This Element examines the role of Kant’s predecessors both in the Anglophone tradition (Joseph Addison, John Baillie, Edmund Burke, Lord Kames) and the German rationalist tradition (Alexander Baumgarten, Georg Meier, and especially Moses Mendelssohn) in the development of Kant's theory of the sublime.  From the Anglophone tradition, Kant draws a reflective approach, according to which our enjoyment of natural sublimity turns on what it reveals about our own minds; from the German he draws a certain readiness to link true sublimity with the moral perfection of virtue.  Since Kant says with evident endorsement that “we call sublime that which is absolutely great” and nothing in nature can in fact be absolutely great (it can only figure as such, in certain presentations), Kant concludes that – strictly speaking – what is sublime strictly speaking can only be something about our own minds: specifically, the human calling (Bestimmung) to perfect the rational capacity according to the standard of virtue.  The Element takes account of the difference between respect and admiration as the two main varieties of sublime feeling, and concludes by considering the role of Stoic moral psychology in Kant’s account of the sublime, particularly through the channel of Seneca.