distinguish from natural effects. Not to mention the unaccountable antipathies which we find in many persons, we all find it impossible to remember when a steep became more terrible than a plain; or fire or water more terrible than a clod of earth: though all these are very probably either conclusions from experience, or arising from the premonitions of others; and some of them impressed, in all likelihood, pretty late. But as it must be allowed that many things affect us after a certain manner, not by any natural powers they have for that purpose, but by association; so it would be absurd, on the other hand, to say that all things affect us by association only; since some things must have been originally and naturally agreeable or disagreeable, from which the others derive their associated powers; and it would be, I fancy, to little purpose to look for the cause of our passions in association, until we fail of it in the natural properties of things,

SECT. III.

CAUSE OF PAIN AND FEAR.

I HAVE before observed*, that whatever is qualified to cause terrour is a foundation capable of the sublime; to which I add, that not only these, but many things from which we cannot probably apprehend any danger, have a similar effect,

*Part I. sect. 8.

effect, because they operate in a similar manner. I observed too*, that whatever produces pleasure, positive and original pleasure, is fit to have beauty engrafted on it. Therefore, to clear up the nature of these qualities, it may be necessary to explain the nature of pain and pleasure on which they depend. A man who suffers under violent bodily pain, (I suppose the most violent, because the effect may be the more obvious;) I say a man in great pain has his teeth set, his eye-brows are violently contracted, his forehead is wrinkled, his eyes are dragged inwards, and rolled with great vehemence, his hair stands on end, the voice is forced out in short shrieks and groans, and the whole fabrick totters. Fear, or terrour, which is an apprehension of pain or death, exhibits exactly the same effects, approaching in violence to those just mentioned, in proportion to the nearness of the cause, and the weakness of the subject. This is not only so in the human species: but I have more than once observed in dogs, under an apprehension of punishment, that they have writhed their bodies, and yelped, and howled, as if they had actually felt the blows. From hence I conclude, that pain and fear act upon the same parts of the body, and in the same manner, though somewhat differing in degree: that pain and fear consist in an unnatural tension of the nerves; that this is sometimes

* Part I. sect. 10.

sometimes accompanied with an unnatural strength, 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 subjects, which are the most liable to the severest impressions of pain and fear. The only difference between pain and terrour is, that things which cause pain operate on the mind by the intervention of the body; whereas things that cause terrour generally affect the bodily organs by the operation of the mind suggesting the danger; but not 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 me, 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.

*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.

SECT. IV.

CONTINUED.

TO this purpose Mr. Spon, in his Récherches d'Antiquité, gives us a curious story of the cele brated 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 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 ean
arise, though its cause should be never so strongly
in action; though it should be merely mental,
and immediately affecting none of the senses.
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.

As

HAVING considered terrour 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 terrour*, and consequently must be a source of the sublime,

* Part II. sect. 2.