When concepts of the Sublime were borrowed out of Africa, they underwent an assortment of changes. In the Western world, African spiritual concepts took on a more material nature and were more man-centered than spiritual. Originally, in ancient Greece "Sublime" meant "high in place"-and, as in Africa, the place beyond the earth's atmosphere was filled with "ether"-- a subtle fluid of pre-matter consisting of a fine, flimsy, vapor mist. If the air of which we are aware could be considered as water, the ether was the mist that comes from water when water is boiled but infinitely more flimsy. When that vapor is cooled, it could again become water. In this sense, "Sublime" meant "lofty" -i.e. the raising into vapor to be later precipitated. In the first or second century AD, a Rome based anonymous Greek rhetorician-designated "Pseudo-Longinus"-wrote: "On the Sublime." He defined sublimity as "excellence in language"; "the echo of greatness of spirit"; "the expression of a great spirit"; and the power to provoke "ecstasy". The source of Sublime, he continued, was in the moral, emotional, and imaginative depth of the writer and its expression in the flare-up of genius that rules alone could not produce.

Further, if greatness of thought was not inborn, it could be acquired by emulating great authors such as Homer, Demosthenes, and Plato. Sublime works arise out of an author's inspiration rather than reasoned judgment and does not so much convince the reader as it thrills, or transports, him/her. Mistakenly this was attributed to a third-century Greek, Dronysius Longinus. Whereas Ancient Africans said the source of the Sublime came from the heavens, Westerners said it lay in the capacities of the speaker or writer. Nevertheless, the Sublime was much admired by Western Romantics over the centuries and they often sought to achieve it in their own works. Under the impression that the Sublime is a quality that can occur in poetry, prose, or other types of discourse, the desired effect was to "shatter the hearer's composure"; exercise irresistible "domination" over him/her; and "scatter the subjects like a bolt of lightning."

They believed three of these capacities -- the use of figurative language, nobility of expression, and elevated composition -- are matters of poetic art acquired by practice. But two other and more important capacities -- "loftiness of thought" and "strong and inspired passion" -- are largely innate. The ability to achieve Sublimity is in itself, they said, enough to establish the transcendent genius of a writer and express the nobility of the writer's character. When the "pseudo-Longinus" work was translated in 1672, the Sublime was also used to designate natural objects -- like mountains, volcanoes, and storms -- that inspire a kind of awed terror through sheer immensity. By contrast, the beautiful was considered as light, smooth, small, and delicate. In the 17th century, "ether"-now called "ethereal"-was considered a Matter so fine that it bordered on the heavenly-the spiritual-because of its purity and excellence. Thus arose the contrasting concepts of "bad air" (e.g. smog) and the look-alike concept of "clean air" (e.g. mountain air) to distinquish it from "pure air" (i.e. ethereal air). A host of words-called the "Lofty Words"-- came from the idea of ethereal air. Sublime people are said by Europeans to be in the Sublime planes when they have the purest and most excellent spiritual, intellectual, moral, or creative performance based upon what European people value the most. (Reference: Bailey, Creatitivity, Invention & Discoveery.)

Joseph A. Bailey, II, M.D.