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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What statement summarizes the real effects of fitness, as described by Burke?
(a) The purpose of fitness is to describe the differences between the species of animals and plants.
(b) There can be nothing sublime without being fit or beautiful.
(c) God gave each thing a particular fitness to make us fully understand and marvel at the mysteries of the world.
(d) Fitness is designed to incite introspection and excite people into socially-important action.

2. How does Burke separate natural and artificial objects?
(a) By categorizing properties of nature and artifice in a long treatise.
(b) By asserting that the natural always prevails over the artificial.
(c) By claiming to distinguish nature and artifice as it pertains to humans.
(d) By separating the effects which they have on a person.

3. How does this body part produce the sense of the sublime, according to Burke?
(a) By becoming full and corpulent with the immensity of the sublime.
(b) By vibrating more or less depending on the sublimity of the object.
(c) By stretching to its fullest extent in response to fear.
(d) By contracting and relaxing due to electrical stimuli.

4. What, to Burke, is "great and amazing beyond conception?"
(a) Two strong, but abstract ideas not representable by images, but only by language.
(b) That which can be the most effectively represented in painting or sculpture.
(c) The idea that the human eye can see essentially to infinity.
(d) The depth of feeling in one particular person about one particular issue.

5. What is Locke's general theory of language, as related by Burke?
(a) Locke describes language as a cohesive system in which the meaning of words never varies from context to context.
(b) Locke argues that children are taught words before they are taught the actual meaning of words, which can confuse them.
(c) Locke illustrates the superficiality of language, arguing that it is a specious method of communication.
(d) Locke opines that language stems from the animalistic desire of our brains to overcome adversity.

6. What causes hearing in humans, according to Burke?
(a) Pulsations caused by physical movement.
(b) Waves floating through the air.
(c) Vibrations in the ear.
(d) Alterations in the ether.

7. To what does Burke oppose delicacy and fragility?
(a) Dignity and fortitude.
(b) Courage and honor.
(c) Robustness and strength.
(d) Whining and crying.

8. Why does Burke use the example of Campanella?
(a) To demonstrate the perils of a lack of taste.
(b) To pose the question of having only one valid definition of the sublime.
(c) To argue for the existence of God.
(d) To illustrate the connection between mind and body.

9. What emotion has the physical effects of a reclined head, half-closed eyelids, and sighing breath, according to Burke?
(a) Fear.
(b) Curiosity.
(c) Sadness.
(d) Love.

10. What quality of mind does Burke find in women that he thinks is analogous to fragility?
(a) Forthrightness.
(b) Timidity.
(c) Curiosity.
(d) Vapidity.

11. Which kinds of words do not produce mental images, according to Burke?
(a) Foreign words.
(b) Simple abstract words.
(c) Aggregate words.
(d) Compounded abstract words.

12. Which of the following passions show the same effects as pain?
(a) Lust and desire.
(b) Depression and grief.
(c) Joy and delight.
(d) Fear and terror.

13. What does Burke term "simple abstract" words?
(a) Those words which represent human emotions.
(b) Those words which stand for one straighforward idea.
(c) Those words which indicate political affiliations.
(d) Those words which comprise oaths and curses.

14. What caveat does Burke offer to his readers about "A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful"?
(a) He is writing for political reasons geared to sway minds.
(b) He chooses to omit most of what he truly thinks and feels regarding the sublime and beautiful.
(c) He can only study the immediately sensible qualities of the sublime and the beautiful.
(d) He bears no resemblance to any kind of contemporary scientific method.

15. What does Burke expressly wish to discuss in this part of "A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful"?
(a) The usefulness of the sublime in formulating theories of art.
(b) The different cultural concepts of the beautiful in countries other than England.
(c) The connections between the thoughts in the mind and emotions produced in the body.
(d) The various manifestations of the sublime and the beautiful in early-modern England.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the effect of opiates or liquors, according to Burke?

2. According to Burke, what is the mechanical reason darkness is terrible?

3. What is the sole difference Burke identifies between the passions mentioned in question 7?

4. What passage does Burke offer as an example of the effect of words?

5. What recognizable figure does Burke term a "forced analogy?"

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