of human thought, but man’s mind often overleaps the very bounds of
space.[1] When we survey the whole circle of life, and see it abounding
everywhere in what is elegant, grand, and beautiful, we learn at once
what is the true end of man’s being.

[Footnote 1: Comp. Lucretius on Epicurus: “Ergo vivida vis animi
pervicit, et extra Processit longe flammantia moenia mundi,” etc.]

4
And this is why nature prompts us to admire, not the clearness and
usefulness of a little stream, but the Nile, the Danube, the Rhine, and
far beyond all the Ocean; not to turn our wandering eyes from the
heavenly fires, though often darkened, to the little flame kindled by
human hands, however pure and steady its light; not to think that tiny
lamp more wondrous than the caverns of Aetna, from whose raging depths
are hurled up stones and whole masses of rock, and torrents sometimes
come pouring from earth’s centre of pure and living fire.

To sum the whole: whatever is useful or needful lies easily within man’s
reach; but he keeps his homage for what is astounding.


XXXVI

How much more do these principles apply to the Sublime in literature,
where grandeur is never, as it sometimes is in nature, dissociated from
utility and advantage. Therefore all those who have achieved it, however
far from faultless, are still more than mortal. When a writer uses any
other resource he shows himself to be a man; but the Sublime lifts him
near to the great spirit of the Deity. He who makes no slips must be