h
would itself be the perfection of humanity, but that it is mixed with
all that is not nature, and all that is not art, and thereby made
mediocrity, i.e. _common sense_.

The intellectual powers, arriving at the limit of my common circle,
i.e. at the limit of the basis of my pyramidical system, where I
have placed the fixed proportions of beauty and of truth, (if they
progress,) mount up as a flame, with undulating[A] motion, refining
as they advance, and terminate in the pinnacle, or ultimate point,
_sublimity_; forming in the imagination the figure of a pyramid,
or cone, from the limit of whose base, (on which, as I have before
observed, I have placed demonstrable truth and beauty, the utmost
power of rules, &c.) from that limit up to the ultimate point of
sublimity, I call the region of intellectual pleasure, genius, or
taste; and in its center I place grace, whose influence pervades,
cheers, and nourishes, every part of it, an object which, in this
ideal region, is similar in its situation and degree to that of common
sense in the common or fundamental region. Grace seems to partake
of the perception both of beauty and of sublimity, as common sense
partakes of nature and of art. Grace is the characteristic object or
general form of the ideal region, and its perception is the general
limit of the powers of imagination or taste. Few, very few, attain to
the point of sublimity; the _ne plus ultra_ of human conception! the
alpha and omega. The sentiment of sublimity sinks into the source of
nature, and that of the source of nature mounts to the sentiment of
sublimity, each point seeming to each the cause and the effect; the
origin and the end!

[Footnote A: I use that expression, because it is the peculiar motion
of grace as well as of a flame.]

Having thus drawn the outline of my pyramidical mental system, I
propose to expatiate a little on each point or stage throughout the
great characteristic line of intellectual power.

The first point The exact center, _nature_, or the origin of our
intellectual faculties, admits of no investigation, its idea, as I
have observed before, loses itself in the sentiment of sublimity,
and we see nothing; and therefore I pass on to an object which is
perceptible, _the common general character of humanity_, _exterior and
inferior_. I have placed them on a line, because their ideas are so
analogous, that they unite in one.

Section 1. _Common Sense and common Form_.

Perfecti