| As opposition has the first effect, and facility the second, no wonder the mind, in certain dispositions, desires the former, and is averse to the latter. |
| These principles have an effect on the imagination as well as on the passions. |
| To be convinced of this we need only consider the influence of heights and depths on that faculty. |
| Any great elevation of place communicates a kind of pride or sublimity of imagination, and gives a fancyed superiority over those that lie below; and, vice versa, a sublime and strong imagination conveys the idea of ascent and elevation. |
| Hence it proceeds, that we associate, in a manner, the idea of whatever is good with that of height, and evil with low. |
| ness. |
| Heaven is supposed to be above, and hell below. |
| A noble genius is called an elevate and sublime one. |
| ATQUE UDAM SPERNIT HUMUM FUGIENTE PENNA. |
| [Spurns the dank soil in winged flight.] On the contrary, a vulgar and trivial conception is stiled indifferently low or mean. |
| Prosperity is denominated ascent, and adversity descent. |
| Kings and princes are supposed to be placed at the top of human affairs; as peasants and day-labourers are said to be in the lowest stations. |
| These methods of thinking, and of expressing ourselves, are not of so little consequence as they may appear at first sight. |
| It is evident to common sense, as well as philosophy, that there is no natural nor essential difference betwixt high and low, and that this distinction arises only from the gravitation of matter, which produces a motion from the one to the other. |
| The very same direction, which in this part of the globe is called ascent, is denominated descent in our antipodes; which can proceed from nothing but the contrary tendency of bodies. |
| Now it is certain, that the tendency of bodies, continually operating upon our senses, must produce, from custom, a like tendency in the fancy, and that when we consider any object situated in an ascent, the idea of its weight gives us a propensity to transport it from the place, in which it is situated, to the place immediately below it, and so on, until we come to the ground, which equally stops the body and our imagination. |
| For a like reason we feel a difficulty in mounting, and pass not without a kind of reluctance from the inferior to that which is situated above it; as if our ideas acquired a kind of gravity from their objects. |
| As a proof of this, do we not find, that the facility, which is so much studyed in music and poetry, is called the fail or cadency of the harmony or period; the idea of facility communicating to us that of descent, in the same manner as descent produces a facility? |
| Since the imagination, therefore, in running from low to high, finds an opposition in its internal qualities and principles, and since the soul, when elevated with joy and courage, in a manner seeks opposition, and throws itself with alacrity into any scene of thought or action, where its courage meets with matter to nourish and employ it; it follows, that everything, which invigorates and inlivens the soul, whether by touching the passions or imagination. |
| naturally conveys to the fancy this inclination for ascent, and determines it to run against the natural stream of its thoughts and conceptions. |
| This aspiring progress of the imagination suits the present disposition of the mind; and the difficulty, instead of extinguishing its vigour and alacrity, has the contrary affect, of sustaining and encreasing it. |