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2. There is a distinction in the effects produced upon our minds by objects of taste, and this distinction, both in the EMOTIONS and their CAUSES, has been expressed by the terms of SUBLIMITY and BEAUTY. It will form, therefore, a second objeet of inquiry to ascertain THE NATURE OF THIS DISTINCTION, both with regard to these emotions and to the qualities that produce them.

III. From the preceding inquiries I shall proceed, in the LAST PART, to investigate the NATURE of that faculty by which these emotions are perceived and felt. I shall endeavour to shew, that it has no resemblance to a sense; that as, whenever it is employed, two distinct and independent powers of mind are employed, it is not to be considered as a separate and peculiar faculty, and that it is finally to be resolved into more general principles of our constitution. These speculations will probably lead to the important inquiry, whether there is any STANDARD by which the perfection or imperfection of our sentiments upon these subjects may be determined; to some explanation of the means by which taste may be corrected or improved; and to some illustration of the PURPOSES, which this peculiar constitution of our nature serves, in the increase of human HAPPINESS, and the exaltation of human CHARACTER.

I feel it incumbent on me, however, to inform my readers, that I am to employ, in these inquiries, a different kind of evidence from what has usually been employed by writers upon these subjects, and that my illustrations will be derived, much less from the compositions of the fine arts, than from the appearances of common nature, and the experience of common

men.

If the fine arts are in reality arts of imitation, their principles are to be sought for in the subject which they imitate; and it is ever to be remembered, "That music, architec"ture, and painting, as well as poetry and oratory are to de"duce their laws and rules from the general sense and taste of "mankind, and not from the principles of these arts themselves: "in other words, that the taste is not to conform to the art, but "the art to the taste." In following this mode of illustration, while I am sensible that I render my book less amusing, I trust I render it more useful. The most effectual method to check the empiricism, either of art or of science, is to multi*Mr. Addison.

may

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ply, as far as possible, the number of those who can observe, and judge; and (whatever may be the conclusions of my readers with regard to my own particular opinions), I shall not have occupied their attention in vain, if I can lead them to think and to feel for themselves; to employ the powers which are given them to the ends for which they were given; and, upon subjects where all men are entitled to judge, to disregard alike the abstract refinements of the philosopher who speculates in the closet, and the technical doctrines of the artist who dietates in the school,

ESSAY I.

OF THE NATURE OF THE EMOTIONS OF
SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY.

CHAPTER I.

Of the effect produced upon the imagination by objects of
Sublimity and Beauty.

SECTION 1.

THE emotions of sublimity and beauty are uniformly ascribed, both in popular and in philosophical language, to the imagination. The fine arts are considered as the arts which are addressed to the imagination, and the pleasures they afford are described, by way of distinction, as the pleasures of the imagination. The nature of any person's taste, is, in common life, generally determined from the nature or character of his imagination, and the expression of any deficiency in this power of mind, is considered as synonymous with the expression of a similar deficiency in point of taste.

Although, however, this connexion is so generally acknowledged, it is not perhaps as generally understood in what it consists, or what is the nature of that effect which is produced upon the imagination, by objects of sublimity and beauty. I shall endeavour, therefore, in the first place, to state, what seems to me the nature of this effect, or, in what that exercise of imagination con

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