The anthropological works of Alexander Walker (Volume 1).

  • Alexander Walker
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The anthropological works of Alexander Walker (Volume 1). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    ingly boundless plain, the sky, the ocean, &c. j and the particular direction of the magnitude or extent always correspondingly modifies the emotion — height giving more especially the idea of power, breadth of resistance, depth of danger, &c. Of the objects mentioned above, the ocean is the most sublime, because, to vastness in length and breadth, it adds depth, and a force perpetually active. Now, that these objects, though sublime, are beautiful, is very evident; and it is therefore also evident how much Burke erred in asserting com- parative smallness to be the first character of beauty generally considered. This and similar errors, as already said, have greatly obscured this subject, and have led Burke and others so to modify and qualify their doctrines, as to take from them all precision and certainty. Hence, in one place, Burke says: As, in the animal world, and in a good measure in the vege- table world likewise, the qualities that constitute beauty may possibly be united to things of greater dimensions [that is, littleness may be united with bigness !] ; when they are so united they constitute a species something different both from the sublime and beautiful, which I have before called, Fine. So also he says : Ugliness I imagine likewise to be consistent enough with an idea of the sublime. But I would by no means insinuate that ugliness of itself is a sublime idea, unless united with such qualities as excite a strong terror. Here, he confounds sublimity with terror, as do Blair and other write^ when they say that exact
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