"Numquid Dei intima pervestigabis? An invenies etiam perfectionem omnipotentis? "Orco profundior; quid cognosces! "Quo discedam a spiritu tuo; 'Fugam capiam auroram versus ; "Habitem in extremitate maris occidui : "Et apprehenderet me dextera tua.”8(B) Here we find the idea of infinity perfectly expressed, though it be perhaps the most difficult of all ideas to impress upon the mind: for when simply and abstractedly mentioned, without the assistance and illustration of any circumstances whatever, it almost wholly evades the power of the human understanding. The sacred writers have, therefore, recourse to description, amplification, and imagery, by which they give substance and solidity to what is in itself a subtile and unsubstantial phantom; and render an ideal shadow the object of our senses. They conduct us through all the dimensions of space, length, breadth, and height: these they do not describe in general or indefinite terms; they apply to them an actual line and measure, and that the most extensive which all nature can supply, or which the mind is indeed able to comprehend. When the intellect is carried beyond these limits, there is nothing substantial upon which it can rest; it wanders through every part, and when it has compassed the boundaries of creation, it imperceptibly glides into the void of infinity: whose vast and formless extent, when displayed to the mind of man in the forcible manner so happily attained by the Hebrew writers, impresses it with the sublimest and most awful sensations, and fills it with a mixture of admiration and terror. That more vehement species of negation or affirmation, which assumes the confident form of interrogation, is admirably calculated to impress the mind with a very forcible idea of Divine power. also frequently occurs in the sacred poetry : "Hoc est decretum de omni terra consilium, 7 JOB Xi. 7-9. 8 PSAL. CXXXix. 7-10. This "Nam Iehova exercituum decrevit, et quis irritum faciet? "Et ipsius est manus quae extenditur, et quis eam avertet?"9 "An locutus est, et non effectum dabit ?"10 Nor is that ironical kind of concession, which is sometimes put into the mouth of the Supreme Being, less energetic; the following passage is an admirable instance: "Orna te, age, magnificentia et celsitudine; "Effunde quaquaversum aestus irae tuae ; "Involve eorum vultus, et in obscurum demerge. "Cum tibi salutem praestiterit dextera tua."'ll When the Divine Omnipotence is opposed to human infirmity, the one is proportionably magnified as the other is diminished by the contrast. The monstrous absurdity of a comparison between things extremely unequal, the more forcibly serves to demonstrate that inequality, and sets them at an infinite distance from each other. Since, however, the sacred poets were under the necessity of speaking of God in a manner adapted to human conceptions, and of attributing to him the actions, the passions, the faculties of man; how can they be supposed ever to have depicted the Divine Majesty in terms at all becoming the greatness of the subject? And are they not in this case more likely to disgrace and degrade it? May not that censure be applied to them, which Longinus so deservedly applies to Homer, that he turned his gods into men, and even debased them beneath the standard of humanity?—The case is, however, materially different: Homer, and the other heathen poets, relate facts of their deities, which, though impious and absurd, when literally understood, are scarcely, or at all intelligible in an allegorical sense, and can by no means be reduced to an interpretation strictly figurative.12 On the contrary, in the delineation of the Divine nature, the sacred poets do indeed, in conformity to the weakness of the human understanding, employ terrestrial imagery; but it is in such a manner, that the attributes which are borrowed from human 9 ISAI. xiv. 26, 27. 10 NUMB. xxiii. 19. 11 JOB xl. 10-14. Vol. viii. p. 526. nature and human action, can never in a literal sense be applied to the Divinity. The understanding is continually referred from the shadow to the reality; nor can it rest satisfied with the bare literal application, but is naturally directed to investigate that quality in the Divine nature, which appears to be analogous to the image. This, if I am not mistaken, will supply us with a reason not very obvious, of a very observable effect in the Hebrew writings, namely, why, among those sensible images that are applied to the Deity, those principally, which in a literal sense would seem most remote from the object, and most unworthy of the Divine Majesty, are nevertheless, when used metaphorically, or in the way of comparison, by far the most sublime. That imagery, for instance, which is taken from the parts and members of the human body, is found to be much nobler and