OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# On the Sublime and Beautiful/Part IV/Chapter 7

AS common labour, which is a mode of pain, is the exercise of the grosser, a mode of terror is the exercise of the finer parts of the system; and if a certain mode of pain be of such a nature as to act upon the eye or the ear, as they are the most delicate organs, the affection approaches more nearly to that which has a mental cause. In all these cases, if the pain and terror are so modified as not to be actually noxious; if the pain is not carried to violence, and the terror is not conversant about the present destruction of the person, as these emotions clear the parts, whether fine or gross, of a dangerous and troublesome encumbrance, they are capable of producing delight; not pleasure, but a sort of delightful horror, a sort of tranquillity tinged with terror; which, as it belongs to self-preservation, is one of the strongest of all the passions. Its object is the sublime. Its highest degree I call astonishment; the subordinate degrees are awe, reverence, and respect, which, by the very etymology of the words show from what source they are derived, and how they stand distinguished from positive pleasure.

## Notes

* ↑ Part II. sect 2.
# On the Sublime and Beautiful/Part IV/Chapter 25

WITH regard to colour, the disquisition is almost infinite: but I conceive the principles laid down in the beginning of this part are sufficient to account for the effects of them all, as well as for the agreeable effects of transparent bodies, whether fluid or solid. Suppose I look at a bottle of muddy liquor, of a blue or red colour; the blue or red rays cannot pass clearly to the eye, but are suddenly and unequally stopped by the intervention of little opaque bodies, which without preparation change the idea, and change it too into one disgreeable in its own nature, conformably to the principles laid down in sect. 24. But when the ray passes without such opposition through the glass or liquor, when the glass or liquor is quite transparent, the light is sometimes softened in the passage, which makes it more agreeable even as light; and the liquor reflecting all the rays of its proper colour evenly, it has such an effect on the eye, as smooth opaque bodies have on the eye and touch. So that the pleasure here is compounded of the softness of the transmitted, and the evenness of the reflected light. This pleasure may be heightened by the common principles in other things, if the shape of the glass which holds the transparent liquor be so judiciously varied, as to present the colour gradually and interchangeably, weakened and strengthened with all the variety which judgment in affairs of this nature shall sug gest. On a review of all that has been said of the effects as well as the causes of both, it will appear, that the sublime and beautiful are built on principles very different, and that their affections are as different: the great has terror for its basis; which, when it is modified, causes that emotion in the mind which I have called astonishment; the beautiful is founded on mere positive pleasure, and excites in the soul that feeling which is called love. Their causes have made the subject of this fourth part.
# On the Sublime and Beautiful/Part IV/Chapter 3

I HAVE before observed, that whatever is qualified to cause terror is a foundation capable of the sublime; to which I add, that not only these, but many things from which we cannot probably apprehend any danger, have a similar effect, because they operate in a similar manner. I observed too, that whatever produces pleasure, positive and original pleasure, is fit to have beauty ingrafted on it. Therefore, to clear up the nature of these qualities, it may be necessary to explain the nature of pain and pleasure on which they depend. A man who suffers under violent bodily pain, (I suppose the most violent, because the effect may be the more obvious), I say a man in great pain has his teeth set, his eyebrows are violently contracted, his forehead is wrinkled, his eyes are dragged inwards, and rolled with great vehemence, his hair stands on end, the voice is forced out in short shrieks and groans, and the whole fabric totters. Fear, or terror, which is an apprehension of pain or death, exhibits exactly the same effects, approaching in violence to those just mentioned, in proportion to the nearness of the cause, and the weakness of the subject. This is not only so in the human species; but I have more than once observed in dogs, under an apprehension of punishment, that they have writhed their bodies, and yelped, and howled, as if they had actually felt the blows. From hence I conclude, that pain and fear act upon the same parts of the body, and in the same manner, though somewhat differing in degree; that pain and fear consist in an unnatural tension of the nerves; that this is sometimes accompanied with an unnatural strength, which sometimes suddenly changes into an extraordinary weakness; that these effects often come on alternately, and are sometimes mixed with each other. This is the nature of all convulsive agitations, especially in weaker subjects, which are the most liable to the severest impressions of pain and fear. The only difference between pain and terror is, that things which cause pain operate on the mind by the intervention of the body; whereas things that cause terror generally affect the bodily organs by the operation of the mind suggesting the danger; but both agreeing, either primarily or secondarily, in producing a tension, contraction, or violent emotion of the nerves, they agree likewise in everything else. For it appears very clearly to me, from this, as well as from many other examples, that when the body is disposed, by any means whatsoever, to such emotions as it would acquire by the means of a certain passion; it will of itself excite something very like that passion in the mind.

