…wastelands lying in deep shadow and inviting melancholy meditation, and so on is indeed sized by amazement bordering on terror, by horror and a sacred thrill but, since he knows he is safe, this is not actual fear: it is merely our attempt to incur it with our imagination in order that we may feel that power’s might and connect the mental agitation this arouses with the mind’s state of rest. In this way we feel our superiority to nature within ourselves, and hence to nature outside us insofar as it can influence our feeling and well-being.
by Kant, CJ