to publish them, if I was not convinced that nothing tends more to the corruption of science than to suffer it to stagnate.  These waters must be troubled, before they can exert their virtues.  A man who works beyond the surface of things, though he may be wrong himself, yet he clears the way for others, and may chance to make even his errors subservient to the cause of truth.  In the following parts I shall inquire what things they are that cause in us the affections of the sublime and beautiful, as in this I have considered the affections themselves.  I only desire one favor,—­that no part of this discourse may be judged of by itself, and independently of the rest; for I am sensible I have not disposed my materials to abide the test of a captious controversy, but of a sober and even forgiving examination; that they are not armed at all points for battle, but dressed to visit those who are willing to give a peaceful entrance to truth.

FOOTNOTES: 

[10] Mr. Locke [Essay on Human Understanding, l. ii. c. 20, sect. 16,] thinks that the removal or lessening of a pain is considered and operates as a pleasure, and the loss or diminishing of pleasure as a pain.  It is this opinion which we consider here.

PART II.

SECTION I.

OF THE PASSION CAUSED BY THE SUBLIME.

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.[11] 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.  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.  Astonishment, as I have said, is the effect of the sublime in its highest degree; the inferior effects are admiration, reverence, and respect.

SECTION II.

TERROR.

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.[12] For fear being an apprehension of pain or death, it operates in a manner that resembles actual pain.  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.  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.  As serpents and poisonous animals of almost all kinds.  And to things of great dimensions, if we annex an adventitious idea of terror, they become without comparison greater.