If, now, I assert without qualification that anything is great, it would seem that I have nothing in the way of a comparison present to my mind, or at least nothing involving an objective measure, for no attempt is thus made to determine how great the object is.But, despite the standard of comparison being merely subjective, the claim of the judgement is none the less one to universal agreement;the judgements: "that man is beautiful" and "He is tall", do not purport to speak only for the judging subject, but, like theoretical judgements, they demand the assent of everyone.
Now in a judgement that without qualification describes anything as great, it is not merely meant that the object has a magnitude, but greatness is ascribed to it pre-eminently among many other objects of a like kind, yet without the extent of this pre-eminence being determined.Hence a standard is certainly laid at the basis of the judgement, which standard is presupposed to be one that can be taken as the same for every one, but which is available only for an aesthetic estimate of the greatness, and not for one that is logical (mathematically determined), for the standard is a merely subjective one underlying the reflective judgement upon the greatness.
Furthermore, this standard may be empirical, as, let us say, the average size of the men known to us, of animals of a certain kind, of trees, of houses, of mountains, and so forth.Or it may be a standard given a priori, which by reason of the imperfections of the judging subject is restricted to subjective conditions of presentation in concreto; as, in the practical sphere, the greatness of a particular virtue, or of public liberty and justice in a country;or, in the theoretical sphere, the greatness of the accuracy or inaccuracy of an experiment or measurement, etc.
Here, now, it is of note that, although we have no interest whatever in the object, i.e., its real existence may be a matter of no concern to us, still its mere greatness, regarded even as devoid of form, is able to convey a universally communicable delight and so involve the consciousness of a subjective finality in the employment of our cognitive faculties, but not, be it remembered, a delight in the object, for the latter may be formless, but, in contradistinction to what is the case with the beautiful, where the reflective judgement finds itself set to a key that is final in respect of cognition generally, a delight in an extension affecting the imagination itself.
If (subject as above) we say of an object, without qualification, that it is great, this is not a mathematically determinant, but a mere reflective judgement upon its representation, which is subjectively final for a particular employment of our cognitive faculties in the estimation of magnitude, and we then always couple with the representation a kind of respect, just as we do a kind of contempt with what we call absolutely small.Moreover, the estimate of things as great or small extends to everything, even to all their qualities.Thus we call even their beauty great or small.The reason of this is to be found in the fact that we have only got to present a thing in intuition, as the precept of judgement directs (consequently to represent it aesthetically), for it to be in its entirety a phenomenon, and hence a quantum.
If, however, we call anything not alone great, but, without qualification, absolutely, and in every respect (beyond all comparison) great, that is to say, sublime, we soon perceive that for this it is not permissible to seek an appropriate standard outside itself, but merely in itself.It is a greatness comparable to itself alone.Hence it comes that the sublime is not to be looked for in the things of nature, but only in our own ideas.But it must be left to the deduction to show in which of them it resides.
The above definition may also be expressed in this way: that is sublime in comparison with which all else is small.Here we readily see that nothing can be given in nature, no matter how great we may judge it to be, which, regarded in some other relation, may not be degraded to the level of the infinitely little, and nothing so small which in comparison with some still smaller standard may not for our imagination be enlarged to the greatness of a world.Telescopes have put within our reach an abundance of material to go upon in making the first observation, and microscopes the same in making the second.
Nothing, therefore, which can be an object of the senses is to be termed sublime when treated on this footing.But precisely because there is a striving in our imagination towards progress ad infinitum, while reason demands absolute totality, as a real idea, that same inability on the part of our faculty for the estimation of the magnitude of things of the world of sense to attain to this idea, is the awakening of a feeling of a supersensible faculty within us; and it is the use to which judgement naturally puts particular objects on behalf of this latter feeling, and not the object of sense, that is absolutely great, and every other contrasted employment small.Consequently it is the disposition of soul evoked by a particular representation engaging the attention of the reflective judgement, and not the object, that is to be called sublime.
The foregoing formulae defining the sublime may, therefore, be supplemented by yet another: The sublime is that, the mere capacity of thinking which evidences a faculty of mind transcending every standard of sense.
SS 26.The estimation of the magnitude of natural things requisite for the idea of the sublime.
