I add here a few remarks on some points which it was not convenient to
discuss in the lecture.
1. We have seen that in the apprehension of sublimity we do not always
employ comparison or attempt to measure. To feel a thing overwhelmingly
great it is not necessary to have before the mind either the idea of
something less great, or any standard of greatness. To argue that this
must be necessary because 'great' means nothing except as opposed to
'small,' is like arguing that I cannot have a perception of pride
without thinking of humility.
This point seems to me quite clear. But a question remains. If we go
below consciousness, what is it that happens in us? The apprehension of
sublimity implies that we have received an exceedingly strong
impression. This as a matter of fact must mean an impression very much
stronger than something else; and this something else must be, so to
say, a standard with which the impression is unconsciously compared.
What then is it?
Stated in the most general terms, it must apparently be the usual or
average strength of impressions.
But this unconscious standard takes particular concrete forms in various
classes of cases. Not seldom it seems to be our sense of our own power
or of average human power. This is especially so where the thing felt to
be sublime is, in the relevant respect, _in eodem genere_ with
ourselves. A sublime lion, for example, is immensely superior to us, or
to the average man, in muscular force and so in dangerousness,
Tourgenieff's sparrow in courage and love, a god in all sorts of ways.
And the use of this unconscious standard is probably the reason of the
fact, noted in the lecture, that it is difficult to feel sublimity, as
regards vital force, in a creature smaller than ourselves.
But this is not the only standard. A sublime lion is not only immensely
stronger than we are, but is generally also exceptional among lions; and
so with a sublime tree or bridge or thunderstorm. So that we seem also
to use as unconscious standard the idea of the average of the kind to
which the thing belongs. An average thunderstorm hardly seems sublime,
and yet it is overwhelmingly superior to us in power.[15]
What, again, is the psychical machinery employed when we attempt to
measure the shoreless sea, or time, and find them immeasurable? Is there
any standard of the 'usual' here? I will leave this question to more
skilled psychologists than myself.
2. Since the impression produced by sublimity is one of very exceptional
strength, we are not able to feel it continuously for long, though we
can repeat it after a pause. In this the sublime differs from the
'beautiful,' on which we like to _dwell_ after our first surprise is
over. A tragedy or symphony that was sublime from beginning to end could
not be so experienced. Living among mountains, we feel their beauty more
or less constantly, their sublimity only by flashes.
3. If our account of the impression produced by sublimity is true, why
should not any sensation whatever produce this impression merely by
gaining extraordinary strength? It seems to me it would, supposing at
its normal strength it conformed to the general requirements of
aesthetic experience, and supposing the requisite accession of strength
did not remove this conformity. But this, in one respect at least, it
would do. It would make the light, sound, smell, physiologically
painful, and we should feel it as painful or even dangerous. We find
this in the case of lightning. If it is to be felt as aesthetic it must
not pass a certain degree of brightness; or, as we sometimes say, it
must not be too 'near.'