| It is the same case when I recollect the several incidents of a journey, or the events of any history. |
| Every particular fact is there the object of belief. |
| Its idea is modified differently from the loose reveries of a castle-builder: But no distinct impression attends every distinct idea, or conception of matter of fact. |
| This is the subject of plain experience. |
| If ever this experience can be disputed on any occasion, it is when the mind has been agitated with doubts and difficulties; and afterwards, upon taking the object in a new point of view, or being presented with a new argument, fixes and reposes itself in one settled conclusion and belief. |
| In this case there is a feeling distinct and separate from the conception. |
| The passage from doubt and agitation to tranquility and repose, conveys a satisfaction and pleasure to the mind. |
| But take any other case. |
| Suppose I see the legs and thighs of a person in motion, while some interposed object conceals the rest of his body. |
| Here it is certain, the imagination spreads out the whole figure. |
| I give him a head and shoulders, and breast and neck. |
| These members I conceive and believe him to be possessed of. |
| Nothing can be more evident, than that this whole operation is performed by the thought or imagination alone. |
| The transition is immediate. |
| The ideas presently strike us. |
| Their customary connexion with the present impression, varies them and modifies them in a certain manner, but produces no act of the mind, distinct from this peculiarity of conception. |
| Let any one examine his own mind, and he will evidently find this to be the truth. |
| Secondly, Whatever may be the case, with regard to this distinct impression, it must be allowed, that the mind has a firmer hold, or more steady conception of what it takes to be matter of fact, than of fictions. |
| Why then look any farther, or multiply suppositions without necessity? |
| Thirdly, We can explain the causes of the firm conception, but not those of any separate impression. |
| And not only so, but the causes of the firm conception exhaust the whole subject, and nothing is left to produce any other effect. |