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9. The imagination and affections have a clofe union together. The vivacity of the former, gives force to the latter. Hence the profpect of any pleasure, with which we are acquainted, affects us more than any other pleasure, which we may own fuperior, but of whofe nature we are wholly ignorant. Of the one we can form a particular and determinate idea: The other, we conceive under the general notion of pleasure.

Any fatisfaction, which we lately enjoyed, and of which the memory is fresh and recent, operates on the will with more violence, than another of which the traces are decayed and almoft obliterated.

A pleasure, which is fuitable to the way of life, in which we are engaged, excites more our desires and appetites than another, which is foreign to it.

Nothing is more capable of infusing any paffion into the mind, than eloquence, by which objects are represented in the strongest and most lively colours. The bare opinion of another, especially when inforced with paffion, will caufe an idea to have an influence upon us, though that idea might otherwise have been entirely neglected.

It is remarkable, that lively paffions commonly attend a lively imagination. In this refpect, as well as others, the force of the paffion depends as much on the temper of the perfon, as on the nature and fituation of the object.

What

What is distant, either in place or time, has not equal influ→ ence with what is near and contiguous.

I pretend not here to have exhausted this subject. It is fufficient for my purpose, if I have made it appear, that in the production and conduct of the paffions, there is a certain regular mechanism, which is susceptible of as accurate a difquifition, as the laws of motion, optics, hydroftatics, or any part of natural philofophy.