Kant's Critique of Judgement · Immanuel Kant
B.--OF THE DYNAMICALLY SUBLIME IN NATURE
The object of a pure and unconditioned intellectual satisfaction is the Moral Law in that might which it exercises in us over all mental motives _that precede it_. This might only makes itself aesthetically known to us through sacrifices (which causing a feeling of deprivation, though on behalf of internal freedom, in return discloses in us an unfathomable depth of this supersensible faculty, with consequences extending beyond our ken); thus the satisfaction on the aesthetical side (in relation to sensibility) is negative, _i.e._ against this interest, but regarded from the intellectual side it is positive and combined with an interest. Hence it follows that the intellectual, in itself purposive, (moral) good, aesthetically judged, must be represented as sublime rather than beautiful, so that it rather awakens the feeling of respect (which disdains charm) than that of love and familiar inclination; for human nature does not attach itself to this good spontaneously, but only by the authority which Reason exercises over Sensibility. Conversely also, that which we call sublime in nature, whether external or internal (_e.g._ certain affections), is only represented as a might in the mind to overcome [_certain_][54] hindrances of the Sensibility by means of moral fundamental propositions, and only thus does it interest.
I will dwell a moment on this latter point. The Idea of the Good conjoined with affection is called _enthusiasm_. This state of mind seems to be sublime, to the extent that we commonly assert that nothing great could be done without it. Now every affection[55] is blind, either in the choice of its purpose, or, if this be supplied by Reason, in its accomplishment; for it is a mental movement which makes it impossible to exercise a free deliberation about fundamental propositions so as to determine ourselves thereby. It can therefore in no way deserve the approval of the Reason. Nevertheless, aesthetically, enthusiasm is sublime, because it is a tension of forces produced by Ideas, which give an impulse to the mind, that operates far more powerfully and lastingly than the impulse arising from sensible representations. But (which seems strange) the _absence of affection_ (_apatheia, phlegma in significatu bono_) in a mind that vigorously follows its unalterable principles is sublime, and in a far preferable way, because it has also on its side the satisfaction of pure Reason.[56] It is only a mental state of this kind that is called noble; and this expression is subsequently applied to things, _e.g._ a building, a garment, literary style, bodily presence, etc., when these do not so much arouse _astonishment_ (the affection produced by the representation of novelty exceeding our expectations), as _admiration_ (astonishment that does not cease when the novelty disappears); and this is the case when Ideas agree in their presentation undesignedly and artlessly with the aesthetical satisfaction.
Every affection of the STRENUOUS kind (viz. that excites the consciousness of our power to overcome every obstacle--_animi strenui_) is _aesthetically sublime_, _e.g._ wrath, even despair (_i.e._ the despair of _indignation_, not of _faintheartedness_). But affections of the LANGUID kind (which make the very effort of resistance an object of pain--_animum languidum_) have nothing _noble_ in themselves, but they may be reckoned under the sensuously beautiful. _Emotions_, which may rise to the strength of affections, are very different. We have both _spirited_ and _tender_ emotions. The latter, if they rise to the height of affections, are worthless; the propensity to them is called _sentimentality_. A sympathetic grief that will not admit of consolation, or one referring to imaginary evils to which we deliberately surrender ourselves--being deceived by fancy--as if they were actual, indicates and produces a tender,[57] though weak, soul--which shows a beautiful side and which can be called fanciful, though not enthusiastic. Romances, lacrymose plays, shallow moral precepts, which toy with (falsely) so-called moral dispositions, but in fact make the heart languid, insensible to the severe precept of duty, and incapable of all respect for the worth of humanity in our own person, and for the rights of men (a very different thing from their happiness), and in general incapable of all steady principle; even a religious discourse,[58] which recommends a cringing, abject seeking of favour and ingratiation of ourselves, which proposes the abandonment of all confidence in our own faculties in opposition to the evil within us, instead of a sturdy resolution to endeavour to overcome our inclinations by means of those powers which with all our frailty yet remain to us; that false humility which sets the only way of pleasing the Supreme Being in self-depreciation, in whining hypocritical repentance and in a mere passive state of mind--these are not compatible with any frame of mind that can be counted beautiful, still less with one which is to be counted sublime.