## Notes

* ↑ Part I. sect. 8.
* ↑ Part I. sect. 8.
* ↑ I do not here enter into the question debated among physiologists, whether pain be the effect of a contraction, or a tension of the nerves. Either will serve my purpose; for by tension, I mean no more than a violent pulling of the fibres, which compose any muscle or membrane, in whatever way this is done.
# On the Sublime and Beautiful/Part IV/Chapter 4

TO this purpose Mr. Spon, in his Récherches d&#146; Antiquité, gives us a curious story of the celebrated physiognomist Campanella. This man, it seems, had not only made very accurate observations on human faces, but was very expert in mimicking such as were any way remarkable. When he had a mind to penetrate into the inclinations of those he had to deal with, he composed his face, his gesture, and his whole body, as nearly as he could into the exact similitude of the person he intended to examine; and then carefully observed what turn of mind he seemed to acquire by this change. So that, says my author, he was able to enter into the dispositions and thoughts of people as effectually as if he had been changed into the very men. I have often observed, that on mimicking the looks and gestures of angry, or placid, or frighted, or daring men, I have involuntarily found my mind turned to that passion, whose appearance I endeavoured to imitate; nay, I am convinced it is hard to avoid it, though one strove to separate the passion from its correspondent gestures. Our minds and bodies are so closely and intimately connected, that one is incapable of pain or pleasure without the other. Campanella, of whom we have been speaking, could so abstract his attention from any sufferings of his body, that he was able to endure the rack itself without much pain; and in lesser pains everybody must have observed, that, when we can employ our attention on anything else, the pain has been for a time suspended: on the other hand, if by any means the body is indisposed to perform such gestures, or to be stimulated into such emotions, as any passion usually produces in it, that passion itself never can arise, though its cause should be never so strongly in action; though it should be merely mental, and immediately affecting none of the senses. As an opiate or spirituous liquors, shall suspend the operation of grief, or fear, or anger, in spite of all our efforts to the contrary; and this by inducing in the body a disposition contrary to that which it receives from these passions.
# On the Sublime and Beautiful/Part IV/Chapter 22

IN the other senses we have remarked, that smooth things are relaxing. Now it ought to appear that sweet things, which are the smooth of taste, are relaxing too. It is remarkable, that in some languages, soft and sweet have but one name. Doux in French signifies soft as well as sweet. The Latin Dulcis, and the Italian Dolce, have in many cases the same double signification. That sweet things are generally relaxing, is evident; because all such, especially those which are most oily, taken frequently, or in a large quantity, very much enfeeble the tone of the stomach. Sweet smells, which bear a great affinity to sweet tastes, relax very remarkably. The smell of flowers disposes people to drowsiness; and this relaxing effect is further apparent from the prejudice which people of weak nerves receive from their use. It were worth while to examine, whether tastes of this kind, sweet ones, tastes that are caused by smooth oils and a relaxing salt, are not the original pleasant tastes. For many, which use has rendered such, were not at all agreeable at first. The way to examine this, is to try what nature has originally provided for us, which she has undoubtedly made originally pleasant; and to analyze this provision. Milk is the first support of our childhood. The component parts of this are water, oil and a sort of a very sweet salt, called the sugar of milk. All these when blended have a great smoothness to the taste, and a relaxing quality to the skin. The next thing children covet is fruit, and of fruits those principally which are sweet; and every one knows that the sweetness of fruit is caused by a subtle oil, and such salt as that mentioned in the last section. Afterwards custom, habit, the desire of novelty, and a thousand other causes, confound, adulterate, and change our palates, so that we can no longer reason with any satisfaction about them. Before we quit this article, we must observe, that as smooth things are, as such, agreeable to the taste, and are found of a relaxing quality; so, on the other hand, things which are found by experience to be of a strengthening quality, and fit to brace the fibres, are almost universally rough and pungent to the taste, and in many cases rough even to the touch. We often apply the quality of sweetness, metaphorically, to visual objects. For the better carrying on this remarkable analogy of the senses, we may here call sweetness the beautiful of the taste.
# On the Sublime and Beautiful/Part IV/Chapter 6

