampstead Heath is not sublime, but Mont Blanc is. The 

 Thames is not, -iil>lim>-. but the ocean is. Solitude is sublime because 

 it is vast, that u, indulinib 1 . IJiit solitude in a room or garden is nut, 



sublime. A cataract is sublime, but not a waterfall, yet the one is 

 only larger than the other. Longinus has remarked that the light of a 

 small fire produces no emotion, but that the boiling furnaces of JEtna, 

 pouring out whole rivers of liquid flame, is sublime. Burke remarks 

 that all general privations are sublime because terrible, such as vacuity, 

 darkness, solitude, and silence. But they are sublime because' vast, 

 not because terrible ; for they are not necessarily terrible, and they are 

 necessarily vast, indefinite. 



These instances are sufficient to illustrate the principle. It will be 

 observed that there are some which seem more naturally to derive 

 then- sublimity from terror than from vastness, as ^-Etna for example. 

 But our object was to show that vastness was always a constituent, 

 even when other emotions came into play; and as we have already 

 seen instances where terror does not form ono constituent, and that 

 when it does form one, it is still accompanied by vastness, so we prove 

 thereby that vastness is the more general fact. Vastness is sublime as 

 vastness ; but terror is not sublime as terror. The difference between 

 a shower and a storm is purely quantitative, yet the storm alone is 

 sublime. 



II. The Moral sublime. It is obvious that the moral sublime must 

 differ from the material sublime in proportion as mind and matter 

 differ. Hence vastness, which in the external world is superficial (in 

 tftemo), in the moral world becomes intense (in intense*). Intensity of 

 will equals vastness of form or power. Mere intensity is sufficient to 

 produce the sublime. (Edipus is sublime. Lear, who appeals to the 

 heavens, "for they are old" like him, is sublime, from the very in- 

 tensity of his sufferings and his passions. Lady Macbeth is sublime 

 from the intensity of her will, which crushes every female feeling for 

 the attainment of her object. Setevola with his hand in the burning 

 coals exhibits an intensity of will which is sublime. It will be difficult 

 to find terror as an element of these cases of the sublime. Mr. Knight's 

 " mental energy" has here more truth ; but though a satisfactory ex- 

 planation of the moral sublime, yet it will not apply to the material 

 sublime. The intensity of power as a source of the moral sublime, 

 has been adopted by Mr. R. Blakey, in his ' History of the Philosophy 

 of Mind,' 1818. 



Such appear to us to be the objective qualities of sublimity, but the 

 peculiar emotion they excite has hitherto been thought undefiuable : 

 we shall nevertheless attempt it. 



III. The emotion of sublimity. As in considering objectively every 

 case of material or moral sublimity, we found as the primary and 

 invariable fact vastness or intensity, so in considering subjectively 

 every case of sublimity as an emotion, we shall find the primary and 

 invariable fact to be a sense of our own insignificance ; of our inferiority 

 to the object, or to the will which prompted the deed ; and this sense 

 of inferiority has guided mankind in the employment of a word ex- 

 pressing elevation for sublimity. Mere vastness excites this emotion 

 by exciting a corresponding sense of our smallness. Mere intensity 

 excites this emotion by exciting a corresponding sense of our feeble- 

 ness Vary the objects vary the emotions as you may, there will 

 invariably be this one feeling of comparative insignificance. Take as 

 an example the sublime words of Scripture, " I am the High and the 

 Lofty One, who inhabiteth eternity." Nothing can exceed the grandeur 

 of that idea, and he who conceives it conceives also, at the same time, 

 the corresponding idea of his own small and finite nature. In the 

 violent dashing of a cataract, in the roar of the ocean, in the violence 

 of the storm, or in the majestic quiet of Mont Blanc preserving its 

 calm amidst all the storms that play around it, or in the concentrated 

 will of a Sca;vola, Horace, Brutus, or (Edipus, in all these cases we are 

 moved by a vivid feeling of some greater power than our own, or some 

 will iin >re capable of suffering, more vast in its strength than our feeble 

 vacillating will. It is from this reason that an imaginative mind 

 experiences more emotions of sublimity than another. In proportion 

 as we comprehend the majesty of nature, or the amount of self-sacrifice 

 in an heroic action, we comprehend our own inferiority to them. 



In conclusion we may thus sum up our theory. The invariable 

 condition of sublimity in objects, either material or moral, is vastness 

 or intensity. The invariable condition of the emotion of sublimity 

 that which distinguishes this emotion from every other emotion is a 

 comprehension of this vastness with a simultaneous feeling of our own 

 comparative insignificance, together with a concomitant sense of pre- 

 sent security from any danger which might result from this superior 

 power. The antithesis to the emotion of sublimity is the emotion of 

 contempt. 



SUBMARINE DESCENT. [DIVING BELL.] 



sri; -Ml'LTIPLE. [ALIQUOT PART.] 



SUBORNATION OF PERJURY. [PEBJURY.] 



.si'UPCENA. [WITNESS.] 



SUBI'(ENA, WRIT OF, IN PLEADING. [PLEADING IN EQUITV * 



SUBSALTS. [SALTS ; CHEMICAL NOMENCLATURE, Nomendatti" 

 Salt*.] a ia not 



SUBSIDIARY. A quantity or symbol is so called whe^ so j ut ; l)n 

 essentially a part of a problem, but is introduced to help ^mo 

 The term is particularly applied to angles, since the ; h b caus 



tobies give a great 

 frequent introduction 



e hcausea the i r 



power over their management , e . UQ uegtion 

 ion, even in problems in whic' . , ^ calculate 



of angular quantity. For example, suppose it * r ^. n316 

 o.r + iVU-a'), where o = -2!H64, i = 3'0. x ~ 



. , ^ calculate 



