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Edmund Burke |
Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and
Beautiful (1757). Excerpts:
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Part
II Sect. XII. Difficulty > Part
IV |
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. 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.
Sect. II. Terror
No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and
reasoning as fear. 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. A level
plain of a vast extent on land, is certainly no mean idea; the prospect of such
a plain may be as extensive as a prospect of the ocean: but can it ever fill
the mind with anything so great as the ocean itself? This is owing to several
causes; but it is owing to none more than this, that the ocean is an object of
no small terror. Indeed, terror is in all cases whatsoever, either more openly
or latently, the ruling principle of the sublime. Several languages bear a
strong testimony to the affinity of these ideas. They frequently use the same
word, to signify indifferently the modes of astonishment or admiration, and
those of terror. Oaubos is in Greek, either fear or wonder; delvos is terrible
or respectable; aidew, to reverence or to fear. Vereor in Latin, is what aidew
is in Greek. The Romans used the verb stupeo, a term which strongly marks the
state of an astonished mind, to express the effect of either of simple fear or
of astonishment; the word attonitus (thunder-struck) is equally expressive of
the alliance of these ideas; and do not the French etonnement, and the English
astonishment and amazement, point out as clearly the kindred emotions which
attend fear and wonder? They who have a more general knowledge of languages,
could produce, I make no doubt, many other and equally striking examples.
Sect. III. Obscurity
To make anything very terrible, obscurity1 seems in general to be
necessary. When we know the full extent of any danger, when we can accustom our
eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension vanishes. Every one will be
sensible of this, who considers how greatly night adds to our dread, in all
cases of danger, and how much the notions of ghosts and goblins, of which none
can form clear ideas, affect minds which give credit to the popular tales
concerning such sorts of beings. Those despotic governments, which are founded
on the passions of men, and principally upon the passion of fear, keep their
chief as much as may be from the public eye. The policy has been the same in
many cases of religion. Almost all the heathen temples were dark. Even in the
barbarous temples of the Americans at this day, they keep their idol in a dark
part of the hut, which is consecrated to his worship. For this purpose too the
Druids performed all their ceremonies in the bosom of the darkest woods, and in
the shade of the oldest and most spreading oaks. No person seems better to have
understood the secret of heightening, or of setting terrible things, if I may
use the expression, in their strongest light, by the force of a judicious
obscurity, than Milton. His description of Death in the second book is
admirably studied; it is astonishing with what a gloomy pomp, with what a
significant and expressive uncertainty of strokes and colouring, he has
finished the portrait of the king of terrors:
-The other
shape,
If shape it might be called that shape had none
Distinguishable, in member, joint, or limb;
Or substance might be called that shadow seemed;
For each seemed either; black he stood as night;
Fierce as ten furies; terrible as hell;
And shook a deadly dart. What seemed his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
In this description all is dark, uncertain, confused, terrible, and sublime to the last degree.
Sect. IV. Of The Difference Between Clearness
And Obscurity With Regard To The Passions
It is one thing to make an idea clear, and another to make it affecting to the
imagination. If I make a drawing of a palace, or a temple, or a landscape, I
present a very clear idea of those objects; but then (allowing for the effect
of imitation, which is something) my picture can at most affect only as the
palace, temple, or landscape would have affected in the reality. On the other
hand, the most lively and spirited verbal description I can give raises a very
obscure and imperfect idea of such objects; but then it is in my power to raise
a stronger emotion by the description than I could do by the best painting.
This experience constantly evinces. The proper manner of conveying the
affections of the mind from one to another, is by words; there is a great
insufficiency in all other methods of communication; and so far is a clearness
of imagery from being absolutely necessary to an influence upon the passions,
that they may be considerably operated upon, without presenting any image at
all, by certain sounds adapted to that purpose; of which we have a sufficient
proof in the acknowledged and powerful effects of instrumental music. In
reality, a great clearness helps but little towards affecting the passions, as
it is in some sort an enemy to all enthusiasms whatsoever.
Sect. IV. The Same Subject Continued
There are two verses in Horace's Art of Poetry, that seem to contradict this
opinion; for which reason I shall take a little more pains in clearing it up.
The verses are,
Segnius
irritant animos demissa per aures,
Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus.
