Its object is the sublime.[33] Its highest degree I call _astonishment_; the subordinate degrees are awe, reverence, and respect, which, by the very etymology of the words, show from what source they are derived, and how they stand distinguished from positive pleasure.
SECTION VIII.
WHY THINGS NOT DANGEROUS SOMETIMES PRODUCE A PASSION LIKE TERROR.
A mode of terror or pain is always the cause of the sublime.[34] For terror or associated danger, the foregoing explication is, I believe, sufficient.

It will require something more trouble to show, that such examples as I have given of the sublime in the second part are capable of producing a mode of pain, and of being thus allied to terror, and to be accounted for on the same principles.

And first of such objects as are great in their dimensions.

I speak of visual objects.
SECTION IX.
WHY VISUAL OBJECTS OF GREAT DIMENSIONS ARE SUBLIME.
Vision is performed by having a picture, formed by the rays of light which are reflected from the object, painted in one piece, instantaneously, on the retina, or last nervous part of the eye.

Or, according to others, there is but one point of any object painted on the eye in such a manner as to be perceived at once, but by moving the eye, we gather up, with great celerity, the several parts of the object, so as to form one uniform piece.