which sometimes suddenly changes into an extraordinary weakness: that these effects often come on alternately, and are sometimes mixed with each other. This is the nature of all convulsive agitations, especially in weaker sujbects, which are the most liable to the severest impressions of pain and fear. The only difference between pain and terror is, that things which cause pain operate on the mind by the intervention of the body; whereas things that cause terror generally affect the bodily. organs by the operation of the mind suggesting the danger; but both agreeing, either primarily or secondarily, in producing a tension, contraction, or violent emotion of the nerves, they agree likewise in every thing else; for it appears very clearly to ,from this, as well as from many other examples, that when the body is disposed, by any means whatsoever, to such emotions as it would acquire by the means of a certain passion, it will of itself excite something very like that passion in the mind.

me,

SECT. IV.-THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

To this purpose Mr. Spon, in his Recherches d'Antiquité, gives us a curious story of the celebrated physiognomist Campanella. This man, it seems, had not only made very accurate observations on human faces, but was very expert in mimicking such as were any way remarkable. When he had a mind to penetrate into the inclinations of those he had to deal with, he composed his face, his gesture, and his whole body, as nearly as he could, into the exact similitude of the person he intended

I do not here enter into the question debated among physiologists, whether pain be the effect of a contraction, or a tension of the nerves. Either will serve my purpose; for, by tension, I mean no more than a violent pulling of the fibres which compose any muscle or membrane, in whatever way this is done.

to examine: and then carefully observed what turn of mind he seemed to acquire by this change; so that, says my author, he was able to enter into the dispositions and thoughts of people, as effectually as if he had been changed into the very men. I have often observed, that, on mimicking the looks and gestures of angry, or placid, or frighted, or daring men, I have involuntarily found my mind turned to that passion whose appearance I endeavoured to imitate; nay, I am convinced it is hard to avoid it, though one strove to separate the passion from its correspondent gestures. Our minds and bodies are so closely and intimately connected, that one is incapable of pain or pleasure without the other. Campanella, of whom we have been speaking, could so abstract his attention from any sufferings of his body, that he was able to endure the rack itself without much pain: and, in lesser pains, every body must have observed, that when we can employ our attention on any thing else, the pain has been for a time suspended: on the other hand, if by any means, the body is indisposed to perform such gestures, or to be stimulated into such emotions as any passion usually produces in it, that passion itself never can arise, though its cause should be ever so strongly in action; though it should be merely mental, and immediately affecting none of the senses. As an opiate, or spirituous liquors, shall suspend the operation of grief, or fear, or anger, in spite of all our efforts to the contrary, and this by inducing in the body a disposition contrary to that which it receives from these passions.

SECT. V.-HOW THE SUBLIME IS PRODUCED.

HAVING considered terror as producing an unnatural tension and certain violent emotions of the

nerves, it easily follows, from what we have just said, that whatever is fitted to produce such a tension must be productive of a passion similar to ter ror,* and consequently must be a source of the sublime, though it should have no idea of danger connected with it; so that little remains towards shewing the cause of the sublime, but to shew that the instances we have given of it in the Second Part relate to such things as are fitted by nature to produce this sort of tension, either by the primary operation of the mind or the body. With regard to such things as affect by the associated idea of danger, there can be no doubt but that they produce terror, and act by some modification of that passion; and that terror, when sufficiently violent, raises the emotions of the body just mentioned, can as little be doubted. But, if the sublime is built on terror, or some passion like it, which has pain for its object, it is previously proper to inquire how any species of delight can be derived from a cause so apparently contrary to it. I say, delight, because, as I have often remarked, it is very evidently different in its cause, and in its own nature, from actual and positive pleasure.

SECT. VI.HOW PAIN CAN BE A CAUSE

OF DELIGHT.

PROVIDENCE has so ordered it, that a state of rest and inaction, however it may flatter our indolence, should be productive of many inconveniences; that it should generate such disorders as may force us to have recourse to some labour, as a thing absolutely requisite to make us pass our lives with tolerable satisfaction; for the nature of rest is to suffer all the parts of our bodies to fall into a relaxation, that not only disables the members from per

Part II. sect. 2.

forming their functions, but takes away the vigorous tone of fibre which is requisite for carrying on the natural and necessary secretions. At the same time that in this languid and inactive state, the nerves are more liable to the most horrid convulsions than when they are sufficiently braced and strengthened. Melancholy, dejection, despair, and often self-murder, is the consequence of the gloomy view we take of things in this relaxed state of body. The best remedy for all these evils is exercise or labour; and labour is a surmounting of difficulties, an exertion of the contracting power of the muscles; and, as such, resembles pain, which consists in tension or contraction, in every thing but degree. Labour is not only requisite to preserve the coarse organs in a state fit for their functions; but it is equally necessary to these finer and more delicate organs, on which, and by which, the imagination, perhaps the other mental powers, act. Since it is probable, that not only the inferior parts of the soul, as the passions are called, but the understanding itself, makes use of some fine corporeal instruments in its operation; though what they are, and where they are, may be somewhat hard to settle; but that it does make use of such, appears from bence, that a long exercise of the mental powers induces a remarkable lassitude of the whole body; and, on the other hand, that great bodily labour, or pain, weakens, and sometimes actually destroys, the mental faculties. Now, as a due exercise is essential to the coarse muscular parts of the constitution, and that, without this rousing, they would become languid and diseased, the very same rule holds with regard to those finer parts we have mentioned to have them in proper order, they must be shaken and worked to a proper degree.

SECT. VIL.-EXERCISE NECESSARY FOR THE FINER ORGANS.

As common labour, which is a mode of pain, is the exercise of the grosser, a mode of terror is the exercise of the finer parts of the system; and, if a certain mode of pain be of such a nature as to act upon the eye or the ear, as they are the most deli. cate organs, the affection approaches more nearly to that which has a mental cause. In all these

cases, if the pain and terror are so modified as not to be actually noxious; if the pain is not carried to violence, and the terror is not conversant about the present destruction of the person, as these emotions clear the parts, whether fine or gross, of a dangerous and troublesome incumbrance, they are capable of producing delight; not pleasure, but a sort of delightful horror, a sort of tranquillity tinged with terror; which, as it belongs to self-preservation, is one of the strongest of all the passions. Its object is the sublime. Its highest degree I call astonishment; the subordinate degrees are awe, reverence, and respect, which, by the very etymology of the words, shew from what source they are derived, and how they stand distinguished from positive pleasure.

SECT. VIII-WHY THINGS NOT DANGEROUS

PRODUCE A PASSION LIKE TERROR.

A MODE of terror or paint is always the cause of the sublime. For terror, or associated danger, the fore. going explanation is, I believe sufficient. It will require somewhat more trouble to shew, that such examples as I have given of the sublime, in the † Part I. sect. 7.

* Part II. sect 2.