inion of
the Orkneys, the Hebrides, the isle of Man, and the Isle of
Wight; but the authority over those lesser islands does not
naturally imply any title to Great Britain. In short, a
small object naturally follows a great one as its accession;
but a great one Is never supposed to belong to the
proprietor of a small one related to it, merely on account
of that property and relation. Yet in this latter case the
transition of ideas is smoother from the proprietor to the
small object, which is his property, and from the small
object to the great one, than in the former case from the
proprietor to the great object, and from the great one to
the small. It may therefore be thought, that these
phaenomena are objections to the foregoing hypothesis, THAT
THE ASCRIBING OF PROPERTY TO ACCESSION IS NOTHING BUT AN
AFFECT OF THE RELATIONS OF IDEAS, AND OF THE SMOOTH
TRANSITION OF THE IMAGINATION.

It will be easy to solve this objection, if we consider the
agility and unsteadiness of the imagination, with the
different views, in which it is continually placing its
objects. When we attribute to a person a property in two
objects, we do not always pass from the person to one
object, and from that to the other related to it. The
objects being here to be considered as the property of the
person, we are apt to join them together, and place them in
the same light. Suppose, therefore, a great and a small
object to be related together; if a person be strongly
related to the great object, he will likewise be strongly
related to both the objects, considered together, because he
Is related to the most considerable part. On the contrary,
if he be only related to the small object, he will not be
strongly related to both, considered together, since his
relation lies only with the most trivial part, which is not
apt to strike us in any great degree, when we consider the
whole. And this Is the reason, why small objects become
accessions to great ones, and not great to small.

It is the general opinion of philosophers and civilians,
that the sea is incapable of becoming the property of any
nation; and that because it is impossible to take possession
of it, or form any such distinct relation with it, as may be
the foundation of property. Where this