mind of the truth of his work; but he can never have a certain determinate rule to go by, nor can he ever make his propofitions fufficiently clear to others. Poets, and orators, and painters, and thofe who cultivate other branches of the liberal arts, have without this critical knowledge fucceeded well in their several provinces, and will fucceed; as among artificers there are many machines made and even invented without any exact knowledge of the principles they are governed by. It is, I own, not uncommon to be wrong in theory and right in practice; and we are happy that it is fo. Men often act right from their feelings, who afterwards reafon but ill on them from principle; but as it is impoffible to avoid an attempt at such reafoning, and equally impoffible to prevent its hav ing fome influence on our practice, furely it is worth taking fome pains to have it just, and founded on the bafis of fure experience. We might expect that the artists themfelves would have been our fureft guides; but the artists have been too much occupied in the practice: the philosophers have done little; and what they have done, was mostly with a view to their own schemes and fyf tems: and as for thofe called criticks, they have generally fought the rule of the arts in the wrong place; they fought it among poems, pictures, engravings, ftatues, and buildings. But art can never give the rules that make an art. This is, I be

lieve, the reafon why artifts in general, and poets principally, have been confined in fo narrow a circle; they have been rather imitators of one another than of nature; and this with so faithful an uniformity, and to fo remote an antiquity, that it is hard to fay who gave the first model. Criticks follow them, and therefore can do little as guides. I can judge but poorly of any thing, whilst I mea fure it by no other standard than itself. The true ftandard of the arts is in every man's power; and an eafy obfervation of the moft common, fometimes of the meaneft things in nature, will give the trueft lights, where the greatest fagacity and induftry that flights fuch obfervation, must leave us in the dark, or, what is worfe, amufe and miflead us by falfe lights. In an inquiry it is almoft every thing to be once in a right road. I am fatisfied I have done but little by these obfervations confidered in themselves; and I never fhould have taken the pains to digeft them, much less should I have ever ventured to publish them, if I was not convinced that nothing tends more to the corrup tion of fcience than to fuffer it to ftagnate. These waters must be troubled before they can exert their virtues. A man who works beyond the furface of things, though he may be wrong himself, yet he clears the way for others, and may chance to make even his errours fubfervient to the cause of truth. In the following parts I fhall inquire what

things they are that caufe in us the affections of the fublime and beautiful, as in this I have confidered the affections themfelves. I only defire one favour, that no part of this difcourfe may be judged of by itself, and independently of the reft; for I am fenfible I have not disposed my materials to abide the test of a captious controverfy, but of a fober and even forgiving examination; that they are not armed at all points for battle, but dreffed to visit those who are willing to give a peaceful entrance to truth.

THE END OF THE FIRST PART,

A PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY

INTO THE

ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS

OF THE

SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL.

PART II.

SECTION I.

OF THE PASSION CAUSED BY THE SUBLIME.

THE

HE and fublime HE paffion caufed by the great and fublime in nature, when thofe caufes operate moft powerfully, is aftonishment; 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 sublime, that,

*Part I. fect. 3, 4, 7.

far

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

SECT. II.

TERROUR.

NO paflion 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 cause of terrour be endued with greatnefs of dimensions 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 raifing 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 comparison greater. A level plain of a vast extent on land, is certainly no mean idea; the profpect of fuch a plain may be as ex

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

tenfive