And to things of great dimensions, if we annex an adventitious idea of terror, they become without comparison greater. As serpents and poisonous animals of almost all kinds. 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. Whatever therefore is terrible, with regard to sight, is sublime too, whether this cause of terror be endued with greatness of dimensions or not for it is impossible to look on anything as trifling, or contemptible, that may be dangerous. For fear being an apprehension of pain or death, it operates in a manner that resembles actual pain. No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear. Astonishment, as I have said, is the effect of the sublime in its highest degree the inferior effects are admiration, reverence, and respect. Hence arises the great power of the sublime, that, far from being produced by them, it anticipates our reasonings, and hurries us on by an irresistible force. In this case the mind is so entirely filled with its object, that it cannot entertain any other, nor by consequence reason on that object which employs it. The passion caused by the great and sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully, is astonishment: and astonishment is that state of the soul in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror. The cause of this I shall endeavor to investigate hereafter. When danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply terrible but at certain distances, and with certain modifications, they may be, and they are, delightful, as we every day experience. But as pain is stronger in its operation than pleasure, so death is in general a much more affecting idea than pain because there are very few pains, however exquisite, which are not preferred to death: nay, what generally makes pain itself, if I may say so, more painful, is, that it is considered as an emissary of this king of terrors. Nay, I am in great doubt whether any man could be found, who would earn a life of the most perfect satisfaction at the price of ending it in the torments, which justice inflicted in a few hours on the late unfortunate regicide in France. Without all doubt, the torments which we may be made to suffer are much greater in their effect on the body and mind, than any pleasures which the most learned voluptuary could suggest, or than the liveliest imagination, and the most sound and exquisitely sensible body, could enjoy. I say the strongest emotion, because I am satisfied the ideas of pain are much more powerful than those which enter on the part of pleasure. Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling. Editor’s Note: This chapter contains text from several sections of “A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful: With An Introductory Discourse Concerning Taste,” which is contained in the first volume of The Works of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke in Twelve Volumes.Ī PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS OF THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL PART I SECTION VII.
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