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But even stormy movements of mind which may be connected under the name of edification with Ideas of religion, or—as merely belonging to culture—with Ideas containing a social interest, can in no way, however they strain the Imagination, lay claim to the honour of being sublime presentations, unless they leave after them a mental mood which, although only indirectly, has influence upon the mind's consciousness of its strength, and its resolution in reference to that which involves pure intellectual purposiveness (the supersensible). For otherwise all these emotions belong only to motion, which one would fain enjoy for the sake of health. The143 pleasant exhaustion, consequent upon such disturbance produced by the play of the affections, is an enjoyment of our well-being arising from the restored equilibrium of the various vital forces. This in the end amounts to the same thing as that state which Eastern voluptuaries find so delightful, when they get their bodies as it were kneaded and all their muscles and joints softly pressed and bent; only that in this case the motive principle is for the most part external, in the other case it is altogether internal. Many a man believes himself to be edified by a sermon, when indeed there is no edification at all (no system of good maxims); or to be improved by a tragedy, when he is only glad at his ennui being happily dispelled. So the Sublime must always have reference to the disposition, i.e. to the maxims which furnish to the intellectual [part] and to the Ideas of Reason a superiority over sensibility.

We need not fear that the feeling of the sublime will lose by so abstract a mode of presentation,—which is quite negative in respect of what is sensible,—for the Imagination, although it finds nothing beyond the sensible to which it can attach itself, yet feels itself unbounded by this removal of its limitations; and thus that very abstraction is a presentation of the Infinite, which can be nothing but a mere negative presentation, but which yet expands the soul. Perhaps there is no sublimer passage in the Jewish Law than the command, Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of anything which is in heaven or on the earth or under the earth, etc. This command alone can explain the enthusiasm that the Jewish people in their moral period felt for their religion, when they compared themselves with other peoples; or explain144 the pride which Mahommedanism inspires. The same is true of the moral law and of the tendency to morality in us. It is quite erroneous to fear that if we deprive this [tendency] of all that can recommend it to sense it will only involve a cold lifeless assent and no moving force or emotion. It is quite the other way, for where the senses see nothing more before them, and the unmistakable and indelible Idea of morality remains, it would be rather necessary to moderate the impetus of an unbounded Imagination, to prevent it from rising to enthusiasm, than through fear of the powerlessness of these Ideas to seek aid for them in images and childish ritual. Thus governments have willingly allowed religion to be abundantly provided with the latter accessories; and seeking thereby to relieve their subjects of trouble, they have also sought to deprive them of the faculty of extending their spiritual powers beyond the limits that are arbitrarily assigned to them, and by means of which they can be the more easily treated as mere passive59 beings.

This pure, elevating, merely negative presentation of morality brings with it, on the other hand, no danger of fanaticism, which is a delusion that we can will ourselves to see something beyond all bounds of sensibility, i.e. to dream in accordance with fundamental propositions (or to go mad with Reason); and this is so just because this presentation is merely negative. For the inscrutableness of the Idea of Freedom quite cuts it off from any positive presentation; but the moral law is in itself sufficiently and originally determinant in us, so that it does not permit us to cast a glance at any ground of determination external to itself. If enthusiasm is145 comparable to madness, fanaticism is comparable to monomania; of which the latter is least of all compatible with the sublime, because in its detail it is ridiculous. In enthusiasm, regarded as an affection, the Imagination is without bridle; in fanaticism, regarded as an inveterate, brooding passion, it is without rule. The first is a transitory accident which sometimes befalls the soundest Understanding; the second is a disease which unsettles it.

Simplicity (purposiveness without art) is as it were the style of Nature in the sublime, and so also of Morality which is a second (supersensible) nature; of which we only know the laws without being able to reach by intuition that supersensible faculty in ourselves which contains the ground of the legislation.

Now the satisfaction in the Beautiful, like that in the Sublime, is not alone distinguishable from other aesthetical judgements by its universal communicability, but also because, through this very property, it acquires an interest in reference to society (in which this communication is possible). We must, however, remark that separation from all society is regarded as sublime, if it rests upon Ideas that overlook all sensible interest. To be sufficient for oneself, and consequently to have no need of society, without at the same time being unsociable, i.e. without flying from it, is something bordering on the sublime; as is any dispensing with wants. On the other hand, to fly from men from misanthropy, because we bear ill-will to them, or from anthropophoby (shyness), because we fear them as foes, is partly hateful, partly contemptible. There is indeed a misanthropy (very improperly so-called), the tendency to which frequently appears with old age in many right-thinking men; which is philanthropic146 enough as far as goodwill to men is concerned, but which through long and sad experience is far removed from satisfaction with men. Evidence of this is afforded by the propensity to solitude, the fantastic wish for a secluded country seat, or (in the case of young persons) by the dream of the happiness of passing one's life with a little family upon some island unknown to the rest of the world; a dream of which story-tellers or writers of Robinsonades know how to make good use. Falsehood, ingratitude, injustice, the childishness of the purposes regarded by ourselves as important and great, in the pursuit of which men inflict upon each other all imaginable evils, are so contradictory to the Idea of what men might be if they would, and conflict so with our lively wish to see them better, that, in order that we may not hate them (since we cannot love them), the renunciation of all social joys seems but a small sacrifice. This sadness—not the sadness (of which sympathy is the cause) for the evils which fate brings upon others,—but for those things which men do to one another (which depends upon an antipathy in fundamental propositions), is sublime, because it rests upon Ideas, whilst the former can only count as beautiful.—The brilliant and thorough Saussure,60 in his account of his Alpine travels, says of one of the Savoy mountains, called Bonhomme, "There reigns there a certain insipid sadness." He therefore recognised an interesting sadness, that the sight of a solitude might inspire, to which men might wish to transport themselves that they might neither hear nor experience any more of the world; which, however, would not be quite so inhospitable that it would offer only an extremely painful retreat.—147I make this remark solely with the design of indicating again that even depression (not dejected sadness) may be counted among the sturdy affections, if it has its ground in moral Ideas. But if it is grounded on sympathy and, as such, is amiable, it belongs merely to the languid affections. [I make this remark] to call attention to the state of mind which is sublime only in the first case.