SECTION VIII.. Why Things Not Dangerous Sometimes Produce a Passion Like Terror.

WHY THINGS NOT DANGEROUS SOMETIMES PRODUCE A PASSION LIKE TERROR.

A mode of terror or pain is always the cause of the sublime. For terror or associated danger, the foregoing explication is, I believe, sufficient. It will require something more trouble to show, that such examples as I have given of the sublime in the second part are capable of producing a mode of pain, and of being thus allied to terror, and to be accounted for on the same principles. And first of such objects as are great in their dimensions. I speak of visual objects.