more magnificent in its effect, than that which is taken from the passions of the mind; and that, which is taken from the animal creation, frequently exceeds in sublimity that which the nature of man has suggested. For such is our ignorance and blindness in contemplating the Divine nature, that we can by no means attain to a simple and pure idea of it: we necessarily mingle something of the human with the divine: the grosser animal properties, therefore, we easily distinguish and separate, but it is with the ut most difficulty that we can preserve the rational, and even some of the properties of the sensitive, soul perfectly distinct. Hence it is, that in those figurative expressions derived from the nobler and more excellent qualities of human nature, when applied to the Almighty, we frequently acquiesce, as if they were in strict literal propriety to be attributed to him on the contrary, our understanding immediately rejects the literal sense of those which seem quite inconsistent with the Divine Being, and derived from an ignoble source: and, while it pursues the analogy, it constantly rises to a contemplation, which, though obscure, is yet grand and magnificent. Let us observe, whether this observation will apply to the following passages, in which the psalmist ascribes to God the resentment commonly experienced by a human creature for an injury unexpectedly received: there appears in the image nothing to excite our admiration, nothing particularly sublime : "Audivit Deus, et ira exarsit; "Et Israëlem cum summo fastidio reiecit."13 But when, a little after, the same subject is depicted in figurative 13 PSAL. lxxviii. 59. terms, derived from much grosser objects, and applied in a still more daring manner, nothing can be more sublime: "Tum expergefactus est Dominus veluti ex somno; Tanquam Athleta prae vino in clamorem erumpens."14 On the same principle the sublimity of those passages is founded, in which the image is taken from the roaring of a lion, the clamour of rustic labourers, and the rage of wild beasts : "Ex alto rugiet Iehova; "Et ex sacrosancto habitaculo edet vocem: "Et ero illis instar leonis; "Sicut pardus iuxta viam insidiabor; "Et discerpam eorum praecordia."16 From ideas, which in themselves appear coarse, unsuitable, and totally unworthy of so great an object, the mind naturally recedes, and passes suddenly to the contemplation of the object itself, and of its inherent magnitude and importance. 14 PSAL. lxxviii. 65. 15 JER. XXV. 30. 16 Hos. xiii. 7, 8. LECTURE XVII. OF THE SUBLIME OF PASSION. Sublimity of sentiment as arising from the vehement affections of the mind-What is commonly called enthusiasm is the natural effect of passion: the true enthusiasm arises from the impulse of the Divine Spirit, and is peculiar to the sacred poets-The principal force of poetry is displayed in the expression of passion in exciting the passions poetry best achieves its purpose, whether it be utility or pleasure-How the passions are excited to the purpose of utility; how to that of pleasure-The difference and connexion between the pathetic and the sublime-That sublimity, which in the sacred poetry proceeds from the imitation of the passions of admiration, of joy, indignation, grief, and terror; illustrated by examples. We have agreed with Longinus, that a violent agitation of the mind, or impetuosity of passion, constitutes another source of the sublime he calls it "the vehemence and enthusiasm of passion." It will be proper, therefore, in the next place, to consider the nature of this enthusiasm; the principles on which the power of exciting or of imitating the passions in poetry may be supposed to depend; and what affinity subsists between passion and sublimity. The language of poetry I have more than once described as the effect of mental emotion. Poetry itself is indebted for its origin, character, complexion, emphasis, and application, to the effects which are produced upon the mind and body, upon the imagination, the senses, the voice, and respiration, by the agitation of passion. Every affection of the human soul, while it rages with violence, is a momentary phrenzy. When therefore a poet is able by the force of genius, or rather of imagination, to conceive any emotion of the mind so perfectly as to transfer to his own feelings the instinctive passion of another, and, agreeably to the nature of the subject, to express it in all its vigour, such a one, according to a common mode of speaking, may be said to possess the true poetic enthusiasm, or, as the ancients would have expressed it, "to be inspired; full of the God:" not however implying, that their ardour of mind was impart 1 1 ARISTOTLE expresses it μavizov (insane,) PLATO expoova (out of their common senses,) veov (inspired by a God,) evovoiatorra (enthusiastic.) |