PROVIDENCE has so ordered it, that a state of rest and inaction, however it may flatter our indolence, should be productive of many inconveniences; that it should generate such disorders, as may force us to have recourse to some labour, as a thing absolutely requisite to make us pass our lives with tolerable satisfaction; for the nature of rest is to suffer all the parts of our bodies to fall into a relaxation, that not only disables the members from performing their functions, but takes away the vigorous tone of fibre which is requisite for carrying on the natural and necessary secretions. At the same time, that in this languid inactive state, the nerves are more liable to the most horrid convulsions, that when they are sufficiently braced and strengthened. Melancholy, dejection, despair, and often self-murder, is the consequence of the gloomy view we take of things in this relaxed state of body. The best remedy for all these evils is exercise or labour; and labour is a surmounting of difficulties, an exertion of the contracting power of the muscles; and as such resembles pain, which consists in tension or contraction, in everything but degree. Labour is not only requisite to preserve the coarser organs in a state fit for their functions; but it is equally necessary to those finer and more delicate organs, on which, and by which, the imagination, and perhaps the other mental powers, act. Since it is probable, that not only the inferior parts of the soul, as the passions are called, but the understanding itself, makes use of some fine corporeal instruments in its operation; though what they are, and where they are, may be somewhat hard to settle; but that it does make use of such, appears from hence; that a long exercise of the mental powers induces a remarkable lassitude of the whole body; and, on the other hand, that great bodily labour, or pain, weakens, and sometimes actually destroys, the mental faculties. Now, as a due exercise is essential to the coarse muscular parts of the constitution, and that without this rousing they would become languid and diseased, the very same rule holds with regard to those finer parts we have mentioned; to have them in proper order, they must be shaken and worked to a proper degree.
# On the Vital Principle/Book 2/Prelude to Chapter 10

* ↑ Règne Animal, I. 31.
* ↑ Handbuch der Physiologic, Lib. II. 489.
# On the Vital Principle/Book 2/Prelude to Chapter 2

As the purport of this chapter is to determine the essential or characteristic properties of the Vital Principle in order to attain to a solid definition, it commences, very appropriately, with a short disquisition upon that form, and a protest against any deviation from its real purport; and thus the argument of the foregoing chapter is continued. The opening paragraph is necessarily obscure, from the nature of its topic, but it may be practically at least elucidated, by reference to similar topics in the other works. It is observed by Aristotle, that the antecedent is, absolutely speaking, more apprehensible than the sequence, as a point e.g. is than a line, a line than a surface, and a surface than a solid; so too an unit is more apprehensible than a number (for the unit is the origin of all number), as a single letter is than a syllable. But sometimes, on the other hand, the reverse of this happens—for as it is the solid, ​especially, which falls under the senses, so the surface is more apprehensible than the line, and the line than the point; as the multitude (οἱ πολλοὶ) are already conversant with them, while the sequences are to be acquired only by attention, or some peculiar mental faculty. Thus, to speak generally, it is best to gather knowledge concerning sequences through their antecedents; for this is by far the most scientific mode of conducting an inquiry. In fine, whatever falls under the senses seems, from being familiar to us, to be more apprehensible than principles or causes, which are more or less abstractions; as, the falling of a stone seems to be more apprehensible than the principle of Gravitation. But as the knowledge of any subject may be also acquired through the study of its accidents, that is, its essential properties, so it is suggested that the knowledge of Vital Principle may be arrived at through the study of its faculties.
# On the Vital Principle/Book 2/Prelude to Chapter 4

The opening paragraphs of this chapter are both obscure and apparently contradictory; for while it is suggested that it might be well, in order to comprehend faculties or functions, first to study the energies or organs from which they emanate, yet the inquiry reverts to nutrition as a fact; without reference, that is, either to vital processes or to food. We may assume that Aristotle was unacquainted with the rudimentary forms and development of the corporeal organs, and yet, judging from this exordium, he seems to have perceived that every part must advance from a nascent state to its perfected condition; and thus he has suggested the teaching of developmental anatomy. As the inquiry proceeds, we are reminded of the obscurity or inaccuracy of language, in portraying the impressions upon and the functions, so to say, of the sentient organs even now the external object is, with us, in common parlance, a sensible object; sensation, besides its own ​sense, implies casual feelings from within; sight signifies both faculty and function; and nourishment is food as well as digestion. It is somewhat, perhaps, objectionable that Aristotle should have bound up, so to say, the generative with the nutritive function, seeing how they differ both in the periods of development and duration; they are equally necessary, no doubt, to nature's design, but still they are neither contemporaneous nor identical. With respect to spontaneous generation here alluded to Aristotle admitted its possibility, and for obvious reasons, in the case of eels; and, although he denied that all mullets (τοὺς κεστρεῖς φύεσθαι πάντας) are so reproduced, yet he believed that some of the species spring forth (φύεται) from the mud and sand on the sea-shore; and thus it is evident, he continues, that some creatures, not being derived from others, may be the product of spontaneous generation. This opinion upon reproduction prevailed for many ages, and even yet, perhaps, notwithstanding the advancement of science, it may not be altogether discredited.
# On the Vital Principle/Book 2/Prelude to Chapter 1