On this the Abbe du Bos founds a criticism, wherein he gives painting the preference to poetry in the article of moving the passions; principally on account of the greater clearness of the ideas it represents. I believe this excellent judge was led into this mistake (if it be a mistake) by his system; to which he found it more conformable than I imagine it will be found by experience. I know several who admire and love painting, and yet who regard the objects of their admiration in that art with coolness enough in comparison of that warmth with which they are animated by affecting pieces of poetry or rhetoric. Among the common sort of people, I never could perceive that painting had much influence on their passions. It is true, that the best sorts of painting, as well as the best sorts of poetry, are not much understood in that sphere. But it is most certain, that their passions are very strongly roused by a fanatic preacher, or by the ballads of Chevy-chase, or the Children in the Wood, and by other little popular poems and tales that are current in that rank of life. I do not know of any paintings, bad or good, that produce the same effect. So that poetry, with all its obscurity, has a more general, as well as a more powerful, dominion over the passions, than the other art. And I think there are reasons in nature, why the obscure idea, when properly conveyed, should be more affecting than the clear. It is our ignorance of things that causes all our admiration, and chiefly excites our passions. Knowledge and acquaintance make the most striking causes affect but little. It is thus with the vulgar; and all men are as the vulgar in what they do not understand. The ideas of eternity and infinity are among the most affecting we have; and yet perhaps there is nothing of which we really understand so little, as of infinity and eternity. We do not anywhere meet a more sublime description than this justly celebrated one of Milton, wherein he gives the portrait of Satan with a dignity so suitable to the subject:
He above the
rest
In shape and gesture proudly eminent
Stood like a tower; his form had yet not lost
All her original brightness, nor appeared
Less than archangel ruined, and th' excess
Of glory obscured: as when the sun new risen
Looks through the horizontal misty air
Shorn of his beams; or from behind the moon
In dim eclipse disastrous twilight sheds
On half the nations; and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs.
Here is a very noble picture; and in what does this poetical picture consist? In images of a tower, an archangel, the sun rising through mists, or in an eclipse, the ruin of monarchs, and the revolutions of kingdoms. The mind is hurried out of itself, by a crowd of great and confused images; which affect because they are crowded and confused. For, separate them, and you lose much of the greatness; and join them, and you infallibly lose the clearness. The images raised by poetry are always of this obscure kind; though in general the effects of poetry are by no means to be attributed to the images it raises; which point we shall examine more at large hereafter.1 But painting, when we have allowed for the pleasure of imitation, can only affect simply by the images it presents; and even in painting, a judicious obscurity in some things contributes to the effect of the picture; because the images in painting are exactly similar to those in nature; and in nature, dark, confused, uncertain images have a greater power on the fancy to form the grander passions, than those have which are more clear and determinate. But where and when this observation may be applied to practice, and how far it shall be extended, will be better deduced from the nature of the subject, and from the occasion, than from any rules that can be given.
I am sensible that this idea has met with opposition, and is likely still to be rejected by several. But let it be considered, that hardly anything can strike the mind with its greatness, which does not make some sort of approach towards infinity; which nothing can do whilst we are able to perceive its bounds; but to see an object distinctly, and to perceive its bounds, is one and the same thing. A clear idea is therefore another name for a little idea. There is a passage in the book of Job amazingly sublime, and this sublimity is principally due to the terrible uncertainty of the thing described: In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up. It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice, - Shall mortal man be more just than God? We are first prepared with the utmost solemnity for the vision; we are first terrified, before we are let even into the obscure cause of our emotion; but when this grand cause of terror makes it appearance, what is it? Is it not wrapt up in the shades of its own incomprehensible darkness, more awful, more striking, more terrible, than the liveliest description, than the clearest painting, could possibly represent it? When painters have attempted to give us clear representations of these very fanciful and terrible ideas, they have, I think, almost always failed; insomuch that I have been at a loss, in all the pictures I have seen of hell, to determine whether the painter did not intend something ludicrous. Several painters have handled a subject of this kind, with a view of assembling as many horrid phantoms as their imagination could suggest; but all the designs I have chanced to meet of the temptation of St. Anthony were rather a sort of odd, wild grotesques, than anything capable of producing a serious passion. In all these subjects poetry is very happy. Its apparitions, its chimeras, its harpies, its allegorical figures, are grand and affecting; and though Virgil's Fame and Homer's Discord are obscure, they are magnificent figures. These figures in painting would be clear enough, but I fear they might become ridiculous.
