r idea of greatness of suffering or extent of destruction is
sublime, whether there be any connection of that idea with ourselves or
not. If we were placed beyond the reach of all peril or pain, the
perception of these agencies in their influence on others would not be
less sublime, not because peril or pain are sublime in their own nature,
but because their contemplation, exciting compassion or fortitude,
elevates the mind, and renders meanness of thought impossible. Beauty is
not so often felt to be sublime; because, in many kinds of purely
material beauty there is some truth in Burke's assertion, that
"littleness" is one of its elements. But he who has not felt that there
may be beauty without littleness, and that such beauty is a source of
the sublime, is yet ignorant of the meaning of the ideal in art. I do
not mean, in tracing the source of the sublime to greatness, to hamper
myself with any fine-spun theory. I take the widest possible ground of
investigation, that sublimity is found wherever anything elevates the
mind; that is, wherever it contemplates anything above itself, and
perceives it to be so. This is the simple philological signification of
the word derived from _sublimis_; and will serve us much more easily,
and be a far clearer and more evident ground of argument, than any mere
metaphysical or more limited definition, while the proof of its justness
will be naturally developed by its application to the different branches
of art.

Sec. 6. The former division of the subject is therefore sufficient.

As, therefore, the sublime is not distinct from what is beautiful, nor
from other sources of pleasure in art, but is only a particular mode and
manifestation of them, my subject will divide itself into the
investigation of ideas of truth, beauty, and relation; and to each of
these classes of ideas I destine a separate part of the work. The
investigation of ideas of truth will enable us to determine the
relative rank of artists as followers and historians of nature.

That of ideas of beauty will lead us to compare them in their
attainment, first of what is agreeable in technical matters, then in
color and composition, finally and chiefly, in the purity of their
conceptions of the ideal.

And that of ideas of relation will lead us to compare them as
originators of just thought.

PART II.

OF TRUTH.