Edmund Burke (1729-1797) - from A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of
Our Ideas of The Sublime
and Beautiful (1757)
At the age of nineteen, the
Irish writer Edmund Burke wrote a treatise on the sublime which established the
concept as a central one in modern aesthetics. Building on the English
tradition of the 18th century, he turned the consideration of the
sublime from the context of rhetoric, as classical texts did, to a general
theory of art and feeling--“sensibility,” as his age came to call it--and
inspired other philosophers, such as Kant and Hegel, to see the opposition of
the sublime and the beautiful as a way of constructing a rational analysis of
aesthetic response built on scientific knowledge and the emerging field of
psychology.
An important member of parliament and
political orator, Burke is also known as the father of modern
conservatism--although aside from his defense of stable authority in Reflections on the Revolution in France,
his political views were generally classically liberal.
The passions which belong to
self-preservation turn on pain and danger; they are simply painful when their
causes immediately affect us; they are delightful when we have an idea of pain
and danger, without being actually in such circumstances; this delight I have
not called pleasure, because it turns on pain, and because it is different
enough from any idea of positive pleasure. Whatever excites this delight, I
call sublime. The passions belonging
to self-preservation are the strongest of all the passions.
The second head to which the passions are
referred with relation to their final cause, is society. There are two sorts of
societies. The first is, the society of sex. The passion belonging to this is
called love, and it contains a mixture of lust; its object is the beauty of
women. The other is the great society with man and all other animals. The
passion subservient to this is called likewise love, but it has no mixture of
lust, and its object is beauty; which is a name I shall apply to all such
qualities in things as induce in us a sense of affection and tenderness, or
some other passion the most nearly resembling these. The passion of love has
its rise in positive pleasure; it is, like all things which grow out of
pleasure, capable of being mixed with a mode of uneasiness, that is, when an
idea of its object is excited in the mind with an idea at the same time of
having irretrievably lost it. This mixed sense of pleasure I have not called pain, because it turns upon actual
pleasure, and because it is, both in its cause and in most of its effects, of a
nature altogether different.
Next to the general passion we have for
society, to a choice in which we are directed by the pleasure we have in the
object, the particular passion under this head called sympathy has the greatest
extent. The nature of this passion is, to put us in the place of another in
whatever circumstance he is in, and to affect us in a like manner; so that this
passion may, as the occasion requires, turn either on pain or pleasure
Of the Sublime
Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the
ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or
is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to
terror, is a source of the sublime;
that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of
feeling. I say the strongest emotion, because I am satisfied the ideas of pain
are much more powerful than those which enter on the part of pleasure. Without
all doubt, the torments which we may be made to suffer are much greater in
their effect on the body and mind, than any pleasure which the most learned
voluptuary could suggest, or than the liveliest imagination, and the most sound
and exquisitely sensible body, could enjoy. . . . But as pain is stronger in
its operation than pleasure, so death is in general a much more affecting idea
than pain; because there are very few pains, however exquisite, which are not
preferred to death: nay, what generally makes pain itself, if I may say so,
more painful, is, that it is considered as an emissary of this king of terrors.
When danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight,
and are simply terrible; but at certain distances, and with certain modifications,
they may be, and they are, delightful, as we every day experience. . . .
Astonishment, as I have said, is the effect of the sublime in its highest
degree; the inferior effects are admiration, reverence, and respect.
Terror
No passion so effectually robs the mind of
all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.
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. . . . Indeed, terror is in all cases whatsoever, either more
openly or latently, the ruling principle of the sublime.
Obscurity
To
make anything very terrible, obscurity 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 goblins, of which none can form
clear ideas, affect minds which give credit to the popular tales concerning
such sorts of beings. Those despotic governments, which are founded on the
passions of men, and principally upon the passion of fear, keep their chief as
much as may be from the public eye. The policy has been the same in many cases
of religion. Almost all the heathen temples were dark. Even in the barbarous
temples of the Americans at this day, they keep their idol in a dark part of
the hut, which is consecrated to his worship. For this purpose too the Druids
performed all their ceremonies in the bosom of the darkest woods, and in the
shade of the oldest and most spreading oaks.
Power
Besides those things which directly
suggest the idea of danger, and those which produce a similar effect from a
mechanical cause, I know of nothing sublime, which is not some modification of
power. And this branch rises, as naturally as the other two branches, from
terror, the common stock of everything that is sublime. . . . where the chances
for equal degrees of suffering or enjoyment are in any sort equal, the idea of
the suffering must always be prevalent. And indeed the ideas of pain, and,
above all, of death, are so very affecting, that whilst we remain in the
presence of whatever is supposed to have the power of inflicting either, it is
impossible to be perfectly free from terror. . . . Pleasure follows the will;
and therefore we are generally affected with it by many things of a force
greatly inferior to our own. But pain is always inflicted by a power in some
way superior, because we never submit to pain willingly. So that strength,
violence, pain, and terror, are ideas that rush in upon the mind together. . .
.