But even stormy movements of mind which may be connected under the name of edification with Ideas of religion, or--as merely belonging to culture--with Ideas containing a social interest, can in no way, however they strain the Imagination, lay claim to the honour of being _sublime_ presentations, unless they leave after them a mental mood which, although only indirectly, has influence upon the mind’s consciousness of its strength, and its resolution in reference to that which involves pure intellectual purposiveness (the supersensible). For otherwise all these emotions belong only to _motion_, which one would fain enjoy for the sake of health. The pleasant exhaustion, consequent upon such disturbance produced by the play of the affections, is an enjoyment of our well-being arising from the restored equilibrium of the various vital forces. This in the end amounts to the same thing as that state which Eastern voluptuaries find so delightful, when they get their bodies as it were kneaded and all their muscles and joints softly pressed and bent; only that in this case the motive principle is for the most part external, in the other case it is altogether internal. Many a man believes himself to be edified by a sermon, when indeed there is no edification at all (no system of good maxims); or to be improved by a tragedy, when he is only glad at his ennui being happily dispelled. So the Sublime must always have reference to the _disposition_, _i.e._ to the maxims which furnish to the intellectual [part] and to the Ideas of Reason a superiority over sensibility.
We need not fear that the feeling of the sublime will lose by so abstract a mode of presentation,--which is quite negative in respect of what is sensible,--for the Imagination, although it finds nothing beyond the sensible to which it can attach itself, yet feels itself unbounded by this removal of its limitations; and thus that very abstraction is a presentation of the Infinite, which can be nothing but a mere negative presentation, but which yet expands the soul. Perhaps there is no sublimer passage in the Jewish Law than the command, _Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of anything which is in heaven or on the earth or under the earth_, etc. This command alone can explain the enthusiasm that the Jewish people in their moral period felt for their religion, when they compared themselves with other peoples; or explain the pride which Mahommedanism inspires. The same is true of the moral law and of the tendency to morality in us. It is quite erroneous to fear that if we deprive this [tendency] of all that can recommend it to sense it will only involve a cold lifeless assent and no moving force or emotion. It is quite the other way, for where the senses see nothing more before them, and the unmistakable and indelible Idea of morality remains, it would be rather necessary to moderate the impetus of an unbounded Imagination, to prevent it from rising to enthusiasm, than through fear of the powerlessness of these Ideas to seek aid for them in images and childish ritual. Thus governments have willingly allowed religion to be abundantly provided with the latter accessories; and seeking thereby to relieve their subjects of trouble, they have also sought to deprive them of the faculty of extending their spiritual powers beyond the limits that are arbitrarily assigned to them, and by means of which they can be the more easily treated as mere passive[59] beings.
This pure, elevating, merely negative presentation of morality brings with it, on the other hand, no danger of _fanaticism_, which is _a delusion that we can will ourselves to see something beyond all bounds of sensibility_, _i.e._ to dream in accordance with fundamental propositions (or to go mad with Reason); and this is so just because this presentation is merely negative. For the _inscrutableness of the Idea of Freedom_ quite cuts it off from any positive presentation; but the moral law is in itself sufficiently and originally determinant in us, so that it does not permit us to cast a glance at any ground of determination external to itself. If enthusiasm is comparable to _madness_, fanaticism is comparable to _monomania_; of which the latter is least of all compatible with the sublime, because in its detail it is ridiculous. In enthusiasm, regarded as an affection, the Imagination is without bridle; in fanaticism, regarded as an inveterate, brooding passion, it is without rule. The first is a transitory accident which sometimes befalls the soundest Understanding; the second is a disease which unsettles it. _Simplicity_ (purposiveness without art) is as it were the style of Nature in the sublime, and so also of Morality which is a second (supersensible) nature; of which we only know the laws without being able to reach by intuition that supersensible faculty in ourselves which contains the ground of the legislation.
