ly scenes, they can discover something either to elevate their imaginations, or to move their hearts; and amid every change of scenery, or of climate, can still find themselves among the early objects of their admiration, or their love.

CHAPTER II.

Analysis of this Exercise of Imagination,

SECTION I.

THE illustrations in the preceding chapter seem to shew, that whenever the emotions of Sublimity or Beauty are felt, that exercise of Imagination is produced, which consists in the indulgence of a train of thought; that when this exercise is prevented, these emotions are unfelt or unperceived; and that whatever tends to increase this exercise of mind, tends in the same proportion to increase these emotions. If these illus trations are just, it seems reasonable to conclude, that the effect produced upon the mind, by objects of Sublimity and Beauty, consists in the production of this exercise of Imagination.

Although, however, this conclusion seems to me both just and consonant to experience, yet it is in itself too general, to be considered as a sufficient account of the nature of that operation of mind which takes place in the case of such Emotions. There are many trains of ideas of which we are conscious, which are unattended with any kind of pleasure. There are other operations of mind, in which such trains of thought are necessarily produced, without exciting any similar emotion. Even in the common hours of life, every man is conscious of a continued succession of thoughts passing through his mind, suggested either by the presence of external objects, or arising from the established laws of association : such trains of thought, however, are seldom attended with pleasure, and still seldomer with an emotion, corresponding, in any degree, to the emotions of sublimity or beauty.

There are, in like manner, many cases

where objects excite a train of thought in the mind, without exciting any emotion of pleasure of delight. The prospect of the house, for instance, where one has formerly lived, excites very naturally a train of conceptions in the mind; yet it is by no means true that such an exercise of imagination is necessarily accompanied with pleasure, for these conceptions not only may be, but very often are of a kind extremely indifferent, and sometimes also simply painful. The mention of an event in history, or of a fact in science, naturally leads us to the conception of a number of related events, or similar facts; yet it is obvious, that in such a case the exercise of mind which is produced, if it is accompanied with any pleasure at all, is in most cases accompanied with a pleasure very different from that which attends the emotions of sublimity or beauty.

If therefore some train of thought, or some exercise of Imagination is necessary

for the production of the emotions of Taste, it is obvious that this is not every train of thought of which we are capable. To ascertain, therefore, with any precision, either the nature or the causes of these emotions, it is previously necessary to investigate the nature of those trains of thought that are produced by objects of sublimity and beauty, and their difference from those ordinary trains, which are unaccompanied with such pleasure.

As far as I am able to judge, this difference consists in two things. 1st, In the Nature of the ideas or conceptions which compose such trains: and, 2dly, In the Nature or Law of their succession.

I..

In our ordinary trains of thought, › every man must be conscious that the ideas which compose them, are very frequently of a kind which excite no emotions either of pleasure or pain. There is an infinite va