Sect. V. Power
Besides those things which directly suggest the idea of danger, and those which
produce a similar effect from a mechanical cause, I know of nothing sublime,
which is not some modification of power. And this branch rises, as naturally as
the other two branches, from terror, the common stock of everything that is
sublime. The idea of power, at first view, seems of the class of those
indifferent ones, which may equally belong to pain or to pleasure. But in
reality, the affection, arising from the idea of vast power, is extremely
remote from that neutral character. For first, we must remember,1 that the idea
of pain, in its highest degree, is much stronger than the highest degree of
pleasure; and that it preserves the same superiority through all the
subordinate gradations. From hence it is, that where the chances for equal
degrees of suffering or enjoyment are in any sort equal, the idea of the
suffering must always be prevalent. And indeed the ideas of pain, and, above
all, of death, are so very affecting, that whilst we remain in the presence of
whatever is supposed to have the power of inflicting either, it is impossible
to be perfectly free from terror. Again, we know by experience, that, for the
enjoyment of pleasure, no great efforts of power are at all necessary; nay, we
know, that such efforts would go a great way towards destroying our
satisfaction: for pleasure must be stolen, and not forced upon us; pleasure
follows the will; and therefore we are generally affected with it by many
things of a force greatly inferior to our own. But pain is always inflicted by
a power in some way superior, because we never submit to pain willingly. So
that strength, violence, pain, and terror, are ideas that rush in upon the mind
together. Look at a man, or any other animal of prodigious strength, and what
is your idea before reflection? Is it that this strength will be subservient to
you, to your ease, to your pleasure, to your interest in any sense? No; the
emotion you feel is, lest this enormous strength should be employed to the
purposes of rapine2 and destruction. That power derives all its sublimity from the
terror with which it is generally accompanied, will appear evidently from its
effect in the very few cases, in which it may be possible to strip a
considerable degree of strength of its ability to hurt. When you do this, you
spoil it of everything sublime, and it immediately becomes contemptible. An ox
is a creature of vast strength; but he is an innocent creature, extremely
serviceable, and not at all dangerous; for which reason the idea of an ox is by
no means grand. A bull is strong too: but his strength is of another kind;
often very destructive, seldom (at least amongst us) of any use in our
business; the idea of a bull is therefore great, and it has frequently a place
in sublime descriptions, and elevating comparisons. Let us look at another
strong animal, in the two distinct lights in which we may consider him. The
horse in the light of a useful beast, fit for the plough, the road, the draft;
in every social, useful light, the horse has nothing sublime: but is it thus
that we are affected with him, whose neck is clothed with thunder, the glory of
whose nostrils is terrible, who swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage,
neither believeth that it is the sound of the trumpet? In this description, the
useful character of the horse entirely disappears, and the terrible and sublime
blaze out together. We have continually about us animals of a strength that is
considerable, but not pernicious. Amongst these we never look for the sublime;
it comes upon us in the gloomy forest, and in the howling wilderness, in the
form of the lion, the tiger, the panther, or rhinoceros. Whenever strength is
only useful, and employed for our benefit or our pleasure, then it is never
sublime: for nothing can act agreeably to us, that does not act in conformity
to our will; but to act agreeably to our will, it must be subject to us, and
therefore can never be the cause of a grand and commanding conception. The
description of the wild ass, in Job, is worked up into no small sublimity,
merely by insisting on his freedom, and his setting mankind at defiance;
otherwise the description of such an animal could have had nothing noble in it.
Who hath loosed (says he) the bands of the wild ass? whose house I have made
the wilderness, and the barren land his dwellings. He scorneth the multitude of
the city, neither regardeth he the voice of the driver. The range of the
mountains is his pasture. The magnificent description of the unicorn and of
leviathan, in the same book, is full of the same heightening circumstances:
Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee? canst thou bind the unicorn with his
band in the furrow? wilt thou trust him because his strength is great?-Canst
thou draw out leviathan with an hook?-will he make a covenant with thee? wilt
thou take him for a servant for ever? shall not one be cast down even at the
sight of him? In short, wheresoever we find strength, and in what light soever
we look upon power we shall all along observe the sublime the concomitant of
terror, and contempt the attendant on a strength that is subservient and
innoxious. The race of dogs, in many of their kinds, have generally a competent
degree of strength and swiftness; and they exert these and other valuable
qualities which they possess, greatly to our convenience and pleasure. Dogs are
indeed the most social, affectionate, and amiable animals of the whole brute
creation; but love approaches much nearer to contempt than is commonly
imagined; and accordingly, though we caress dogs, we borrow from them an
appellation of the most despicable kind, when we employ terms of reproach; and
this appellation is the common mark of the last vileness and contempt in every
language. Wolves have not more strength than several species of dogs; but, on
account of their unmanageable fierceness, the idea of a wolf is not despicable;
it is not excluded from grand descriptions and similitudes. Thus we are
affected by strength, which is natural power. The power which arises from
institution in kings and commanders, has the same connexion with terror.
