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that fpecies; an image of the pillar itself. The pillar immediately fucceeding increases it;/that which follows renews and enforces the impreffion; cach in its order as it fucceeds, repeats impulse after impulfe, and ftroke after ftroke, until the eye, long exercised in one particular way, cannot lofe that object immediately; and being violently roufed by this continued agitation, it presents the mind with a grand or fublime conception. But inftead of viewing a rank of uniform pillars; let us fuppofe that they fucceed each other, a round and a fquare one alternately. In this cafe the vibration caufed by the first round pillar perifhes as foon as it is formed; and one of quite another fort (the fquare) directly occupies its place; which however it refigns 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 laft pillar, the impreffion is as far from continuing as it was at the very firft; because in fact, the senfory can receive no diftinct impreffion but from the laft; and it can never of itself resume a diffimilar impreffion: befides every variation of the object is a reft and relaxation to the organs of fight; and these reliefs prevent that powerful emotion fo neceffary to produce the fublime. To produce therefore a perfect grandeur in fuch things as we have been mentioning, there fhould be a perfect fimpli

city, an abfolute uniformity in difpofition, shape, and colouring. Upon this principle of fucceffion and uniformity it may be asked, why a long bare wall should not be a more fublime object than a colonnade; fince the fucceffion is no way interrupted; fince the eye meets no check; fince nothing more uniform can be conceived? A long bare wall is certainly not fo grand an object as a colonnade of the fame 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 progrefs; but then it meets nothing which may detain it a proper time to produce a very great and lafting effect. The view of a 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 fimilar 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 impulfe, unless it be one of a prodigious force indeed, as we are with a fucceffion of fimilar impulses; because the nerves of the fenfory do not (if I may ufe the expreffion) acquire a habit of repeating the fame feeling in fuch a manner as to continue it longer than its caufe is in action; befides all the effects which I have attributed to expectation and furprise

T 2

furprise in Sect. 11. can have no place in a bare wall.

SECT. XIV.

LOCKE'S OPINION CONCERNING DARKNESS CONSI

DEKED.

IT is Mr. Locke's opinion, that darkness is not naturally an idea of terrour; and that though an exceffive light is painful to the fenfe, that the greateft excefs of darkness is no ways troublesome. He obferves indeed in another place, that a nurse or an old woman having once affociated the ideas of ghofts and goblins with that of darkness, night ever after becomes painful and horrible to the imagination. The authority of this great man is doubtlefs as great as that of any man can be, and it feems to ftand in the way of our general principle.* We have confidered darkness as a caufe of the fublime; and we have all along confidered the fublime as depending on fome modification of pain or terrour: so that if darkness be no way painful or terrible to any, who have not had their minds early tainted with fuperftitions, it can be no source of the sublime to them. But, with all deference to fuch an authority, it feems to me, that an affociation of a more general nature, an affociation which takes in all mankind, may make

* Part II. fect. 3.

darkness

darkness terrible; for in utter darkness it is impoffible to know in what degree of fafety we stand; we are ignorant of the objects that furround us; we may every moment strike against some dangerous obftruction; 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 fuch a case strength is no fure protection; wisdom can only act by guess; the boldest are staggered, and he who would pray for nothing elfe towards his defence is forced to pray for light.

Ζευ πάτερ, αλλα συ ρύσαι υπ' ηερος υίας Αχαιων
Ποιησον δ' αιθρην, δος δ' οφθαλμοισιν ιδέσθαι

Εν δε φαει και ολέσσον.

As to the affociation of ghofts, and goblins; furely it is more natural to think, that darknefs, being originally an idea of terrour, was chofen as a fit scene for fuch terrible representations, than that fuch representations have made darkness terrible. The mind of man very eafily flides into an errour of the former fort; but it is very hard to imagine, that the effect of an idea fo univerfally terrible in all times, and in all countries, as darkness, could poffibly have been owing to a fet of idle ftories, or to any cause of a nature fo trivial, and of an operation fo precarious.

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SECT. XV.

DARKNESS TERRIBLE IN ITS OWN NATURE.

PERHAPS it may appear on inquiry, that blackness and darkness are in fome degree painful by their natural operation, independent of any affociations whatsoever. I must observe, that the ideas of darkness and blacknefs are much the fame; and they differ only in this, that blackness

a more confined idea. Mr. Chefelden has given us a very curious ftory of a boy, who had been born blind, and continued fo until he was thirteen or fourteen years old; he was then couched for a cataract, by which operation he received his fight. Among many remarkable particulars that attended his first perceptions and judgments on visual objects, Chefelden tells us, that the first time the boy faw a black object, it gave him great uneafinefs; and that fome time after, upon accidentally feeing a negro woman, he was ftruck with great horrour at the fight. The horrour, in this case, can scarcely be supposed to arise from any affociation. The boy appears by the account to have been particularly obferving and fenfible for one of his age; and therefore it is probable, if the great uneafiness he felt at the first fight of black had arisen from its connexion with any other difagreeable ideas, he

• would have obferved and mentioned it. For an

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