 Shaftesbury, it bears mentioning, did not originate the idea that it is by an inward sense that we lay hold of the sublime and the beautiful. That idea is an element of the neoplatonic tradition which Shaftesbury’s work extends, and can be traced back to St. Augustine (2005/389–391, De vera religione §59) and Plotinus (250 [1991, 1.6.7–9]), if not to Plato himself (1989, 210a-211d). 