Chapter 35: Sublimity and Human Nature
But in the case of Plato there is, as I was saying, another difference; you see, not only in the greatness of his excellences, but also in their number does he fall short; and he has, besides, more in the way of mistakes than he has deficiency in excellences. 2. Now what did those authors, equals of the gods, understand as they desired what is greatest in writing and felt themselves to be above precision in all details? It was, in addition to many other things, this: that nature did not decide that man would be a low or ignoble animal; but leading us into life and into the whole cosmos as if into a kind of world’s fair to be, in a way, its observers and to be lovers of the esteem which comes to those who compete, immediately she implants into our souls an erotic passion which cannot be fought for all that is great and more daemonic than we. 3. For just this reason not even the entire cosmos taken together can cope with the thrust of human theorizing and percep tiveness, but man’s intentness on perceiving often everywhere goes out beyond the limits of what holds him in, and if anyone gaze around at life in its cycle, he will swiftly understand for what purpose we were born, by seeing how much what is “too much” and great and fine holds more advantage in all things. 4. Therefore we are (heaven knows) somehow driven by nature to wonder not at small streams, even if they are clear and useful, but at the Nile and the Danube and the Rhine, and still more at the Ocean; nor, of course, are we more astounded by that little flame which we kindle, when it preserves a pure gleam, than by the gleam of the heavenly bodies, though they are often gloomed over, nor do we generally consider it more worthy of wonder than the craters of Aetna, whose eruptions carry up rocks and whole mounds from its abyss and sometimes pour forth rivers of that single earthbred fire. 5. But in all such things we may say this, that though what is useful or even necessary has for humanity an easy passage, still, what is contrary to opinion is over and over again wonderful.