After having delineated his subject and quoted and commented on the leading opinions concerning it, Aristotle here reverts to the definition of Vital Principle, which was given partially at the commencement of the inquiry, with the intent of giving to it a signification comprehensive enough to include all living beings; for he had guarded us against limiting the inquiry to the human family. The argument commences as usual with Aristotle, ab ovo,—he attempts, that is, to fix the meaning of essence, matter and form, those primordial entities or conditions, which make up and serve to distinguish all the beings and things of the external world. These very abstruse questions have been alluded to in a former note, and passages were then cited from the Metaphysics and other works for the purpose of obtaining, if possible, precise notions concerning them; but these abstractions are so shadowy, and words so fluctuating, that they seem to elude even the perspicacity of Aristotle, ​and the ductility of his language. Essence is said to be a genus, to be constitutive, that is, with matter, which, in itself, is no particular thing, of each genus of beings or things; but then it is form, which realises, so to say, that combination by conferring upon it a specific character. For form harmonises with all the organisation of an animal; and every organised body, Cuvier observes, over and above the common qualities of its tissues, has a peculiar form, not only generally and exteriorly, but even down to its minutest details ; and it is " this form which determines the direction of each particular movement, which supports the complicity of its life, constitutes its species, and makes it what it is ."
# On the Vital Principle/Book 2/Prelude to Chapter 11

Commentators have differed widely in their interpretation of Aristotle's meaning in the opening passage upon the Touch. But it may, with some confidence, be assumed that, from being unacquainted with the nervous system, and observing the wide-spread and varying delicacy of the sense, he was led to suppose that it might either be diffused, so to speak, as several organs, over the body, or be somehow identified with or included in the flesh which covers the body. The flesh is the muscular substance, and as it envelopes, so to say, the body, it was probably supposed to be the seat or cause of the sense, as every part is sensible to Touch; and the analogue of flesh is the colourless substance of the Insanguinea insects, &c And there is a close analogy between the two substances, “as the muscles of the highest class of animals, during their development pass through the soft, colourless, ​homogeneous and gelatinous condition of the Invertebrata, before assuming the red colour." As the Touch, besides, was regarded as the first in order of the senses and characteristic of animals, so the flesh was said to be the origin of all other parts of animal bodies, bone and skin, sinews, veins, hair and nails; and this hypothesis may have confirmed the opinion that it is either the sense or the seat of the sense of Touch.
* ↑ De Partib. Anl. 2. 8. 1. 3.
* ↑ Grant's Outlines of Comp. Anat.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 9/Studios in Florence - Part 2

←Part 1
STUDIOS IN FLORENCE.
Part II.
The next studio I visited is that of J. J. Jackson, also an American, but, unlike Dr. Rimmer, he has lived some years in Italy. He is a young man, and possesses the enthusiasm of a true votary for art. How much enthusiasm it needs to pursue a career so thorny at its commencement, and so steep and arduous in its ascent, the biographies of all great artists will attest. To obtain recognition at all is more difficult than (recognition once obtained) to win success. In those cities which are more especially art-cities, Rome, Münich, and Florence, crowds besiege the gates of the temple, but few pass the threshold. So much persistence, courage, and self-denial, besides actual artistic capacity, are required to combat and overcome the obstacles which at first impede the entrance, that it is not surprising many are left behind and irrevocably shut out.
Mr. Jackson has made good his entrance, and all lovers of art will greet with pleasure the commencement of what promises to be a successful and brilliant career.
The woodcut which accompanies this notice is from a photograph taken of a small group in bronze of Titania and Bottom. The photograph gives very little notion of the delicacy and grace of the figure of the Fairy Queen, or of the stolid, half-humorous, half-brutal expression of the Weaver. It only copies the lines of the group and pose of the figures. In the bronze the work is charming, and most intelligibly interprets the subtle and profound thought which it embodies—Love depends on the loving, and not on the loved. A series of such illustrations of some of the principal "points" in the plays, in small groups, would be a great boon, I think, to all lovers of Shakespeare.
Mr. Jackson has several portrait and ideal busts in his studio. One of Dr. Lynam Beecher (the father of Mrs. Stowe and of Henry Ward Beecher), which, for truth and power, is worthy of Woolner. It is a most characteristic head: the brow is massive and deeply lined, and the face has a singular and striking individuality. It is a likeness which is not the idealisation of the countenance, but its realisation in all the breadth and force of nature.
But. Mr. Jackson's most ambitious work is a group of the heroic size—Eve, with the dead body of Abel in her lap. He has bestowed eight months' unremitting labour upon it, and the effort has been a successful one. The pyramidal form of the group, and the lines into which the two figures dispose themselves, are admirable. As Eve bends over Abel, there is less of sorrow or grief than surprise in her face. A mournful surprise, it is true, but too gentle and innocent in its nature to admit of a fiercer feeling. "Ere the first day of death is fled," there is nothing in the aspect ​Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/397 ​Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/398