FIFTY YEARS OF DARWINISM 37 



caves or with the most magmficent forests on the 

 face of the earth. There is no valid reason for 

 believing that any less danger lurked amid trees 

 of ordinary size or lay in wait for him by the 

 riverside, in the jungle, or the rock-strewn waste. 

 In the midst of life he was in death in every sol- 

 itary place that could aiford cover to an enemy; 

 on the mountain top probably least of all. 



The feelings inspired by the interior of a cathe- 

 dral are especially instructive in seeking the ex- 

 planation of the psychological effect. We may 

 be sure that the result is here produced by the 

 unaccustomed scale of the esthetic impression. 

 A cathedral the size of an ordinary church would 

 not produce it. However intensely we may ad- 

 mire, the sense of the subhme is not excited or 

 but feebly excited by the exterior of a cathedral, 

 nor does it accompany the profound intellectual 

 interest aroused by the sight of the pyramids. 

 The thrill of the sublime, in the sense in which the 

 term is here used, is, I do not doubt, the result of 

 surprise and wonder raised to their highest power 

 — a psychological shock at the reception of an 

 esthetic visual experience on an unwonted scale, 

 — ^vast as if belonging to a larger world in which 

 the insignificance of man is forced upon him. It 

 is not excited by the pyramids which are in form 

 but symmetrical hills of stone, nor does the ex- 

 terior of any building afford an experience suf- 

 ficiently remote to produce the feeling in any high 

 degree. 



