CHAPTER FOURTH. CONFIRMATION OF THE FOREGOING THEORY FROM THE NATURAL SIGNS OF SUBLIME EMOTION.-RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE OF THESE SIGNS ON THE ASSOCIATIONS WHICH SUGGEST THEM. THE strength and power of the associations which have been now under our review, (how trifling and capricious soever some of them may appear to be in their origin) may be distinctly traced in the arts of the Actor and of the Orator, in both of which they frequently give to what may be called metaphorical or figurative applications of Natu ral Signs, a propriety and force which the severest taste must feel and acknowledge. While the tongue, for example, is employed in pronouncing words expressing elevation of character, the body becomes, by a sort of involuntary impulse, more erect and elevated than usual; the eye is raised, and assumes a look of superiority or command. Cicero takes notice of the same thing as a natural effect, produced on the Bodily Expression, by the contemplation of the universe; and more particularly, of subjects which are exalted and celestial, either in the literal or the metaphorical acceptation of these words. "Est animorum ingeniorumque quoddam quasi pabulum, "consideratio contemplatioque naturæ. Erigimur, elevatiores fieri videmur; humana despicimus; cogitantesque supera atque cœlestia, hæc nostra ut exigua et minima " contemnimus." Even in speaking of any thing, whether physical or moral, which invites Imagination upwards, the tones of the voice become naturally higher; while they sink spontaneously to a deep bass, when she follows a contrary direction. This is the more remarkable, that the analogy apprehended between high and low in the musical scale, and high and low in their literal acceptations, seems to be the result of circumstances which have not operated universally among our species, in producing the same association of ideas.* The various associations connected with Sublimity become thus incorporated, as it were, with the Language of nature; and, in consequence of this incorporation, acquire an incalculable accession of influence over the human frame. We may remark this influence even on the acute and distinguishing judgment of Aristotle, in the admirable description of Μεγαλοψυχία in the third chapter of his Nicomachian Ethics; the whole of which description. hinges on an analogy (suggested by a metaphorical word) between Greatness of Stature and Greatness of Mind. The same analogy is the ground-work of the account of Sublimity in Writing, given by Longinus; who, although he speaks only of the effect of sublimity on the Mind, plainly identifies that effect with its Bodily expression. "The Mind" (he observes)" is naturally elevated by the true Sublime, and, assuming a certain proud and érect "attitude, exults and glories, as if it had itself produced "what it has only heard." The description is, I think, perfectly correct; and may be regarded as a demonstrative proof, that, in the complicated effect which sub *Sec Sec Philosophy of the Human Mind, ch. v. part ii. sect. 1. limity produces, the primary idea which has given name to the whole, always retains a decided predominance over the other ingredients. It seems to be the expression of Mental Elevation, conveyed by the "os sublime" of man, and by what Milton calls the looks commercing with the skies, which is the foundation of the sublimity we ascribe to the Human figure. In point of actual height, it is greatly inferior to various tribes of other animals; but none of these have the whole of their bodies, both trunk and limbs, in the direction of the vertical line; coinciding with that tendency to rise or to mount upwards, which is symbolical of every species of improvement, whether intellectual or moral; and which typifies so forcibly to our species, the preeminence of their rank and destination, among the inhabi tants of this lower world.* "When I look up to the Heavens which thou hast made (says an inspired writer); to the Sun and Stars which "thou hast ordained; "Then say I, what is man that thou art mindful of him, "or the son of man that thou shouldst visit him! "For thou hast made him but a little lower than the an"gels; thou hast crowned his head with glory and honour. * "Omnis homines qui sese student præstare cæteris animalibus, "summâ ope niti decet, ne vitam silentio transeant, veluti pecora, quæ natura prona, atque ventri obedientia, finxit."-Sallust. "Separat hoc nos "A grege mutorum, atque ideo venerabile soli Juvenal. xv. Sat. 142. "Thou hast put all things under his feet." Intimately connected with the sublime effect of man's erect form is the imposing influence of a superiority of stature over the mind of the multitude." And when "Saul stood among the people, he was higher than any "of them, from his shoulders and upward.-And all the people shouted and said, God save the King." Even in the present state of society, a superiority of stature is naturally accompanied with an air of authority,the imitation of which would be ludicrous in a person not possessed of the same advantages; and in a popular assembly, every one must have remarked the weight which it adds to the eloquence of a speaker, "proudly "eminent above the rest in shape and gesture."* From these observations it is easy to explain, how the fancy comes to estimate the intellectual and moral excellencies of individuals, in a way analogous to that in which we measure their stature (I mean by an ideal scale placed in a vertical position); and to employ the words above, below, superiority, inferiority, and numberless others, to mark, in these very different cases, their relative advantages and disadvantages.† We have even a bias to carry this analogy farther; and to conceive the various orders of created beings, as forming a rising scale of an indefinite Altitude. In this manner we are naturally led to give the title of Sublime to such attainments and efforts, in our own species, as rise above the common pitch of humanity; * See Note (H h). † A trifling, but curious instance, of an analogous association may be remarked in the application we make of the terms High and Low to the Temperature of bodies, in consequence of the vertical position of the scale in our common Thermometers. and hence, the origin of an additional association, conspiring with other circumstances formerly pointed out, as suggesting a metaphorical application of that word to a particular class of the higher beauties of Style. It appears to me probable, that it was by a vague extension of this meaning of the Sublime, to excellence in general, that Longinus was led to bestow this epithet on Sappho's Ode;* and on some other specimens of the Vehement or Impassioned, and also of the Nervous, and of the Elegant, which do not seem to rise above the common tone of classical composition in any one quality, but in the finished perfection with which they are executed. I confess, at the same time, my own opinion is, that, with all his great merits as a critic and as an eloquent writer, his use of this word throughout his treatise can neither be accounted for nor rendered consistent by any philosophical theory whatever. In various places, he evidently employs it precisely in the same sense in which it is now generally understood in our language; and in which I have all along used it, in attempting to trace the connection between its different and apparently arbitrary significations.† It is wonderful that Longinus was not induced, by his own very metaphorical description of the effects of sublime writing, to inquire, in the next place, to what causes it is owing, that sublime emotions have the tendency which he ascribes to them, to elevate the thoughts, and to communicate literally a momentary elevation to the body. At these effects he has stopped short, without bestowing any attention on what seems to me the most interesting view of the problem. * Note (I i). + Note (K k). |