whom we have been speaking, could fo abstract his attention from any fufferings of his body, that he was able to endure the rack itself without much pain; and in leffer pains every body must have obferved, that when we can employ our attention on any thing elfe, the pain has been for a time fufpended: on the other hand, if by any means the body is indisposed to perform fuch geftures, or to be ftimulated into fuch emotions as any paffion ufually produces in it, that paflion itself never can arife, though its caufe fhould be never fo ftrongly in action; though it fhould be merely mental, and immediately affecting none of the fenfes. As an opiate, or fpirituous liquors, shall suspend the operation of grief, or fear, or anger, in spite of all our efforts to the contrary; and this by inducing in the body a difpofition contrary to that which it receives from these paffions.

SECT. V.

HOW THE SUBLIME IS PRODUCED.

HAVING confidered terrour as producing an unnatural tenfion and certain violent emotions of the nerves; it easily follows, from what we have just said, that whatever is fitted to produce fuch a tenfion must be productive of a paffion fimilar to terrour,* and confequently must be a fource of the

Part II. fect. 2.

fublime,

fublime, though it should have no idea of danger connected with it. So that little remains towards fhewing the cause of the fublime, but to fhew that the inftances we have given of it in the fecond part relate to fuch things, as are fitted by nature to produce this fort of tension, either by the primary operation of the mind or the body. With regard to fuch things as affect by the affociated idea of danger, there can be no doubt but that they produce terrour, and act by fome modification of that paffion; and that terrour, when fufficiently violent, raifes the emotions of the body just mentioned, can as little be doubted. But if the fublime is built on terrour, or some paffion like it, which has pain for its object, it is previously proper to inquire how any fpecies of delight can be derived from a caufe fo apparently contrary to it. Ifay delight, becaufe, as I have often remark ed, it is very evidently different in its caufe, and in its own nature, from actual and pofitive plea fure.

SE C T. VI.

HOW PAIN CAN BE A CAUSE OF DELIGHT.

PROVIDENCE has fo ordered it, that a state of reft and inaction, however it may flatter our indolence, fhould be productive of many inconveniencies; that it fhould generate fuch diforders,

às may force us to have recourse to fome labour, as a thing abfolutely requifite to make us pafs our lives with tolerable fatisfaction; for the nature of reft is to fuffer all the parts of our bodies to fall into a relaxation, that not only difables the members from performing their functions, but takes away the vigorous tone of fibre which is requifite for carrying on the natural and neceffary fecretions. At the fame time, that in this languid inactive ftate, the nerves are more liable to the most horrid convulfions, than when they are fufficiently braced and ftrengthened. Melancholy, dejection, defpair, and often felf murder, is the confequence of the gloomy view we take of things in this relaxed state of body. The beft remedy for all these evils is exercife or labour; and labour is a furmounting of difficulties, an exertion of the contracting power of the muscles; and as fuch refembles pain, which confifts in tenfion or contraction, in every thing but degree. Labour is not only requifite to preferve the coarser organs in a ftate fit for their functions; but it is equally neceffary to these finer and more delicate organs, on which, and by which, the imagination and perhaps the other mental powers act. Since it is probable, that not only the inferiour parts of the foul, as the paffions are called, but the understanding itself makes ufe of fome fine corporeal inftruments in its operation; though what they are, and where they

they are, may be fomewhat hard to fettle: but that it does make use of fuch, appears from hence; that a long exercise of the mental powers induces a remarkable laffitude of the whole body; and on the other hand that great bodily labour, or pain, weakens and fometimes actually deftroys the mental faculties. Now, as a due exercife is effential to the coarfe mufcular parts of the conftitution, and that without this rousing they would become languid and diseased, the very fame rule holds with regard to those finer parts we have mentioned; to have them in proper order, they must be shaken and worked to a proper degree,

SECT. VII.

EXERCISE NECESSARY FOR THE FINER ORGANS.

AS common labour, which is a mode of pain, is the exercise of the groffer, a mode of terrour is the exercife of the finer parts of the fyftem; and if a certain mode of pain be of fuch a nature as to act upon the eye or the ear, as they are the most delicate organs, the affection approaches more nearly to that which has a mental caufe. In all thefe cafes, if the pain and terrour are so modified as not to be actually noxious; if the pain is not carried to violence, and the terrour is not converfant about the prefent destruction of the perfon, as thefe emotions clear the parts, whether fine or

grofs,

grofs, of a dangerous and troublesome incum, brance, they are capable of producing delight; not pleasure, but a fort of delightful horrour, a fort of tranquillity tinged with terrour; which, as it belongs to felf-prefervation, is one of the ftrongest of all the paffions. Its object is the fublime.* Its highest degree I call aftonishment; the fubordinate degrees are awe, reverence, and refpect, which by the very etymology of the words, fhew from what fource they are derived, and how they stand diftinguished from pofitive pleasure.

SECT. VIII.

WHY THINGS NOT DANGEROUS PRODUCE A PASSION

LIKE TERROUR,

TA MODE of terrour or pain is always the caufe of the fublime. For terrour, or affociated danger, the foregoing explanation is, I believe, fufficient. It will require fomething more trouble to fhew, that fuch examples as I have given of the fublime in the fecond part, are capable of producing a mode of pain, and of being thus allied to terrour, and to be accounted for on the fame principles. And firft of fuch objects as are great in their dimenfions. I fpeak of vifual objects,

*Part II, fect. 2.1 † Part I. fect. 7. Part II. fect. 2.

SECT.