f horror; but _life_ and _health_, though they put us in a capacity of
being affected with pleasure, make no such impression by the simple
enjoyment. The passions therefore which are conversant about the
preservation of the individual turn chiefly on _pain_ and _danger_, and
they are the most powerful of all the passions.

SECTION VII.

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 pleasures which the most learned
voluptuary could suggest, or than the liveliest imagination, and the
most sound and exquisitely sensible body, could enjoy. Nay, I am in
great doubt whether any man could be found, who would earn a life of the
most perfect satisfaction at the price of ending it in the torments,
which justice inflicted in a few hours on the late unfortunate regicide
in France. 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. The cause of this I shall endeavor to investigate
hereafter.

SECTION VIII.

OF THE PASSIONS WHICH BELONG TO SOCIETY.

The other head under which I class our passions, is that of _society_,
which may be divided into two sorts. 1. The society of the _sexes_,
which answers the purpose of propagation; and next, that more _general
society_, which we have with men and with other animals, and which we
may in some sort be said to have even with the inanimate world. The
passions belonging to the preservation of the individual turn wholly o