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. 11, can have no place in a bare wall.

SECTION XIV.

LOCKE'S OPINION CONCERNING DARKNESS CONSIDERED.

It is Mr. Locke's opinion, that darkness is not naturally an idea of
terror; and that, though an excessive light is painful to the sense, the
greatest excess of darkness is no ways troublesome. He observes indeed
in another place, that a nurse or an old woman having once associated
the ideas of ghosts and goblins with that of darkness, night, ever
after, becomes painful and horrible to the imagination. The authority of
this great man is doubtless as great as that of any man can be, and it
seems to stand in the way of our general principle.[37] We have
considered darkness as a cause of the sublime; and we have all along
considered the sublime as depending on some modification of pain or
terror: so that if darkness be no way painful or terrible to any, who
have not had their minds early tainted with superstitions, it can be no
source of the sublime to them. But, with all deference to such an
authority, it seems to me, that an association of a more general nature,
an association which takes in all mankind, may make darkness terrible;
for in utter darkness it is impossible to know in what degree of safety
we stand; we are ignorant of the objects that surround us; we may every
moment strike against some dangerous obstruction; 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 such a case strength is no sure
protection; wisdom can only act by guess; the boldest are staggered, and
he who would pray for nothing else towards his defence is forced to
pray for light.

[Greek:
Zeu pater, alla su rusai up eeros uias Achaion
Poieson d' aithren, dos d' ophthalmoisin idesthai
En de phaei kai olesson....]

As to the association of ghosts and goblins; surely it is more natural
to think that darkness, being originally an idea of terror, was chosen
as a fit scene for such terrible representations, than that such
representations have made darkness terrible. The mind of man very easily
slides into an error of the former sort; but it is very hard to imagine,
that the effect of an idea so universally terrible in all times, and in
all countries, as darkness, could pos