Thus, for example, we discover in all men a disposition to look with
reverence upon superiority, whether real or supposititious. In some,
this disposition is to be recognized with difficulty, and, in very
peculiar cases, we are occasionally even led to doubt its existence
altogether, until circumstances beyond the common routine bring it
accidentally into development. In others again it forms a prominent
and distinctive feature of character, and is rendered palpably evident
in its excesses. But in all human beings it is, in a greater or less
degree, finally perceptible. It has been, therefore, justly considered
a primitive sentiment. Phrenologists call it Veneration. It is,
indeed, the instinct given to man by God as security for his own
worship. And although, preserving its nature, it becomes perverted
from its principal purpose, and although swerving from that purpose,
it serves to modify the relations of human society- the relations of
father and child, of master and slave, of the ruler and the ruled- its
primitive essence is nevertheless the same, and by a reference to
primal causes, may at any moment be determined.
Very nearly akin to this feeling, and liable to the same analysis,
is the Faculty of Ideality- which is the sentiment of Poesy. This
sentiment is the sense of the beautiful, of the sublime, and of the
mystical.
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