Single Idea 24091

[catalogued under 21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 6. The Sublime]

Full Idea

This beauty and sublimity of nature, before which every human being seems small, was first imposed on nature by us.

Gist of Idea

The sublimity of nature which dwarfs us was a human creation

Source

Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1881-82 [1882], 12[38])

Book Reference

Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'The Joyful Science, and 1881-82 fragments (v 6)', ed/tr. Del Caro,Adrian [Stanford 2023], p.428


A Reaction

I was struck when I was 10 with how indifferent to a landscape I was, when my mother told me it was 'beautiful'. Five years later I saw it differently. I assume nature is not intrinsically sublime. Dwarfed by our own concept is a bit odd.