Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution

by Carl R. Trueman

the focus on nature that we find in the Romantics was not simply driven by a desire for a sentimental thrill found contemplating, as in these examples, the sublime vastness of a great mountain or the delicate beauty of a flower. Romanticism saw this contemplation of nature as having a deep ethical impact upon individuals who engaged in such. Meditating upon the natural wonders of the world served to reshape them morally, to reconnect them with nature and with their own true humanity and that of others. The beautiful in nature inspired delight, the sublime inspired fear and awe. And the experience of the two helped to form appropriate sentiments that shaped the moral intuitions or instincts of the individual. We might say, in modern parlance, they made the individual an emotionally healthy, empathetic person.