ng 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. 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. [Greek: Thambos] is in Greek either fear or wonder; [Greek:
deinos] is terrible or respectable; [Greek: ahideo], to reverence or to
fear. _Vereor_ in Latin is what [Greek: ahideo] is in Greek. The Romans
used the verb _stupeo_, a term which strongly marks the state of an
astonished mind, to express the effect either of simple fear, or of
astonishment; the word _attonitus_ (thunderstruck) 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.
SECTION III.
OBSCURITY.
To make anything very terrible, obscurity[13] 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
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