iful, or surprising,
is an object of pride; and it's contrary, of humility. Now it is
obvious, that every thing useful, beautiful or surprising, agrees in
producing a separate pleasure and agrees in nothing else. The pleasure,
therefore, with the relation to self must be the cause of the passion.

Though it should be questioned, whether beauty be not something real,
and different from the power of producing pleasure, it can never be
disputed, that as surprize is nothing but a pleasure arising from
novelty, it is not, properly speaking, a quality in any object, but
merely a passion or impression in the soul. It must, therefore, be
from that impression, that pride by a natural transition arises. And
it arises so naturally, that there is nothing in us or belonging to
us, which produces surprize, that does not at the same time excite that
other passion. Thus we are vain of the surprising adventures we have
met with, the escapes we have made, and dangers we have been exposed to.
Hence the origin of vulgar lying; where men without any interest, and
merely out of vanity, heap up a number of extraordinary events, which
are either the fictions of their brain, or if true, have at least no
connexion with themselves. Their fruitful invention supplies them with
a variety of adventures; and where that talent is wanting, they
appropriate such as belong to others, in order to satisfy their vanity.

In this phaenomenon are contained two curious experiments, which if we
compare them together, according to the known rules, by which we judge
of cause and effect in anatomy, natural philosophy, and other sciences,
will be an undeniable argument for that influence of the double
relations above-mentioned. By one of these experiments we find, that an
object produces pride merely by the interposition of pleasure; and that
because the quality, by which it produces pride, is in reality nothing
but the power of producing pleasure. By the other experiment we find,
that the pleasure produces the pride by a transition along related
ideas; because when we cut off that relation the passion is immediately
destroyed.. A surprising adventure, in which we have been ourselves
engaged, is related to us, and by that means produces pride: But the
adventures of others, though they may cause pleasure, yet for want of
this relation of ideas, never excite that passion. What farther proof
can be desired for the present system?

There is only one objection to this