The appearance of Burke's _Vindication of Natural Society_ coincides in time with the beginning of this important transformation.

Burke foresaw from the first what, if rationalism were allowed to run an unimpeded course, would be the really great business of the second halt of his century.
If in his first book Burke showed how alive he was to the profound movement of the time, in the second he dealt with one of the most serious of its more superficial interests.

The essay on the Sublime and Beautiful fell in with a set of topics on which the curiosity of the better minds of the age, alike in France, England, and Germany, was fully stirred.

In England the essay has been ordinarily slighted; it has perhaps been overshadowed by its author's fame in weightier matters.

The nearest approach to a full and serious treatment of its main positions is to be found in Dugald Stewart's lectures.