SECTION XIV.

LOCKE’S OPINION CONCERNING DARKNESS CONSIDERED.

It is Mr. Locke’s opinion, that darkness is not naturally an idea of terror; and that, though an excessive light is painful to the sense, the greatest excess of darkness is no ways troublesome.  He observes indeed in another place, that a nurse or an old woman having once associated the ideas of ghosts and goblins with that of darkness, night, ever after, becomes painful and horrible to the imagination.  The authority of this great man is doubtless as great as that of any man can be, and it seems to stand in the way of our general principle.[37] We have considered darkness as a cause of the sublime; and we have all along considered the sublime as depending on some modification of pain or terror:  so that if darkness be no way painful or terrible to any, who have not had their minds early tainted with superstitions, it can be no source of the sublime to them.  But, with all deference to such an authority, it seems to me, that an association of a more general nature, an association which takes in all mankind, may make darkness terrible; for in utter darkness it is impossible to know in what degree of safety we stand; we are ignorant of the objects that surround us; we may every moment strike against some dangerous obstruction; we may fall down a precipice the first step we take; and if an enemy approach, we know not in what quarter to defend ourselves; in such a case strength is no sure protection; wisdom can only act by guess; the boldest are staggered, and he who would pray for nothing else towards his defence is forced to pray for light.

[Greek:  Zeu pater, alla su rusai up eeros uias Achaion Poieson d’ aithren, dos d’ ophthalmoisin idesthai En de phaei kai olesson....]

As to the association of ghosts and goblins; surely it is more natural to think that darkness, being originally an idea of terror, was chosen as a fit scene for such terrible representations, than that such representations have made darkness terrible.  The mind of man very easily slides into an error of the former sort; but it is very hard to imagine, that the effect of an idea so universally terrible in all times, and in all countries, as darkness, could possibly have been owing to a set of idle stories, or to any cause of a nature so trivial, and of an operation so precarious.

SECTION XV.

DARKNESS TERRIBLE IN ITS OWN NATURE.

Perhaps it may appear on inquiry, that blackness and darkness are in some degree painful by their natural operation, independent of any associations whatsoever.  I must observe, that the ideas of darkness and blackness are much the same; and they differ only in this, that blackness is a more confined idea.  Mr. Cheselden has given us a very curious story of a boy who had been born blind, and continued so until he was thirteen