Sovereigns are frequently addressed with the title of dread majesty. And it may
be observed, that young persons, little acquainted with the world, and who have
not been used to approach men in power, are commonly struck with an awe which
takes away the free use of their faculties. When I prepared my seat in the
street, (says Job,) the young men saw me, and hid themselves. Indeed, so natural
is this timidity with regard to power, and so strongly does it inhere in our
constitution, that very few are able to conquer it, but by mixing much in the
business of the great world, or by using no small violence to their natural
dispositions. I know some people are of opinion, that no awe, no degree of
terror, accompanies the idea of power; and have hazarded to affirm, that we can
contemplate the idea of God himself without any such emotion. I purposely
avoided, when I first considered this subject, to introduce the idea of that
great and tremendous Being, as an example in an argument so light as this;
though it frequently occurred to me, not as an objection to, but as a strong
confirmation of, my notions in this matter. I hope, in what I am going to say,
I shall avoid presumption, where it is almost impossible for any mortal to
speak with strict propriety. I say then that whilst we consider the Godhead
merely as he is an object of the understanding, which forms a complex idea of
power, wisdom, justice, goodness, all stretched to a degree far exceeding the
bounds of our comprehension, whilst we consider the Divinity in this refined
and abstracted light, the imagination and passions are little or nothing
affected. But because we are bound, by the condition of our nature, to ascend
to these pure and intellectual ideas, through the medium of sensible images,
and to judge of these divine qualities by their evident acts and exertions, it
becomes extremely hard to disentangle our idea of the cause from the effect by
which we are led to know it. Thus when we contemplate the Deity, his attributes
and their operation, coming united on the mind, form a sort of sensible image,
and as such are capable of affecting the imagination. Now, though in a just
idea of the Deity perhaps none of his attributes are predominant, yet, to our
imagination, his power is by far the most striking. Some reflection, some
comparing, is necessary to satisfy us of his wisdom, his justice, and his
goodness. To be struck with his power, it is only necessary that we should open
our eyes. But whilst we contemplate so vast an object, under the arm, as it
were, of almighty power, and invested upon every side with omnipresence, we
shrink into the minuteness of our own nature, and are, in a manner, annihilated
before him. And though a consideration of his other attributes may relieve, in
some measure, our apprehensions; yet no conviction of the justice with which it
is exercised, nor the mercy with which it is tempered, can wholly remove the
terror that naturally arises from a force which nothing can withstand. If we
rejoice, we rejoice with trembling: and even whilst we are receiving benefits,
we cannot but shudder at a power which can confer benefits of such mighty
importance. When the prophet David contemplated the wonders of wisdom and power
which are displayed in the economy of man, he seems to be struck with a sort of
divine horror, and cries out, Fearfully and wonderfully am I made! An heathen
poet has a sentiment of a similar nature; Horace looks upon it as the last
effort of philosophical fortitude, to behold without terror and amazement, this
immense and glorious fabric of the universe:
Hunc solem,
et stellas, et decedentia certis
Tempora momentis, sunt qui formidine nulla
Imbuti spectent.
Lucretius is a poet not to be suspected of giving way to superstitious terrors; yet when he supposes the whole mechanism of nature laid open by the master of his philosophy, his transport on this magnificent view, which he has represented in the colours of such bold and lively poetry, is overcast with a shade of secret dread and horror:
His ibi me
rebus quaedam divina voluptas
Percipit, atque horror; quod sic Natura, tua vi
Tam manifesta patens, ex omni parte retecta est.
