Mr. Alison s' Essays on the Principles of Taste' avoid the real ques tion of sublimity, and the same must be said of his reviewer, Francis Jeffrey, who sums up his theory in these words : " The emotions which we experience from the contemplation of sublimity or beauty are not produced by any physical or intrinsic quality in the objects which we contemplate, but by the recollection or conception of other objects which are associated in our imaginations with those before us,and con sequently suggested by their appearance, and which are interesting or affecting, on the common and familiar principle of being the natural objects of love, or of pity, or of fear, or veneration, or some other common and lively sensation of the mind." (` Edin. Rev.,' vol. xviii., and Essays?) The first part of this passage is either a truism or an absurdity. A truism, if it. be meant to state that as a mere sensation (without any respect to all the sentient being had previously undergone, and which that sensation would necessarily excite) an object in itself is not sub lime (a truism however which Mr. Alison asserts to be the conclusion on which his speculations rest : chap. v., sec. 6); an absurdity, if it be meant to state that an object has no intrinsic quality capable of exciting that emotion. The size of a rock, for instance, is the condition of its sublimity.; so with the cataract—make it a waterfall, and it ceases to be sublime ; yet this difference of size is surely an intrinsic quality in the object which excites the emotion I The fundamental principle of Mr. Alison's theory is " that all objects are beautiful or sublime which signify or suggest to us some simple emotion of love, pity, terror, or any other social or selfish affection of our nature ; and that the beauty or sublimity which we ascribe to them consists entirely in the power they have acquired by association or otherwise, of reminding us of the proper objects of these familiar affections." (Ibid., and Alison's' Essays, i.) This theory is in the highest degree vague. It does not discriminate what constitutes the sublime—it does not analyse that complex emo tion, and draw forth its characteristic ; and, moreover, in its sweeping generality includes much that it cannot apply to. All objects which excite terror are not beautiful nor sublime ; neither are all objects which excite pity beautiful ' • and so of the rest. To discriminate those which are from those which are not, is impossible on this theory. To resolve the emotion of sublimity into association of ideas, is to say that this special emotion is revolvable into the general law of the human mind, but to avoid an analysis or characteristic statement of this special emotion altogether. It is saying that theft is a crime, and referrible to the general law of criminality, without once demarcating what con stituters theft as a crime, distinguished from murder as a crime. Attraction is the law which regulates the descent of an apple, and association of ideas in like manner is the law which regulates the operation of memory and the flights of imagination ; yet as memory and imagination are distinct from the general law, as well as from each other, so also is the emotion of sublimity distinct from the emotion of hatred or beauty. Burke, Knight, Banes, and Price endeavoured to ascertain this distinction. Brown overlooked it, and Alison evades it. Had the special law of sublimity been found, and it was then attempted to be classed in its relation to the general law of the mind, the efforts of Alison and Jeffrey would have been of great importance ; but in the meanwhile it was assumed.
It appears to us that the true method of attaining the knowledge of this special law of emotion, is the method of all psychological inquiries, namely, induction. Before attempting to detect the law which regulates it, we must collect all, or a vast number of instances of the sublime, and analysing the elements of each case, endeavour to discover one primal element which is invariably a constituent of the emotion, and without which all the other constituents would not be able to form that special emotion of sublimity.
In noticing the theories of former writer's we have found their inductions imperfect ; they have selected too few instances, and con sequently when we came to select others, these theories were sub verted by the mere statement of them. It was sufficient to disprove
the theory of terror, to quote one instance wherein the terrible had no place, and the same with the theory of mental energy. But these theories, though incomplete, contain much that is true in their analyses.
In proposing a now theory, founded on a wider range of induction, we may observe that if any one instance of the universally acknow ledged sublime can be found in which no such element (as the one we assert to be the ruling principle) be detected, then that single instance is a proof of the incompleteness of our theory, and a more extensive induction will be necessary.
It will be necessary for the sake of clearness to make use of purely mental distinctions in treating this subject, though they are liable to be misinterpreted as real distinctions ; accordingly we divide the question of the sublime into three :—I. The material sublime—or the sublime of nature. 2. The moral sublime—or the sublime in human actions and ideas. 3. The emotion of sublimity, which these external things excite in us—or that feeling in the mind which gives to certain phenomena of nature, or deeds of man, the attribute of sublimity. Speaking ottieetirely, the exciting cause of sublimity is vastness; speak jug suhjedirely, the emotion excited is a sense of insignificance.
I. The material sublime. Examine every case of material sub limity, and the most primitive fact will be found to be vastness; whatever feelings may simultaneously concur, this of vastness is in variable. Mere vastness is sublime. Vastness either of form or of power. liampetead Heath is not sublime, but Mont Blanc is. The Thames is not sublime, but the ocean is. Solitude is sublime—because it Is vast, that is, indefinite. But solitude in a room or garden is not sublime. A cataract is sublime, but not a waterfall, yet the one is only larger than the other. Longinus has remarked that the light of a small fire produces no emotion, but.that the boiling furnaces of 'Etna, pouring out whole rivers of liquid flame, is sublime. Burke remarks that all general privations are sublime because terrible, such as vacuity, darkness, -solitude, and silence. But they are sublime because' vast, not because terrible; for they are not necessarily terrible, and they are necessarily vast, indefinite.
These instances are sufficient to illustrate the principle. It will be observed that there are some which seem more naturally to derive their sublimity from terror than from vastness, as 'Etna for example. But our object was to show that vastness was always a constituent, even when other emotions came into play; and as we have already seen instances where terror does not form one constituent, and that when it does form one, it is still accompanied by vastness, so we prove thereby that vastness is the more general fact. Vastness is sublime as vastness ; but terror is not sublime as terror. The difference between a shower and a storm is purely quantitative, yet the storm alone is sublime.
II. The Moral sublime. It is obvious that the moral sublime must differ from the material sublime in proportion as mind and matter differ. Hence vastness, which in the external world is 'superficial (in extenso), in the moral world becomes intense (in intenso). Intensity of will equals vastness of form or power. Mere intensity is sufficient to produce the sublime. fEdjpus is sublime. Lear, ysho appeals to the heavens, "for they are old" like him, is sublime, from the very in tensity of .his sufferings and his passions. Lady Macbeth is sublime from the intensity of her will, which crushes every female feeling for the attainment of her object. Beinvola, with his hand in the burning coals exhibits an intensity of will which is sublime. It will be difficult to find terror as an element of these cases of the sublime. Mr. Knight's " mental energy" .has here more truth ; but though a satisfactory ex planation of the moral sublime, yet it will not apply to the material sublime. The intensity of power as a source of the moral Sublime, has been adopted by Mr. IL Blakey, in his ' History of the Philosophy Of 111m d; 1843.