We must here, generally, attend to what has been already noted, that
in the Transcendental Aesthetic of Judgement we must speak solely of
pure aesthetical judgements; consequently our examples are not to be
taken from such beautiful or sublime objects of Nature as presuppose
the concept of a purpose. For, if so, the purposiveness would be
either teleological, or would be based on mere sensations of an object
(gratification or grief); and thus would be in the former case not
aesthetical, in the latter not merely formal. If then we call the sight
of the starry heaven _sublime_, we must not place at the basis of our
judgement concepts of worlds inhabited by rational beings, and regard
the bright points, with which we see the space above us filled, as
their suns moving in circles purposively fixed with reference to them;
but we must regard it, just as we see it, as a distant, all-embracing
vault. Only under such a representation can we range that sublimity
which a pure aesthetical judgement ascribes to this object. And in
the same way, if we are to call the sight of the ocean sublime, we
must not _think_ of it as we [ordinarily] do, endowed as we are with
all kinds of knowledge (not contained, however, in the immediate
intuition). For example, we sometimes think of the ocean as a vast
kingdom of aquatic creatures; or as the great source of those vapours
that fill the air with clouds for the benefit of the land; or again
as an element which, though dividing continents from each other, yet
promotes the greatest communication between them: but these furnish
merely teleological judgements. To call the ocean sublime we must
regard it as poets do, merely by what strikes the eye; if it is at
rest, as a clear mirror of water only bounded by the heaven; if it is
restless, as an abyss threatening to overwhelm everything. The like is
to be said of the Sublime and Beautiful in the human figure. We must
not regard as the determining grounds of our judgement the concepts
of the purposes which all our limbs serve, and we must not allow this
coincidence to _influence_ our aesthetical judgement (for then it would
no longer be pure); although it is certainly a necessary condition of
aesthetical satisfaction that there should be no conflict between them.
Aesthetical purposiveness is the conformity to law of the Judgement in
its _freedom_. The satisfaction in the object depends on the relation
in which we wish to place the Imagination; always provided that it by
itself entertains the mind in free occupation. If, on the other hand,
the judgement be determined by anything else,--whether sensation or
concept,--although it may be conformable to law, it cannot be the act
of a _free_ Judgement.
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