The concept of the sublime is intertwined with our opinions of God, our concept of eternity and the way in which we see ourselves in relation to nature. For Kant, Humility, reverence, guilt, respect, awe and fear are all elements of the sublime alive within us. Kant’s rhetoric has the feeling of conclusiveness, even if midway through we feel like we have been persuaded down a different path than we started out on. He starts off saying the sublime cannot be found in nature, then proceeds to use nature as an example of how the sublime can be found within ourselves. 
How the Sublime Differs from the Beautiful
In Kant’s Analytic of the Sublime, he begins by pointing out similarities and making distinctions between the sublime and the beautiful. Neither require judgments of sense or logic, yet both belong to judgments of reflection. While the beautiful deals with the form of an object, the sublime can be found in the formless. (98) We can use a cloud as an example in working back toward Kant’s use of the term “sublime,” which has taken on a positive connotation, but is not in fact purely pleasurable. A cloud might have good and bad things about it. It can offer shade from the sun, while it can bring ferocious and dangerous storms. We can love and fear a cloud.Beauty is something that is impressed upon a person, even though there is reflection going on. The sublime, on the other hand is an emotion produced by the self upon trying to deal with or rationally manage a presentation of incalculable magnitude. In other words, beauty is connected with a presentation of quality, while the sublime is connected with a presentation of quantity (although there is an exception here). Another important distinction Kant makes deals with the purposiveness of beauty. If an object exudes natural beauty we like it for its own sake, and we look outward to see the beauty. If, on the other hand, we employ no reasoning in evaluating a presentation, because it appears to lack purpose, yet the presentation evokes in us a feeling of the sublime, we are unsure of why we have the feeling. This uncertainty serves to reinforce the sublimity. This is why we cannot call an object sublime in and of itself, because the object lacks purposiveness in being sublime. The sublime is something that occurs, and because it occurs within us, we develop a purposiveness which is assigned to the natural presentation. We give meaning to the sublime. Even though we fear the sublime, the fact that we can appreciate the presentation and turn the fear into awe indicates we’ve made an aesthetic judgment and identified a purposiveness. Thus, it is our analytic side that allows us to see something as sublime. The sublime can be viewed, as the beautiful can, in terms of quality. But because it is without form it also must be accounted for in terms of quantity, as quantity is the initial judgment made about the sublime experience. Therefore the sublime, unlike beauty, must be broken down into two sides; the mathematically sublime, and the dynamically sublime. Another element of this division is the mental agitation that occurs when making the aesthetic judgment, as opposed to the restful contemplation of making a judgment regarding beauty. Both our cognitive powers (connected to the mathematically sublime), and our powers of desire (connected to the dynamically sublime) are agitated. (101) The way in which agitation works to evoke the feeling of the sublime is precisely what makes the sublime a completely unique emotion.
The Mathematically Sublime
Kant starts off by making distinctions between the large, and the absolutely large, and between the large and the concept of magnitude. The absolutely large is large beyond all comparison, while the small, medium and large exist in relation to one another. Because they are subjective and do not belong to rational concepts they must therefore consist of their own individual magnitudes. And when dealing with anything other than absolute largeness it is impossible to reach any conclusion of size other than that of comparison. The thing with absolute largeness cannot be measured, whereas something that is large can be measured in some capacity. Kant notes that although the absolutely large cannot be compared to anything, the fact that one must set it apart from the large is in itself an act of comparison. Yet it is not a logical comparison, but an aesthetic one, and since the sublime (and its magnitude) may be formless the liking is not for an object, “but, rather a liking for the expansion of the imagination itself.” (105) Later on he defines the monstrous as an object whose “magnitude nullifies the purpose that constitutes its concept.” And the colossal as “what we call the mere exhibition of a concept if that concept is almost too large for any exhibition.” (109) While several of these categories of size do in fact overlap in some areas, and appear to overlap in others, Kant has drawn lines between the ideas of purposiveness, intuition, apprehension, comprehension, not to mention reason and aesthetics among others. With his own lines of demarcation he in effect makes his own rules and bends them. When we judge something to be absolutely large we are not comparing its magnitude to that of another, or outside, but within it and thus, within us. The sublime therefore must not be “sought in things of nature, but must be sought solely in our ideas.” (105) He says that the sublime can be denoted by a magnitude of absolute and infinite smallness, as it can be by absolute largeness. The examples of the telescope and microscope serve Kant well in illustrating man’s desire to improve his own powers of perception. It is out of the senses’ failure to comprehend a presentation that the sublime is born and thus the presentation is never truly sensed, even though an aesthetic judgment has been made. The following is perhaps his most profound account of the mathematically sublime:[What happens is that] our imagination strives to progress toward infinity, while our reason demands absolute totality as a real idea, and so [the imagination,] our power of estimation the magnitude of things in the world of sense, is inadequate to that idea. Yet this inadequacy itself is the arousal in us of the feeling that we have within us a supersensible power. (106)
While the conceptual mind of imagination attempts to mathematically count or otherwise measure the magnitude of an infinite thing, the mind of reason tries to picture the infinite thing in terms of an entire entity, or view the thing in a single glance. Each time the comprehension of reason fails it is referred to the apprehension of imagination, which itself runs up against the futility of counting for eternity. In Kant’s opinion the imagination must be used to understand numerical concepts, mainly because “the magnitude of the measure must be assumed to be known.” (107) This means an abstract or mathematical concept-- a measure-- must be agreed on (a unit), but nevertheless the estimation of an object’s magnitude is subjective, because as stated above, the counting of units can never stop when contemplating the infinite. There is, according to Kant, a maximum number of units one is able to comprehend, because they are only “kept alive” in the imagination for a short time. Comprehension reaches its maximum when the first apprehensions are becoming extinguished, so that gains in progression are balanced by losses. Kant uses the analogy of the Egyptian pyramid, which is an interesting example, given the fact that he tells us in the next paragraph the sublime is not found in nature or in art (such as buildings), but in “crude nature.” When one stands too far away from the pyramid, one cannot see, or apprehend the details of the thing. Yet when one stands too close one can only apprehend it in segments because, as the eye scans toward the top, the imagination has already lost what it apprehended at the bottom. Thus the picture is never complete, and comprehension never achieved. (108)
