powerfully, is astonishment; and astonishment is that state of the foul, in which all its motions are fufpended, with fome degree of horrour.* In this cafe the mind is fo entirely filled with its object, that it cannot entertain any other, nor by confequence reafon on that object which employs it. Hence arifes the great power of the fublime, that,

Part I. fect. 3, 4, 7.

far

far from being produced by them, it anticipates our reasonings, and hurries us on by an irresistible force. Aftonishment, as I have faid, is the effect of the fublime in its higheft degree; the inferiour effects are admiration, reverence, and refpect.

SECT. II.

TERROUR.

NO paffion fo effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reafoning as fear. * For fear being an apprehenfion of pain or death, it operates in a manner that refembles actual pain. Whatever therefore is terrible, with regard to fight, is fublime too, whether this caufe of terrour be endued with greatnefs of dimenfions or not; for it is impoffible to look on any thing as trifling, or contemptible, that may be dangerous. There are many animals, who though far from being large, are yet capable of raising ideas of the fublime, because they are confidered as objects of terrour; as ferpents and poifonous animals of almost all kinds. And to things of great dimenfions, if we annex an adventitious idea of terrour, they become without comparifon greater. A level plain of a vast extent on land, is certainly no mean the profpect of fuch a plain may be as ex

idea;

Part IV. fect. 3, 4, 5, 6.

tenfive

tenfive as a profpect of the ocean: but can it ever fill the mind with any thing fo great as the ocean itfelf? This is owing to feveral caufes; but it is owing to none more than this, that the ocean is an object of no small terrour. Indeed terrour is in all cafes whatsoever, either more openly or latently, the ruling principle of the fublime. Several languages bear a strong teftimony to the affinity of thefe ideas. They frequently use the fame word, to fignify indifferently the modes of astonishment or admiration and thofe of terrour. autos is in Greek, either fear or wonder; devos is terrible or refpectable; aidew, to reverence or to fear. Vereor in Latin, is what aidew is in Greek. The Romans used the verb stupeo, a term which strongly marks the state of an aftonished mind, to exprefs the effect either of fimple fear, or of aftonishment; the word attonitus (thunder-ftruck) is equally expreffive of the alliance of these ideas; and do not the French etonnement, and the English astonishment and amazement, point out as clearly the kindred emotions which attend fear and wonder? They who have a more general knowledge of languages, could produce, I make no doubt, many other and equally ftriking examples.

SECT.

TO make any thing very terrible, obfcurity* seems in general to be neceffary. When we know the full extent of any danger, when we can accuf tom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehen, fion vanishes. Every one will be fenfible of this, who confiders how greatly night adds to our dread, in all cafes of danger, and how much the notions of ghofts and goblins, of which none can form clear ideas, affect minds which give credit to the popular tales concerning fuch forts of beings. Thofe defpotick governments, which are founded on the paffions of men, and principally upon the paflion of fear, keep their chief as much as may be from the publick eye. The policy has been the fame in many cafes of religion. Almoft all the heathen temples were dark. Even in the barbarous temples of the Americans at this day, they keep their idol in a dark part of the hut, which is confecrated to his worship. For this purpofe too the druids performed all their ceremonies in the bofom of the darkest woods, and in the fhade of the oldest and moft fpreading oaks. No perfon feems better to have understood the fecret of

* Part IV. fect. 14, 15, 16.

heightening,

heightening, or of setting terrible things, if I may ufe the expreffion, in their strongest light, by the force of a judicious obfcurity, than Milton. His defcription of death in the fecond book is admirably studied; it is aftonishing with what a gloomy pomp, with what a fignificant and expressive uncertainty of strokes and colouring, he has finished the portrait of the king of terrours:

The other shape,

If fhape it might be call'd that shape had none
Diftinguishable, in member, joint, or limb;
Or fubftance might be call'd that shadow seem'd ;
For each feem'd either; black he stood as night;
Fierce as ten furies; terrible as hell ;

And hook a deadly dart. What feem'd his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.

In this description all is dark, uncertain, confused, terrible, and sublime to the last degree.

SECT. IV.

OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CLEARNESS AND OBSCURITY WITH REGARD TO THE PASSIONS.

IT is one thing to make an idea clear, and another to make it affecting to the imagination. If I make a drawing of a palace, or a temple, or a landVOL. I. scape,

M