Now the satisfaction in the Beautiful, like that in the Sublime, is not alone distinguishable from other aesthetical judgements by its universal _communicability_, but also because, through this very property, it acquires an interest in reference to society (in which this communication is possible). We must, however, remark that _separation from all society_ is regarded as sublime, if it rests upon Ideas that overlook all sensible interest. To be sufficient for oneself, and consequently to have no need of society, without at the same time being unsociable, _i.e._ without flying from it, is something bordering on the sublime; as is any dispensing with wants. On the other hand, to fly from men from _misanthropy_, because we bear ill-will to them, or from _anthropophoby_ (shyness), because we fear them as foes, is partly hateful, partly contemptible. There is indeed a misanthropy (very improperly so-called), the tendency to which frequently appears with old age in many right-thinking men; which is philanthropic enough as far as _goodwill_ to men is concerned, but which through long and sad experience is far removed from _satisfaction_ with men.
Evidence of this is afforded by the propensity to solitude, the fantastic wish for a secluded country seat, or (in the case of young persons) by the dream of the happiness of passing one’s life with a little family upon some island unknown to the rest of the world; a dream of which story-tellers or writers of Robinsonades know how to make good use. Falsehood, ingratitude, injustice, the childishness of the purposes regarded by ourselves as important and great, in the pursuit of which men inflict upon each other all imaginable evils, are so contradictory to the Idea of what men might be if they would, and conflict so with our lively wish to see them better, that, in order that we may not hate them (since we cannot love them), the renunciation of all social joys seems but a small sacrifice. This sadness--not the sadness (of which sympathy is the cause) for the evils which fate brings upon others,--but for those things which men do to one another (which depends upon an antipathy in fundamental propositions), is sublime, because it rests upon Ideas, whilst the former can only count as beautiful.--The brilliant and thorough _Saussure_,[60] in his account of his Alpine travels, says of one of the Savoy mountains, called _Bonhomme_, “There reigns there a certain _insipid sadness_.”
We can now compare the above Transcendental Exposition of aesthetical judgements with the Physiological worked out by _Burke_ and by many clear-headed men among us, in order to see whither a merely empirical exposition of the Sublime and Beautiful leads. _Burke_, who deserves to be regarded as the most important author who adopts this mode of treatment, infers by this method “that the feeling of the Sublime rests on the impulse towards self-preservation and on _fear_, _i.e._ on a pain, which not going so far as actually to derange the parts of the body, produces movements which, since they purify the finer or grosser vessels of dangerous or troublesome stoppages, are capable of exciting pleasant sensations; not indeed pleasure, but a kind of satisfying horror, a certain tranquillity tinged with terror.”[61] The Beautiful, which he founded on love (which he wishes to keep quite separate from desire), he reduces to “the relaxing, slackening, and enervating of the fibres of the body, and a consequent weakening, languor, and exhaustion, a fainting, dissolving, and melting away for enjoyment.”[62] And he confirms this explanation not only by cases in which the Imagination in combination with the Understanding can excite in us the feeling of the Beautiful or of the Sublime, but by cases in which it is combined with sensation.--As psychological observations, these analyses of the phenomena of our mind are exceedingly beautiful, and afford rich material for the favourite investigations of empirical anthropology.
It is also not to be denied that all representations in us, whether, objectively viewed, they are merely sensible or are quite intellectual, may yet subjectively be united to gratification or grief, however imperceptible either may be; because they all affect the feeling of life, and none of them, so far as it is a modification of the subject, can be indifferent. And so, as Epicurus maintained, all _gratification_ or _grief_ may ultimately be corporeal, whether it arises from the representations of the Imagination or the Understanding; because life without a feeling of bodily organs would be merely a consciousness of existence, without any feeling of well-being or the reverse, _i.e._ of the furthering or the checking of the vital powers. For the mind is by itself alone life (the principle of life), and hindrances or furtherances must be sought outside it and yet in the man, consequently in union with his body. If, however, we place the satisfaction in the object altogether in the fact that it gratifies us by charm or emotion, we must not assume that any _other_ man agrees with the aesthetical judgement which _we_ pass; for as to these each one rightly consults his own individual sensibility. But in that case all censorship of taste would disappear, except indeed the example afforded by the accidental agreement of others in their judgements were regarded as _commanding_ our assent; and this principle we should probably resist, and should appeal to the natural right of subjecting the judgement, which rests on the immediate feeling of our own well-being, to our own sense and not to that of any other man.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.