But the Scripture alone can supply ideas answerable to the majesty of this subject. In the Scripture, wherever God is represented as appearing or speaking, everything terrible in nature is called up to heighten the awe and solemnity of the Divine presence. The Psalms, and the prophetical books, are crowded with instances of this kind. The earth shook, (says the psalmist), the heavens also dropped at the presence of the Lord. And, what is remarkable, the painting preserves the same character, not only when he is supposed descending to take vengeance upon the wicked, but even when he exerts the like plenitude of power in acts of beneficence to mankind. Tremble, thou earth! at the presence of the Lord; at the presence of God of Jacob; which turned the rock into standing water, the flint into a fountain of waters! It were endless to enumerate all the passages, both in the sacred and profane writers, which establish the general sentiment of mankind, concerning the inseparable union of a sacred and reverential awe, with our ideas of the Divinity. Hence the common maxim, Primus in orbe deos fecit timor. This maxim may be, as I believe it is, false with regard to the origin of religion. The maker of the maxim saw how inseparable these ideas were, without considering that the notion of some great power must be always precedent to our dread of it. But this dread must necessarily follow the idea of such a power, when it is once excited in the mind. It is on this principle that true religion has, and must have, so large a mixture of salutary fear; and that false religions have generally nothing else but fear to support them. Before the Christian religion had, as it were, humanized the idea of the Divinity, and brought it somewhat nearer to us, there was very little said of the love of God. The followers of Plato have something of it, and only something; the other writers of pagan antiquity, whether poets or philosophers, nothing at all. And they who consider with what infinite attention, by what a disregard of every perishable object, through what long habits of piety and contemplation, it is that any man is able to attain an entire love and devotion to the Deity, will easily perceive, that it is not the first, the most natural and the most striking, effect which proceeds from that idea. Thus we have traced power through its several gradations unto the highest of all, where our imagination is finally lost; and we find terror, quite throughout the progress, its inseparable companion, and growing along with it, as far as we can possibly trace them. Now as power is undoubtedly a capital source of the sublime, this will point out evidently from whence its energy is derived, and to what class of ideas we ought to unite it.
All general privations are great, because they are all terrible; Vacuity, Darkness, Solitude, and Silence. With what a fire of imagination, yet with what severity of judgment, has Virgil amassed all these circumstances, where he knows that all the images of a tremendous dignity ought to be united, at the mouth of hell! where, before he unlocks the secrets of the great deep, he seems to be seized with a religious horror, and to retire astonished at the boldness of his own designs:
Dii, quibus
imperium est animarum, umbraeque-silentes!
Et Chaos, et Phlegethon, loca nocte silentia late,
Sit mihi fas audita loqui; sit, numine vestro,
Pandere res alta terra et caligine mersas.
Ibant obscuri, sola sub nocte, per umbram,
Perque domos Ditis vacuas, et inania regna.
Ye subterraneous gods, whose awful sway
The gliding ghosts and silent shades obey;
O Chaos hoar! and Phlegethon profound!
Whose solemn empire stretches wide around;
Give me, ye great, tremendous powers, to tell
Of scenes and wonders in the depth of hell:
Give me your mighty secrets to display
From those black realms of darkness to the day.
—Pitt
Obscure they went through
dreary shades that led
Along the waste dominions of the dead.
—Dryden.
Sect. VII. Vastness
Greatness of dimension is a powerful cause of the sublime. This is too evident,
and the observation too common, to need any illustration: it is not so common
to consider in what ways greatness of dimension, vastness of extent or
quantity, has the most striking effect. For certainly, there are ways and
modes, wherein the same quantity of extension shall produce greater effects
than it is found to do in others. Extension is either in length, height, or
depth. Of these the length strikes least; an hundred yards of even ground will
never work such an effect as a tower an hundred yards high, or a rock or
mountain of that altitude. I am apt to imagine likewise, that height is less
grand than depth; and that we are more struck at looking down from a precipice,
than looking up at an object of equal height; but of that I am not very
positive. A perpendicular has more force in forming the sublime, than an
inclined plane; and the effects of a rugged and broken surface seem stronger
than where it is smooth and polished. It would carry us out of our way to enter
in this place into the cause of these appearances; but certain it is they
afford a large and fruitful field of speculation. However, it may not be amiss
to add to these remarks upon magnitude, that, as the great extreme of dimension
is sublime, so the last extreme of littleness is in some measure sublime
likewise: when we attend to the infinite divisibility of matter, when we pursue
animal life into these excessively small, and yet organized beings, that escape
the nicest inquisition of the sense; when we push our discoveries yet downward,
and consider those creatures so many degrees yet smaller, and the still
diminishing scale of existence, in tracing which the imagination is lost as
well as the sense; we become amazed and confounded at the wonders of
minuteness; nor can we distinguish in its effects this extreme of littleness
from the vast itself. For division must be infinite as well as addition;
because the idea of a perfect unity can no more be arrived at, than that of a
complete whole, to which nothing may be added.