As we work toward the idea of the dynamically sublime, we move from the negative fear of the sublime toward the positive via the ideas of respect and vocation. It is our vocation to recognize and heed the failure of our own imagination. There are two kinds of respect; first, a respect toward the presentation we cannot comprehend and second, toward our own vocation within that calls us to give the first kind of respect. (115) The first kind of respect is really an objective illusion Kant calls subreption, which accounts for people calling objects sublime, rather than identifying an attunement with the sublime. Again, Kant addresses the idea of agitation, and compares it to a vibration “with a rapid alternation of repulsion from, and attraction to, one and the same object.” With imagination “afraid to lose itself” in the ever-expanding abyss, reason employs its power of the supersensible which “conforms to reason’s law to give rise to such striving by the imagination. Hence [the thing] is now attractive to the same degree to which [formerly] it was repulsive to mere sensibility.” (115) The displeasurable inadequacy of the imagination is the purposiveness which allows the judgment of the sublime to be an aesthetic one. The conflict of reason and imagination is the quantum event responsible for, as Kant puts it, a “violence to the inner sense.” This violence is produced by the constant measuring performed by the imagination, while reason attempts to comprehend everything in one instant. The goal is a kind of intuitable simultaneity, which cannot be reached because of the imagination collapsing back in on itself, just as it believes it’s on the verge of comprehension. Even this violence is acceptable for Kant, because it is “still judged purposive for the whole vocation of the mind.” In this sense, Kant believes the mind knows what’s best for the mind.
The Dynamically Sublime
The arousal of fear in a subject is essential if one is to judge a presentation to be dynamically sublime. If a presentation of nature is has absolute largeness it also possesses might, or “an ability that is superior to great obstacles.” Gewalt is the term Kant uses to describe something that can overcome might, and when we acknowledge nature as powerful yet lacking dominance over us, we demonstrate Gewalt. Our reason prevails over our sensibility. Thus, an object can be fearful, in the way that God can be fearful, without us being afraid of him. The object has Gewalt because we can’t imagine going up against it in any way. (120) Kant identifies the agreeableness that comes with realizing one is no longer in danger as gladness. And although we might vow never to put ourselves in a dangerous position again, we might be able to observe a natural phenomenon, such as a violent storm, from the safety of shelter and experience a sublime feeling:And we like to call these objects sublime because they raise the soul’s fortitude above its usual middle range and allow us to discover in ourselves an ability to resist which is of a quite different kind, and which gives us the courage [to believe] that we could be a match for nature’s seeming omnipotence. (120)
In our facing up to the awe of nature we find a superiority that empowers us to make judgments independently of nature. Kant is saying that we elevate ourselves above nature when nature itself forces our mind to find the sublime within itself. This is transcendentalism. In order to find a liking in the sublime however, one must feel safe. This presents a problem. If one is always safe, there is the chance that the liking or the respect for the sublime is not genuine. Here, Kant uses religion as an example. It would make no sense to worship a God you were afraid of, particularly when God’s will is both violent and just. “Only if he is conscious that his attitude is sincere and pleasing to God, will these effects of might serve to arouse in him the idea of God’s sublimity, insofar as he recognizes in his own attitude a sublimity that conforms to God’s will.” (123) These attempts to please God have taken the form of everything from animal and human sacrifice, to asceticism and vows of silence. Kant even sites humility as a form of sublimity. The action self-reprimand is an element of superstition that should not found in legitimate religion. Whether it is mental, in the sense of humility, or physical, as the use of a spiked cilice belt in the absolving of sins, it is a self-deceiving way for one to let God (and himself) know he is serious about his faith. Kant says this behavior is not that of a faithful person, nor does it display reverence for the sublime and thus, cannot be part of a religion based on good conduct.
Conclusion
While Kant’s empiricism enables him to systematically analyze the elements of the sublime, he is only able to categorize concepts of size according to his hierarchical system of perception and cognition. In this way he is locked into his own rhetoric. The argument could be made that his use of categories detracts from the authority of his concept of absolute largeness. While it is ironic that he uses a system of confined parameters to define something that transcends all boundaries, he uses the system to good effect. What is most important is that he places absolute largeness, in conjunction with the sublime, at the top of the ranks.The way in which most of us think about eternally expanding space and/or time relates to the way in which we experience the sublime. It is our experience of the sublime, and it is not simply the fear of death that produces anxiety, but the failure to comprehend eternity. The fear that is produced can be dealt with in different ways, repressed to certain degrees. Kant said in order to experience the sublime we must be open to ideas. The extent to which we are open will determine whether are afraid of the sublime, or simply fear it, and whether or not we can attain a pleasure through a displeasure.
What ends up being a sound acount of the sublime is frought with exceptions to rules Kant has himself made up, which prompt him to say things like: “I admit that this principle seems farfetched and the result of some subtle reasoning and hence high-flown...” (121) What’s more, one doesn’t get the feeling one has been talked in complete circles, although interlocking figure eights might do better for analogy. It makes a brilliantly difficult kind of sense.