Section One: On the Different Objects of the Feeling of the Sublime and the Beautiful

The different feelings of gratification or of vexation rest not so much on the constitution of external things that arouse them as on the feeling, peculiar to each person, of being pleasantly or unpleasantly touched by them. Hence the joy of some people in what disgusts others; the passion of the lover that is often a riddle to everyone else.

Kant sets aside the coarse pleasures of the senses, and the high pleasures of the scholar, and considers a finer feeling — one that can be enjoyed for a longer time without satiety and exhaustion; that presupposes a sensitivity of the soul which also makes it fitted for virtuous impulses. This finer feeling is of two kinds: the feeling of the sublime and that of the beautiful.

The sight of a mountain whose snow-covered peak rises above the clouds, the description of a raging storm, or Milton's portrayal of the infernal kingdom, arouses enjoyment, but with dread. On the other hand, the sight of flower-strewn meadows, of valleys with winding brooks, covered with grazing herds; the description of Elysium, or Homer's portrayal of the girdle of Venus, also occasion a pleasant sensation, but one that is joyful and smiling. For the first to make its impression on us in its proper strength, we must have a feeling of the sublime; and to enjoy the second, a feeling of the beautiful.

Tall oaks and lonely shadows in a sacred grove are sublime; flower-beds, low hedges and trees trimmed into figures are beautiful. Night is sublime, day is beautiful. Temperaments that possess a feeling for the sublime are gradually drawn into high feelings — of friendship, of contempt for the world, of eternity — by the quiet stillness of a summer evening, when the trembling light of the stars breaks through the brown shadows of night and the lonely moon stands on the horizon. The shining day inspires busy zeal and a feeling of gaiety.

The sublime moves; the beautiful charms.

Kant's short sentence — "Das Erhabene rührt, das Schöne reizt" — sums up the book.

The sublime is in turn of different kinds. Its feeling is sometimes accompanied by some dread or melancholy: this is the terrifying sublime. Sometimes only by quiet admiration: the noble. And sometimes by a beauty spread over a sublime plan: the splendid. Deep loneliness is sublime, but in a terrifying way; a vast desert, like the immense waste of Shamo in Tartary, has always given occasion for peopling it with fearful shades, goblins and ghosts.

The sublime must always be large; the beautiful can also be small. The sublime must be simple; the beautiful can be adorned and ornamented. A great height is just as sublime as a great depth, but the latter is accompanied by a sensation of shuddering, the former by one of admiration. The sight of an Egyptian pyramid moves one far more than one can imagine from any description; but its structure is simple and noble. St Peter's in Rome is splendid: on its frame, which is large and simple, beauty is so spread — gold, mosaic work — that the feeling of the sublime still has the strongest effect through it.

A long duration is sublime. If it belongs to past time, it is noble; if it is foreseen in an incalculable future, it has something of the terrifying in it. A building of the most remote antiquity is venerable. Haller's description of the future eternity inspires a gentle horror; of the past, a frozen wonder.

Albrecht von Haller (1708–1777), Swiss poet and scientist, wrote a famous "Incomplete Poem on Eternity."