Sect. VIII. Infinity
Another source of the sublime is infinity; if it does not rather belong to the
last [vastness]. Infinity has a tendency to fill the mind with that sort of
delightful horror, which is the most genuine effect and truest test of the
sublime. There are scarce any things which can become the objects of our
senses, that are really and in their own nature infinite. But the eye not being
able to perceive the bounds of many things, they seem to be infinite, and they
produce the same effects as if they were really so. We are deceived in the like
manner, if the parts of some large object are so continued to any indefinite
number, that the imagination meets no check which may hinder its extending them
at pleasure.
Whenever we repeat any idea frequently, the mind, by a sort of mechanism, repeats it long after the first cause has ceased to operate. After whirling about, when we sit down, the objects about us still seem to whirl. After a long succession of noises, as the fall of waters, or the beating of forge-hammers, the hammers beat and the water roars in the imagination long after the first sounds have ceased to affect it; and they die away at last by gradations which are scarcely perceptible. If you hold up a straight pole, with your eye to one end, it will seem extended to a length almost incredible. Place a number of uniform and equi-distant marks on this pole, they will cause the same deception, and seem multiplied without end. The senses, strongly affected in some one manner, cannot quickly change their tenor, or adapt themselves to other things; but they continue in their old channel until the strength of the first mover decays. This is the reason of an appearance very frequent in madmen; that they remain whole days and nights, sometimes whole years, in the constant repetition of some remark, some complaint, or song; which having struck powerfully on their disordered imagination in the beginning of their phrensy, every repetition reinforces it with new strength; and the hurry of their spirits, unrestrained by the curb of reason, continues it to the end of their lives.
Sect. IX. Succession and Uniformity
Succession and uniformity of parts are what constitute the artificial infinite.
1. Succession; which is requisite that the parts may be continued so long and
in such a direction, as by their frequent impulses on the sense to impress the
imagination with an idea of their progress beyond their actual limits. 2.
Uniformity; because if the figures of the parts should be changed, the
imagination at every change finds a check; you are presented at every
alteration with the termination of one idea, and the beginning of another; by
which means it becomes impossible to continue that uninterrupted progression,
which alone can stamp on bounded objects the character of infinity.1 It is in this
kind of artificial infinity, I believe, we ought to look for the cause why a
rotund has such a noble effect. For in a rotund, whether it be a building or a
plantation, you can nowhere fix a boundary; turn which way you will, the same
object still seems to continue, and the imagination has no rest. But the parts
must be uniform, as well as circularly disposed, to give this figure its full
force; because any difference, whether it be in the disposition, or in the
figure, or even in the color of the parts, is highly prejudicial to the idea of
infinity, which every change must check and interrupt, at every alteration
commencing a new series. On the same principles of succession and uniformity,
the grand appearance of the ancient heathen temples, which were generally
oblong forms, with a range of uniform pillars on every side, will be easily
accounted for. From the same cause also may be derived the grand effect of the
aisles in many of our own old cathedrals. The form of a cross used in some
churches seems to me not so eligible as the parallelogram of the ancients; at
least, I imagine it is not so proper for the outside. For, supposing the arms
of the cross every way equal, if you stand in a direction parallel to any of
the side walls, or colonnades, instead of a deception that makes the building
more extended than it is, you are cut off from a considerable part (two-thirds)
of its actual length; and to prevent all possibility of progression, the arms
of the cross, taking a new direction, make a right angle with the beam, and
thereby wholly turn the imagination from the repetition of the former idea. Or
suppose the spectator placed where he may take a direct view of such a
building, what will be the consequence? The necessary consequence will be, that
a good part of the basis of each angle formed by the intersection of the arms
of the cross, must be inevitably lost; the whole must of course assume a
broken, unconnected figure; the lights must be unequal, here strong, and there
weak; without that noble gradation which the perspective always effects on
parts disposed uninterruptedly in a right line. Some or all of these objections
will lie against every figure of a cross, in whatever view you take it. I
exemplified them in the Greek cross, in which these faults appear the most
strongly; but they appear in some degree in all sorts of crosses. Indeed there
is nothing more prejudicial to the grandeur of buildings, than to abound in
angles; a fault obvious in many; and owing to an inordinate thirst for variety,
which, whenever it prevails, is sure to leave very little true taste.
