and not a repetition of fimilar ideas; it is therefore great, not so much fo upon the principle of infinity, as upon that of vastnefs. But we are not so powerfully affected with any one impulfe, unless it be one of a prodigious force indeed, as we are with a fucceffion of fimilar impulses; because the nerves of the fenfory do not (if I may use the expreffion) acquire a habit of repeating the fame feeling in such a manner as to continue it longer than its caufe is in action; befides, all the effects which I have attributed to expectation and furprise in fect. II. can have no place in a bare wall.

SECT. XIV.

Locke's opinion concerning darkness, confidered.

T is Mr. Locke's opinion, that dark

IT

nefs is not naturally an idea of terror; and that, though an exceffive light is

painful to the fenfe, that the greatest excess of darkness is no ways troublefome. He obferves indeed in another place, that a nurse or an old woman having once affociated the ideas of ghosts and goblins with that of darkness; night ever after becomes painful and horrible to the imagination. The authority of this great man is doubtless as great, as that of any man can be, and it seems to ftand in the way of our general principle*. We have confidered darkness as a cause of the fublime; and we have all along confidered the fublime as depending on fome modification of pain or terror; fo that, if darkness be no way painful or terrible to any, who have not had their minds early tainted with fuperftitions, it can be no fource of the fublime to them. But with all deference to such an authority; it seems to me, that an affociation of a more gene→ ral nature, an affociation which takes in

T

all

* Part 2. fect. 3.

all mankind may make darkness terrible; for in utter darkness, it is impoffible to know in what degree of fafety we ftand; we are ignorant of the objects that furround us; we may every moment strike against fome dangerous obftruction; we may fall down a precipice the first step we take; and if an enemy approach, we know not in what quarter to defend ourselves; in such a case strength is no fure protection; wifdóm can only act by guefs; the boldeft are staggered, and he who would pray for nothing else towards his defence, is forced to pray for light.

Ζευ πάτερ, αλλά συ ρυσαι από μέρος υίας Αχαιων Ποίησον δ' αιθρην, δος δ' οφθαλμοισιν ίδεσθαι Εν δε φαει καὶ ολείςον.

As to the affociation of ghosts and goblins; furely it is more natural to think, that darkness being originally an idea of terror, was chosen as a fit scene for fuch terrible representations, than

that fuch representations have made darkness terrible. The mind of man very easily flides into an error of the former fort; but it is very hard to imagine, that the effect of an idea fo univerfally terrible in all times, and in all countries, as darkness, could poffibly have been owing to a set of idle stories, or to any cause of a nature fo trivial, and of an operation fo precarious.

SECT. XV.

DARKNESS terrible in its own nature.

PERHAPS

ERHAPS it may appear on enquiry, that blackness and darkness are in fome degree painful by their natural operation, independent of

any affociations whatfoever. I must obferve, that the ideas of darkness and blackness are much the fame; and they differ only in this, that blackness is a more confined idea. Mr. Chefelden has given

us a very curious ftory of a boy, who

1

had been born blind, and continued fo until he was thirteen or fourteen years old; he was then couched for a cataract, by which operation he received his fight. Among many remarkable particulars that attended his first perceptions, and judgments on visual objects, Chefelden tells us, that the first time the boy faw a black object, it gave him great uneafinefs; and that fome time after, upon accidentally seeing a negro woman, he was ftruck with great horror at the fight. The horror, in this cafe, can scarcely be supposed to arife from any affociation. The boy appears by the account to have been particularly observing, and fenfible for one of his age: and therefore, it is probable, if the great uneafinefs he felt at the firft fight of black had arisen from its connection with any other disagreeable ideas, he would have obferved and mentioned it. For an idea, difagreeable only by affociation, has the

cause