enqphilosophical00burkrich_bw

210 Pages·2021·7.61 MB·English

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Philofophical
Enquiry

INTO THE

Origin
of our Ideas

O F T H E
SUBLIME

AND

BEAUTIFUL.

LONDON:

Printed
for R, and
J. Dodsley,
in Pall-mall,

M DCC LVII.

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2008 with funding from

Microsoft Corporation

http://www.archive.org/details/enqphiljQSophicalOOburkrich

THE

PREFACE

rHE
author
hopes
it will not

be
thought impertinent
to fay

fomething of the
motives which
in^

duced him
to enter
into thefollowing

enquiry. The matters which make the

fubjedi of it hadformerly engaged a

great deal of his attention.
But he

often found himfelf greatly at a lofs\

he found that he was far from hav^

ing any
thing
like an
exa5l
theory

of our
pafjions^
or
a knowledge of

their genuine fources ;
he found that

he could not reduce his notions to any

A
3
fixed

vi
The PREFACE.

fixed or conjijlent principles ;
and he

had remarked^
that others lay under

the fame difficulties.

He
obferved that
the ideas of the

fublime and beautiful were frequently

confounded ; and that
both were in-

difcriminately applied to things greatly

differing^
and fometimes of natures

diredily
oppofite. Even LonginuSy
in

his incomparable difcourfe upon apart

ofthisfubjeBy has comprehended things

extremely repugnant to each othery un-

der one common name of the Sublime.

T^he abufe ofthe word Be2.ntyy has been

ftill more generaly
and attended with

Jlill worfe confequences.

Such a confufon of ideas muft cer^

tainly render all our reafonings
upon

fubjeBs of this kind extremely inaccu-'

rate and inconclufive.
Could this ad-

mit