The Effects of Succession in Visual Objects ExplainedIF we can comprehend clearly how things operate upon one of our
senses, there can be very little difficulty in conceiving in what manner
they
affect the rest. To say a great deal therefore upon the corresponding
affections of every sense, would tend rather to fatigue us by an useless
repetition, than to throw any new light upon the subject by that ample
and diffuse manner of treating it; but as in this discourse we chiefly
attach ourselves to the sublime, as it affects the eye, we shall consider
particularly why a successive disposition of uniform parts in the same
right line should be sublime, [1] and upon what principle this disposition
is enabled to make a comparatively small quantity of matter produce
a grander effect, than a much larger quantity disposed in another manner.
To avoid the perplexity of general notions; let us set before our eyes
a colonnade of uniform pillars planted in a right line; let us take
our
stand in such a manner, that the eye may shoot along this colonnade,
for it has its best effect in this view. In our present situation it
is plain, that the rays from the first round pillar will cause in the
eye a vibration of that species; an image of the pillar itself. The
pillar immediately succeeding increases it; that which follows renews
and enforces
the impression; each in its order as it succeeds, repeats impulse after
impulse, and stroke after stroke, until the eye, long exercised in
one particular way, cannot lose that object immediately; and, being
violently
roused by this continued agitation, it presents the mind with a grand
or sublime conception. But instead of viewing a rank of uniform pillars,
let us suppose that they succeed each other, a round and a square one
alternately. In this case the vibration caused by the first round pillar
perishes as soon as it is formed: and one of quite another sort (the
square) directly occupies its place; which, however, it resigns as
quickly to the round one; and thus the eye proceeds, alternately; taking
up one
image, and laying down another, as long as the building continues.
From whence it is obvious, that, at the last pillar, the impression
is as
far from continuing as it was at the very first; because, in fact,
the sensory can receive no distinct impression but from the last; and
it
can never of itself resume a dissimilar impression: besides, every
variation of the object is a rest and relaxation to the organs of sight;
and these
reliefs prevent that powerful emotion so necessary to produce the sublime.
To produce therefore a perfect grandeur in such things as we have been
mentioning, there should be a perfect simplicity, an absolute uniformity
in disposition, shape, and colouring. Upon this principle of succession
and uniformity it may be asked, why a long bare wall should not be
a more sublime object than a colonnade; since the succession is no
way
interrupted; since the eye meets no check; since nothing more uniform
can be conceived? A long bare wall is certainly not so grand an object
as a colonnade of the same length and height. It is not altogether
difficult to account for this difference. When we look at a naked wall,
from the
evenness of the object, the eye runs along its whole space, and arrives
quickly at its termination; the eye meets nothing which may interrupt
its progress; but then it meets nothing which may detain it a proper
time to produce a very great and lasting effect. The view of the bare
wall, if it be of a great height and length, is undoubtedly grand;
but this is only one idea, and not a repetition of similar ideas:
it is therefore
great, not so much upon the principle of infinity, as upon
that of vastness. But we are not so powerfully affected with
any one impulse, unless it
be one of a prodigious force indeed, as we are with a succession of
similar impulses; because the nerves of the sensory do not (if I may
use the
expression) acquire a habit of repeating the same feeling in such a
manner as to continue it longer than its cause is in action; besides,
all the
effects which I have attributed to expectation and surprise in sect.
II, can have no place in a bare wall. 1 |
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