[Footnote 1: Mr. Addison, in the Spectator, concerning the pleasures of imagination, thinks it is because in the rotund at one glance you see half the building. This I do not imagine to be the real cause.]
Sect. X. Magnitude In Building
To the sublime in building, greatness of dimension seems requisite; for on a
few parts, and those small, the imagination cannot rise to any idea of
infinity. No greatness in the manner can effectually compensate for the want of
proper dimensions. There is no danger of drawing men into extravagant designs
by this rule; it carries its own caution along with it. Because too great a
length in buildings destroys the purpose of greatness, which it was intended to
promote; the perspective will lessen it in height as it gains in length; and
will bring it at last to a point; turning the whole figure into a sort of
triangle, the poorest in its effect of almost any figure that can be presented
to the eye. I have ever observed, that colonnades and avenues of trees of a
moderate length, were, without comparison, far grander, than when they were
suffered to run to immense distances. A true artist should put a generous
deceit on the spectators, and effect the noblest designs by easy methods.
Designs that are vast only by their dimensions, are always the sign of a common
and low imagination. No work of art can be great, but as it deceives; to be
otherwise is the prerogative of nature only. A good eye will fix the medium
betwixt an excessive length or height, (for the same objection lies against
both,) and a short or broken quantity; and perhaps it might be ascertained to a
tolerable degree of exactness, if it was my purpose to descend far into the
particulars of any art.
Sect. XI. Infinity In Pleasing Objects
Infinity, though of another kind, causes much of our pleasure in agreeable, as
well as of our delight in sublime, images. The spring is the pleasantest of the
seasons; and the young of most animals, though far from being completely
fashioned, afford a more agreeable sensation than the full-grown; because the
imagination is entertained with the promise of something more, and does not
acquiesce in the present object of the sense. In unfinished sketches of
drawing, I have often seen something which pleased me beyond the best
finishing; and this I believe proceeds from the cause I have just now assigned.
Sect. XII. Difficulty
Another source of greatness is difficulty. When any work seems to have
required immense force and labor to effect it, the idea is grand. Stonehenge,
neither for disposition nor ornament, has anything admirable; but those huge
rude masses of stone, set on end, and piled each on other, turn the mind on the
immense force necessary for such a work. Nay, the rudeness of the work
increases this cause of grandeur, as it excludes the idea of art and
contrivance; for dexterity produces another sort of effect, which is different
enough from this.
Part IV
Sect. XI. The Artificial Infinite
We have observed, that a species of greatness arises from the artificial
infinite; and that this infinite consists in an uniform succession of great
parts: we observed, too, that the same uniform succession had a like power in
sounds. But because the effects of many things are clearer in one of the senses
than in another, and that all the senses bear analogy to and illustrate one
another, I shall begin with this power in sounds, as the cause of the sublimity
from succession is rather more obvious in the sense of hearing. And I shall
here, once for all, observe, that an investigation of the natural and mechanical
causes of our passions, besides the curiosity of the subject, gives, if they
are discovered, a double strength and lustre to any rules we deliver on such
matters. When the ear receives any simple sound, it is struck by a single pulse
of the air, which makes the eardrum and the other membranous parts vibrate
according to the nature and species of the stroke. If the stroke be strong, the
organ of hearing suffers a considerable degree of tension. If the stroke be
repeated pretty soon after, the repetition causes an expectation of another
stroke. And it must be observed, that expectation itself causes a tension. This
is apparent in many animals, who, when they prepare for hearing any sound,
rouse themselves, and prick up their ears: so that here the effect of the
sounds is considerably augmented by a new auxiliary, the expectation. But
though, after a number of strokes, we expect still more, not being able to
ascertain the exact time of their arrival, when they arrive, they produce a
sort of surprise, which increases this tension yet further. For I have
observed, that when at any time I have waited very earnestly for some sound,
that returned at intervals, (as the successive firing of cannon,) though I
fully expected the return of the sound, when it came it always made me start a
little; the ear-drum suffered a convulsion, and the whole body consented with
it. The tension of the part thus increasing at every blow, by the united forces
of the stroke itself, the expectation, and the surprise, it is worked up to such
a pitch as to be capable of the sublime; it is brought just to the verge of
pain. Even when the cause has ceased, the organs of hearing being often
successively struck in a similar manner, continue to vibrate in that manner for
some time longer; this is an additional help to the greatness of the effect.
