In reality, the subject requires a much closer attention than we dare claim from our manner of treating it.
If it should not appear on the face of the work, I must caution the reader against imagining that I intended a full dissertation on the Sublime and Beautiful.

My inquiry went no farther than to the origin of these ideas.

If the qualities which I have ranged under the head of the Sublime be all found consistent with each other, and all different from those which I place under the head of Beauty; and if those which compose the class of the Beautiful have the same consistency with themselves, and the same opposition to those which are classed under the denomination of Sublime, I am in little pain whether anybody chooses to follow the name I give them or not, provided he allows that what I dispose under different heads are in reality different things in nature.
The use I make of the words may be blamed, as too confined or too extended; my meaning cannot well be misunderstood.
To conclude: whatever progress may be made towards the discovery of truth in this matter, I do not repent the pains I have taken in it.

The use of such inquiries may be very considerable.

Whatever turns the soul inward on itself, tends to concentre its forces, and to fit it for greater and stronger flights of science.