. . . The power which arises from institution
in kings and commanders, has the same connexion with terror. Sovereigns are
frequently addressed with the title of dread
majesty. . . I know some people are of opinion, that no awe, no degree of
terror, accompanies the idea of power; and have hazarded to affirm, that we can
contemplate the idea of God himself without any such emotion. I purposely
avoided, when I first considered this subject, to introduce the idea of that
great and tremendous Being, as an example in an argument so light as this;
though it frequently occurred to me, not as an objection to, but as a strong
confirmation of, my notions in this matter. I hope, in what I am going to say,
I shall avoid presumption, where it is almost impossible for any mortal to
speak with strict propriety. I say then that whilst we consider the Godhead
merely as he is an object of the understanding, which forms a complex idea of
power, wisdom, justice, goodness, all stretched to a degree far exceeding the
bounds of our comprehension, whilst we consider the Divinity in this refined
and abstracted light, the imagination and passions are little or nothing
affected. But because we are bound, by the condition of our nature, to ascend
to these pure and intellectual ideas, through the medium of sensible images,
and to judge of these divine qualities by their evident acts and exertions, it
becomes extremely hard to disentangle our idea of the cause from the effect by
which we are led to know it. Thus when we contemplate the Deity, his attributes
and their operation, coming united on the mind, form a sort of sensible image,
and as such are capable of affecting the imagination. Now, though in a just
idea of the Deity perhaps none of his attributes are predominant, yet, to our
imagination, his power is by far the most striking. Some reflection, some
comparing, is necessary to satisfy us of his wisdom, his justice, and his
goodness. To be struck with his power, it is only necessary that we should open
our eyes. But whilst we contemplate so vast an object, under the arm, as it
were, of almighty power, and invested upon every side with omnipresence, we
shrink into the minuteness of our own nature, and are, in a manner, annihilated
before him. And though a consideration of his other attributes may relieve, in
some measure, our apprehensions; yet no conviction of the justice with which it
is exercised, nor the mercy with which it is tempered, can wholly remove the
terror that naturally arises from a force which nothing can withstand. If we
rejoice, we rejoice with trembling: and even whilst we are receiving benefits,
we cannot but shudder at a power which can confer benefits of such mighty
importance. . . . In the Scripture, wherever God is represented as appearing or
speaking, everything terrible in nature is called up to heighten the awe and
solemnity of the Divine presence.
Some dimensions of the sublime:
All general
privations are great, because they are all terrible; Vacuity, Darkness, Solitude,
and Silence.
Greatness of dimension [Vastness]
is a powerful cause of the sublime. This is too evident, and the observation
too common, to need any illustration
Infinity has a tendency to fill the mind with that
sort of delightful horror, which is the most genuine effect and truest test of
the sublime. There are scarce any things which can become the objects of our
senses, that are really and in their own nature infinite. But the eye not being
able to perceive the bounds of many things, they seem to be infinite, and they
produce the same effects as if they were really so. We are deceived in the like
manner, if the parts of some large object are so continued to any indefinite
number, that the imagination meets no check which may hinder its extending them
at pleasure.
Magnificence is likewise a source of the sublime. A great
profusion of things, which are splendid or valuable in themselves, is magnificent. The starry heaven, though
it occurs so very frequently to our view, never fails to excite an idea of grandeur.
This cannot be owing to the stars themselves, separately considered. The number
is certainly the cause. The apparent disorder augments the grandeur, for the
appearance of care is highly contrary to our idea of magnificence. Besides, the
stars lie in such apparent confusion, as makes it impossible on ordinary
occasions to reckon them. This gives them the advantage of a sort of infinity.
In works of art, this kind of grandeur, which consists in multitude, is to be
very courteously admitted; because a profusion of excellent things is not to be
attained, or with too much difficulty; and because in many cases this splendid
confusion would destroy all use, which should be attended to in most of the
works of art with the greatest care; besides, it is to be considered, that
unless you can produce an appearance of infinity by your disorder, you will
have disorder only without magnificence. There are, however, a sort of
fireworks, and some other things, that in this way succeed well, and are truly
grand.
Excessive loudness alone is
sufficient to overpower the soul, to suspend its action, and to fill it with
terror. The noise of vast cataracts, raging storms, thunder, or artillery,
awakes a great and awful sensation in the mind, though we can observe no nicety
or artifice in those sorts of music. The shouting of multitudes has a similar
effect; and, by the sole strength of the sound, so amazes and confounds the
imagination, that, in this staggering and hurry of the mind, the
best-established tempers can scarcely forbear being borne down, and joining in
the common cry, and common resolution of the crowd.
A sudden beginning or sudden cessation
of sound of any considerable force, has the name power. The attention is roused
by this; and the faculties driven forward, as it were, on their guard.
Whatever, either in sights or sounds, makes the transition from one extreme to
the other easy, causes no terror, and consequently can be no cause of
greatness. In everything sudden and unexpected, we are apt to start; that is,
we have a perception of danger, and our nature rouses us to guard against it.
The idea of bodily pain, in all the
modes and degrees of labour, pain, anguish, torment, is productive of the
sublime.
