Could any finite object account for this? But, supposing the Infinite, we have an adequate cause. If these emotions, then, from whatever object or circumstance, be to prompt the mind beyond its prescribed limits, whether carrying it back to the primitive past, the incomprehensible _beginning_, or sending it into the future, to the unknown _end_, the ever-present Idea of the mighty Author of all these mysteries must still be implied, though we think not of it. It is this Idea, or rather its influence, whether we be conscious of it or not, which we hold to be the source of every sublime emotion. To make our meaning plainer, we should say, that that which has the power of possessing the mind, to the exclusion, for the time, of all other thought, and which presents no _comprehensible_ sense of a whole, though still impressing us with a full apprehension of such as a reality,--in other words, which cannot be circumscribed by the forms of the understanding while it strains them to the utmost,--that we should term a sublime object. But whether this effect be occasioned directly by the object itself, or be indirectly suggested by its relations to some other object, its unknown cause, it matters not; since the apparent power of calling forth the emotion, by whatever means, is, _quoad_ ourselves, its sublime condition. Hence, if a minute insect, an ant, for instance, through its marvellous instinct, lift the mind of the amazed spectator to the still more inscrutable Creator, it must possess, as to _him_, the same power. This is, indeed, an extreme case, and may be objected to as depending on the individual mind; on a mind prepared by cultivation and previous reflection for the effect in question. But to this it may be replied, that some degree of cultivation, or, more properly speaking, of developement by the exercise of its reflective faculties, is obviously essential ere the mind can attain to mature growth,--we might almost say to its natural state, since nothing can be said to have attained its true nature until all its capacities are at least called into birth. No one, for example, would refer to the savages of Australia for a true specimen of what was proper or natural to the human mind; we should rather seek it, if such were the alternative, in a civilized child of five years old. Be this as it may, it will not be denied that ignorance, brutality, and many other deteriorating causes, do practically incapacitate thousands for even an approximation, not only to this, but to many of the inferior emotions, the character of which is purely mental. And this, we think, is quite sufficient to neutralize the objection, if not, indeed, to justify the application of the term to all cases where the _immediate_ effect, whether directly or indirectly, is such as has been described. But, to reduce this to a common-sense view, it is only saying,--what no one will deny,--that a man of education and refinement has not only more, but higher, pleasures of the mind than a mere clown.