it is worked up to fuch a pitch as to be capable of the fublime; it is brought juft to the verge of pain. Even when the cause has ceased, the organs of hearing being often fucceffively ftruck in a fimilar manner, continue to vibrate in that manner for fome time longer; this is an additional help to the greatness of the effect.

THE VIBRATIONS MUST BE SIMILAR.

BUT if the vibration be not fimilar at every impreffion, it can never be carried beyond the number of actual impreffions; for move any body as a pendulum, in one way, and it will continue to oscillate in an arch of the fame circle, until the known causes make it reft; but if after first putting it in motion in one direction, you push it into another, it can never reaffume the firft direction; because it can never move itself, and confequently it can have but the effect of that laft motion; whereas, if in the fame direction you act upon it feveral times, it will defcribe a greater arch, and move a longer time.

SECT.

SE C T. XIII.

THE EFFECT OF SUCCESSION IN VISUAL OBJECTS

EXPLAINED.

IF we can comprehend clearly how things operate upon one of our fenfes, there can be very little difficulty in conceiving in what manner they affect the reft. To fay a great deal therefore upon the corresponding affections of every sense, would tend rather to fatigue us by an useless repetition, than to throw any new light upon the subject, by that ample and diffuse manner of treating it; but as in this discourse we chiefly attach ourselves to the fublime, as it affects the eye, we fhall confider particularly why a fucceffive difpofition of uniform parts in the fame right line should be fublime,* and upon what principle this difpofition is enabled to make a comparatively small quantity of matter produce a grander effect, than a much larger quantity difpofed in another manner. To avoid the perplexity of general notions; let us fet before our eyes a colonnade of uniform pillars planted in a right line; let us take our stand in fuch a manner, that the eye may fhoot along this colonnade, for it has its best effect in this view. In our present fituation it is plain, that the rays from the first round pillar will caufe in the eye a vibration of

VOL. I.

* Part II. fect. 10.

Τ

that

that fpecies; an image of the pillar itfelf. The pillar immediately fucceeding increases it; that which follows renews and enforces the impreffion; each in its order as it fucceeds, repeats impulfe after impulfe, and stroke after ftroke, until the eye, long exercised in one particular way, cannot lofe that object immediately; and being violently roufed by this continued agitation, it presents the mind with a grand or fublime conception. But instead of viewing a rank of uniform pillars; let us sup pofe that they fucceed each other, a round and a fquare one alternately. In this cafe the vibration caused by the first round pillar perifhes as foon as it is formed; and one of quite another fort (the fquare) directly occupies its place; which however it refigns as quickly to the round one; and thus the eye proceeds, alternately, taking up one image, and laying down another, as long as the building continues. From whence it is obvious, that at the laft pillar, the impreffion is as far from continuing as it was at the very firft; becaufe in fact, the fenfory can receive no diftinct impreffion but from the laft; and it can never of itself refume a diffimilar impreffion: befides every variation of the object is a reft and relaxation to the organs of fight; and thefe reliefs prevent that powerful emotion fo neceflary to produce the fublime. To produce therefore a perfect grandeur in fuch things as we have been mentioning, there fhould be a perfect fimpli

city, an absolute uniformity in difpofition, shape, and colouring. Upon this principle of fucceffion and uniformity it may be asked, why a long bare wall fhould not be a more fublime object than a colonnade; fince the fucceffion is no way inter rupted; fince the eye meets no check; fince nothing more uniform can be conceived? A long bare wall is certainly not fo grand an object as a colonnade of the fame length and height. It is not altogether difficult to account for this difference, When we look at a naked wall, from the evenness of the object, the eye runs along its whole space, and arrives quickly at its termination; the eye meets nothing which may interrupt its progress; but then it meets nothing which may detain it a proper time to produce a very great and lasting effect. The view of a bare wall, if it be of a great height and length, is undoubtedly grand; but this is only one idea, and not a repetition of fimilar ideas: it is therefore great, not fo much upon the principle of infinity, as upon that of vaftness. But we are not fo powerfully affected with any one impulfe, unless it be one of a prodigious force indeed, as we are with a fucceffion of fimilar impulfes; because the nerves of the sensory do not (if I may ufe the expreffion) acquire a habit of repeating the fame feeling in fuch a manner as to continue it longer than its caufe is in action; besides all the effects which I have attributed to expectation and furprise

T 2

surprise in Sect. II. can have no place in a bare wall.

SECT. XIV.

LOCKE'S OPINION CONCERNING DARKNESS CONSI

A

DERED.

IT is Mr. Locke's opinion, that darkness is not naturally an idea of terrour; and that though an exceffive light is painful to the fenfe, that the greateft excefs of darkness is no ways troublesome. He obferves indeed in another place, that a nurse or an old woman having once affociated the ideas of ghofts and goblins with that of darknefs, night ever after becomes painful and horrible to the imagination. The authority of this great man is doubtlefs as great as that of any man can be, and it feems to ftand in the way of our general principle. We have confidered darkness as a caufe of the fublime; and we have all along confidered the fublime as depending on fome modification of pain or terrour: fo that if darkness be no way painful or terrible to any, who have not had their minds early tainted with fuperftitions, it can be no fource of the fublime to them. But, with all deference to fuch an authority, it feems to me, that an affociation of a more general nature, an allociation which takes in all mankind, may make

*

*Part II. fect. 3.

darkness