this it may be replied, that some degree of cultivation, or, more properly speaking, of developement by the exercise of its reflective faculties, is obviously essential ere the mind can attain to mature growth,—­we might almost say to its natural state, since nothing can be said to have attained its true nature until all its capacities are at least called into birth.  No one, for example, would refer to the savages of Australia for a true specimen of what was proper or natural to the human mind; we should rather seek it, if such were the alternative, in a civilized child of five years old.  Be this as it may, it will not be denied that ignorance, brutality, and many other deteriorating causes, do practically incapacitate thousands for even an approximation, not only to this, but to many of the inferior emotions, the character of which is purely mental.  And this, we think, is quite sufficient to neutralize the objection, if not, indeed, to justify the application of the term to all cases where the immediate effect, whether directly or indirectly, is such as has been described.  But, to reduce this to a common-sense view, it is only saying,—­what no one will deny,—­that a man of education and refinement has not only more, but higher, pleasures of the mind than a mere clown.

But though the position here advanced must necessarily exclude many objects which have hitherto, though, as we think, improperly, been classed with the sublime, it will still leave enough, and more than enough, for the utmost exercise of our limited powers; inasmuch as, in addition to the multitude of objects in the material world, not only the actions, passions, and thoughts of men, but whatever concerns the human being, that in any way—­by a hint merely—­leads the mind, though indirectly, to the Infinite attributes,—­all come of right within the ground assumed.

It will be borne in mind, that the conscious presence of the Infinite Idea is not only not insisted on, but expressly admitted to be, in most cases, unthought of; it is also admitted, that a sublime effect is often powerfully felt in many instances where this Idea could not truly be predicated of the apparent object.  In such cases, however, some kind of resemblance, or, at least, a seeming analogy to an infinite attribute, is nevertheless essential.  It must appear to us, for the time, either limitless, indefinite, or in some other way beyond the grasp of the mind:  and, whatever an object may seem to be, it must needs in effect be to us even that which it seems.  Nor does this transfer the emotion to a different source; for the Infinite Idea, or something analogous, being thus imputed, is in reality its true cause.