The simplest cause of sublimity is presented by all objects of vast magnitude or extent--a seemingly boundless plain, the sky, the ocean, &c.; and the particular direction of the magnitude or extent always correspondingly modifies the emotion--height giving more especially the idea of power, breadth of resistance, depth of danger, &c. Of the objects mentioned above, the ocean is the most sublime, because, to vastness in length and breadth, it adds depth, and a force perpetually active. Now, that these objects, though sublime, are beautiful, is very evident; and it is therefore also evident how much Burke erred in asserting comparative smallness to be the first character of beauty generally considered. This and similar errors, as already said, have greatly obscured this subject, and have led Burke and others so to modify and qualify their doctrines, as to take from them all precision and certainty. Hence, in one place, Burke says: "As, in the animal world, and in a good measure in the vegetable world likewise, the qualities that constitute _beauty_ may _possibly_ be united to things of _greater dimensions_ [that is, littleness may be united with bigness!]; when they are so united they constitute _a species something different both from the sublime and beautiful_, which I have before called, Fine." So also he says: "Ugliness I imagine likewise to be consistent enough with an idea of the sublime. But I would by no means insinuate that ugliness of itself is a sublime idea, unless united with such qualities as excite a strong terror." Here, he confounds sublimity with terror, as do Blair and other writers, when they say that "exact proportion of parts, though it enters often into the beautiful, is much disregarded in the sublime." It is a fact, that exactly in proportion as ugliness is substituted for beauty in vast objects, is sublimity taken away, until at last it is utterly lost in the terrible. Even Blair shows that sublimity may exist without terror or pain. "The proper sensation of sublimity appears," he observes, "to be distinguishable from the sensation of either of these, and, on several occasions, to be entirely separated from them. In many grand objects, there is no coincidence with terror at all; as in the magnificent prospect of wide-extended plains, and of the starry firmament; or in the moral dispositions and sentiments, which we view with high admiration; and in many painful and terrible objects also, it is clear, there is no sort of grandeur. The amputation of a limb, or the bite of a snake, is exceedingly terrible, but is destitute of all claim whatever to sublimity."