Sect. XII. The Vibrations Must Be Similar
But if the vibration be not similar at every impression, it can never be
carried beyond the number of actual impressions; for move any body, as a pendulum,
in one way, and it will continue to oscillate in an arch of the same circle,
until the known causes make it rest; but if after first putting it in motion in
one direction, you push it into another, it can never reassume the first
direction; because it can never more itself, and consequently it can have but
the effect of that last motion; whereas, if in the same direction you act upon
it several times, it will describe a greater arch, and move a longer time.
Sect. XIII. The Effects Of Succession In Visual Objects Explained
If we can comprehend clearly how things operate upon one of our senses, there can be very little difficulty in conceiving in what manner they affect the rest. To say a great deal therefore upon the corresponding affections of every sense, would tend rather to fatigue us by an useless repetition, than to throw any new light upon the subject by that ample and diffuse manner of treating it; but as in this discourse we chiefly attach ourselves to the sublime, as it affects the eye, we shall consider particularly why a successive disposition of uniform parts in the same right line should be sublime, and upon what principle this disposition is enabled to make a comparatively small quantity of matter produce a grander effect, than a much larger quantity disposed in another manner. To avoid the perplexity of general notions; let us set before our eyes a colonnade of uniform pillars planted in a right line; let us take our stand in such a manner, that the eye may shoot along this colonnade, for it has its best effect in this view. In our present situation it is plain, that the rays from the first round pillar will cause in the eye a vibration of that species; an image of the pillar itself. The pillar immediately succeeding increases it; that which follows renews and enforces the impression; each in its order as it succeeds, repeats impulse after impulse, and stroke after stroke, until the eye, long exercised in one particular way, cannot lose that object immediately; and, being violently roused by this continued agitation, it presents the mind with a grand or sublime conception. But instead of viewing a rank of uniform pillars, let us suppose that they succeed each other, a round and a square one alternately. In this case the vibration caused by the first round pillar perishes as soon as it is formed: and one of quite another sort (the square) directly occupies its place; which, however, it resigns as quickly to the round one; and thus the eye proceeds, alternately; taking up one image, and laying down another, as long as the building continues. From whence it is obvious, that, at the last pillar, the impression is as far from continuing as it was at the very first; because, in fact, the sensory can receive no distinct impression but from the last; and it can never of itself resume a dissimilar impression: besides, every variation of the object is a rest and relaxation to the organs of sight; and these reliefs prevent that powerful emotion so necessary to produce the sublime. To produce therefore a perfect grandeur in such things as we have been mentioning, there should be a perfect simplicity, an absolute uniformity in disposition, shape, and colouring. Upon this principle of succession and uniformity it may be asked, why a long bare wall should not be a more sublime object than a colonnade; since the succession is no way interrupted; since the eye meets no check; since nothing more uniform can be conceived? A long bare wall is certainly not so grand an object as a colonnade of the same length and height. It is not altogether difficult to account for this difference. When we look at a naked wall, from the evenness of the object, the eye runs along its whole space, and arrives quickly at its termination; the eye meets nothing which may interrupt its progress; but then it meets nothing which may detain it a proper time to produce a very great and lasting effect. The view of the bare wall, if it be of a great height and length, is undoubtedly grand; but this is only one idea, and not a repetition of similar ideas: it is therefore great, not so much upon the principle of infinity, as upon that of vastness. But we are not so powerfully affected with any one impulse, unless it be one of a prodigious force indeed, as we are with a succession of similar impulses; because the nerves of the sensory do not (if I may use the expression) acquire a habit of repeating the same feeling in such a manner as to continue it longer than its cause is in action; besides, all the effects which I have attributed to expectation and surprise in sect. II, can have no place in a bare wall.
Source:
Edmund Burke
A Philosophical Enquiry
into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757)
Oxford University Press, 1990.
The Project Gutenberg
(e-book): http://www.gutenberg.org