spirituous liquors, shall
suspend the operation of grief, or fear, or anger, in spite of all our
efforts to the contrary; and this by inducing in the body a disposition
contrary to that which it receives from these passions.

SECTION V.

HOW THE SUBLIME IS PRODUCED.

Having considered terror as producing an unnatural tension and certain
violent emotions of the nerves; it easily follows, from what we have
just said, that whatever is fitted to produce such a tension must be
productive of a passion similar to terror,[32] and consequently must be
a source of the sublime, though it should have no idea of danger
connected with it. So that little remains towards showing the cause of
the sublime, but to show that the instances we have given of it in the
second part relate to such things, as are fitted by nature to produce
this sort of tension, either by the primary operation of the mind or the
body. With regard to such things as affect by the associated idea of
danger, there can be no doubt but that they produce terror, and act by
some modification of that passion; and that terror, when sufficiently
violent, raises the emotions of the body just mentioned, can as little
be doubted. But if the sublime is built on terror or some passion like
it, which has pain for its object, it is previously proper to inquire
how any species of delight can be derived from a cause so apparently
contrary to it. I say _delight_, because, as I have often remarked, it
is very evidently different in its cause, and in its own nature, from
actual and positive pleasure.

SECTION VI.

HOW PAIN CAN BE A CAUSE OF DELIGHT.

Providence has so ordered it, that a state of rest and inaction, however
it may flatter our indolence, should be productive of many
inconveniences; that it should generate such disorders, as may force us
to have recourse to some labor, as a thing absolutely requisite to make
us pass our lives with tolerable satisfaction; for the nature of rest is
to suffer all the parts of our bodies to fall into a relaxation, that
not only disables the members from performing their functions, but takes
away the vigorous tone of fibre which is requisite for carrying on the
natural and necessary secretions. At the same time, that in this languid
in active state, the nerves are more liable to the most horrid
convulsions, than when they are sufficiently braced and strengthened.
Melancholy, dejection, despair, and often self-murder, is the
conseque