SECT. VII.

VASTNESS,

GREATNESS of dimenfion is a powerful cause of the fublime. This is too evident, and the obfervation too common, to need any illuftration; it is not fo common to confider in what ways greatnefs of dimenfion, vaftness of extent or quantity, has the moft ftriking effect. For certainly, there are ways, and modes, wherein the fame quantity of extenfion fhall produce greater effects than it is found to do in others. Extenfion is either in length, height, or depth. Of thefe the length ftrikes leaft; an hundred yards of even ground will never work fuch an effect as a tower an hundred yards high, or a rock or mountain of that altitude. I am apt to imagine likewife, that height is lefs grand than depth; and that we are more ftruck at looking down from a precipice, than looking up at an object of equal height; but of that I am not very pofitive. A perpendicular has more force in forming the fublime than an inclined plane; and the effects of a rugged and broken surface seem stronger than where it is fmooth and polished. It would carry us out of our way to enter in this place into the cause of these appearances but certain it is they afford a

large and fruitful field of fpeculation. However, it may not be amifs to add to these remarks upon magnitude, that as the great extreme of dimenfion is fublime, fo the laft extreme of littleness is in fome measure fublime likewife; when we attend to the infinite divifibility of matter, when we pursue animal life into these exceffively small, and yet organized beings, that efcape the niceft inquifition of the fenfe, when we push our difcoveries yet downward, and confider thofe creatures fo many degrees yet fmaller, and the ftill diminishing. scale of existence, in tracing which the imagination is loft as well as the fenfe, we become amazed and confounded at the wonders of minuteness; nor can we diftinguish in its effect this extreme of littleness from the vaft itself. For divifion must be infinite as well as addition; because the idea of a perfect unity can no more be arrived at, than that of a complete whole, to which nothing may be added.

META SECT. VIII,

INFINITY.

ANOTHER fource of the fublime is Infinity ; if it does not rather belong to the laft. Infinity has a tendency to fill the mind with that fort of delightful horrour, which is the most genuine effect, and trueft teft of the fublime. There are scarce

any

any things which can become the objects of our fenfes, that are really and in their own nature infinite. But the eye not being able to perceive the bounds of many things, they feem to be infinite, and they produce the fame effects as if they were really fo. We are deceived in the like manner, the parts of fome large object are fo continued to any indefinite number, that the imagination meets no check which may hinder its extending them at pleasure.

if

Whenever we repeat any idea frequently, the mind, by a fort of mechanifm, repeats it long after the first cause has ceased to operate.* After whirl ing about, when we fit down, the objects about us ftill seem to whirl. After a long fucceffion of noises, as the fall of waters, or the beating of forgehammers, the hammers beat and the water roars in the imagination long after the firft founds have ceased to affect it; and they die away at last by gradations which are scarcely perceptible. If you hold up a straight pole, with your eye to one end, it will feem extended to a length almoft incredible. Place a number of uniform and equidiftant marks on this pole, they will cause the fame deception, and feem multiplied without end. The fenfes, ftrongly affected in fome one manner, cannot quickly change their tenour or adapt them

Part IV. fect. 12.

+Part IV. fect. 14.

N 3

felves

felves to other things; but they continue in their old channel until the ftrength of the first mover decays. This is the reafon of an appearance very frequent in madmen; that they remain whole days and nights, fometimes whole years, in the conftant repetition of fome remark, fome com, plaint, or fong; which having ftruck powerfully. on their difordered imagination in the beginning. of their phrenzy, every repetition reinforces it with new ftrength; and the hurry of their spirits, unrestrained by the curb of reafon, çontinues it ta the end of their lives.

SECT. IX.

SUCCESSION AND UNIFORMITY.

SUCCESSION and uniformity of parts are what conftitute the artificial infinite. 1. Succeffion; which is requifite that the parts may be continued fo long. and in fuch a direction, as by their frequent impulfes on the fenfe to imprefs the imagination with an idea of their progrefs beyond their actual li mits. 2. Uniformity; because if the figures of the parts fhould be changed, the imagination at every change finds a check; you are prefented at every alteration with the termination of one idea, and the beginning of another; by which means it be comes impoffible to continue that uninterrupted progreflion, which alone can ftamp on bounded

objects

objects the character of infinity.* It is in this kind of artificial infinity, I believe, we ought to look for the cause why a rotund has such a noble effect. For in a rotund, whether it be a building or a plantation, you can no where fix a boundary; turn which way you will, the fame object still seems to continue, and the imagination has no reft. But the parts must be uniform, as well as circularly difpofed, to give this figure its full force; because any difference, whether it be in the disposition or in the figure, or even in the colour of the parts, is highly prejudicial to the idea of infinity, which every change must check and interrupt, at every alteration commencing a new feries. On the fame principles of fucceffion and uniformity, the grand appearance of the antient heathen temples, which were generally oblong forms, with a range of uniform pillars on every fide, will be easily accounted for. From the fame caufe alfo may be derived the grand effect of the aifles in many of our own cathedrals. The form of a crofs ufed in fome churches. feems to me not fo eligible as the parallelogram of the antients; at least, I imagine it is not fo proper for the outside. For fuppofing the arms of the crofs every way equal, if you ftand in a direction

* Mr. Addison, in the Spectators concerning the pleafures of the imagination, thinks it is because in the rotund at one glance you fee half the building. This I do not imagine to be the real caufe.