On the idea of sublime, by Edmund Burke.
Edmund Burke, A
Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the
Beautiful, 1756
No passion so effectually robs
the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear. Whatever
therefore is terrible,
with regard to sight,
is sublime too
whether this cause of terror
be endued with greatness
of dimensions or
not. There are many animals, who though far from being large, are yet capable
of raising ideas of the
sublime, because they are considered as objects of terror, as serpents and poisonous animals of
almost all kinds. And to things of great dimensions, if we annex and adventitious idea of terror, they
become without
comparison greater. A level plain of vast extent of land, is certainly
no mean idea; the prospect of such a plain may be as extensive as a prospect of
the ocean; but can it ever fill the mind with any thing as great as the ocean itself?
To make any thing very terrible, obscurity seems in general to be necessary. When we know
the full extent of any danger, when we can
accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension vanishes. Every one
will be sensible of this, who considers how greatly night adds to our dread, in all cases of danger, and how much the notions of ghosts and goblins, of which none can form clear ideas, affect minds, which
give credit to the popular
tales concerning such
sorts of beings.
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