esteemed some tie, and gives a title to a share of our
affection.

There is another phaenomenon, which is parallel to this, viz, that
acquaintance, without any kind of relation, gives rise to love and
kindness. When we have contracted a habitude and intimacy with any
person; though in frequenting his company we have not been able to
discover any very valuable quality, of which he is possessed; yet we
cannot forebear preferring him to strangers, of whose superior merit we
are fully convinced. These two phaenomena of the effects of relation
and acquaintance will give mutual light to each other, and may be both
explained from the same principle.

Those, who take a pleasure in declaiming against human nature, have
observed, that man is altogether insufficient to support himself; and
that when you loosen all the holds, which he has of external objects,
he immediately drops down into the deepest melancholy and despair.
From this, say they, proceeds that continual search after amusement
in gaming, in hunting, in business; by which we endeavour to forget
ourselves, and excite our spirits from the languid state, into which
they fall, when not sustained by some brisk and lively emotion. To
this method of thinking I so far agree, that I own the mind to be
insufficient, of itself, to its own entertainment, and that it naturally
seeks after foreign objects, which may produce a lively sensation, and
agitate the spirits. On the appearance of such an object it awakes, as
it were, from a dream: The blood flows with a new tide: The heart is
elevated: And the whole man acquires a vigour, which he cannot command
in his solitary and calm moments. Hence company is naturally so
rejoicing, as presenting the liveliest of all objects, viz, a rational
and thinking Being like ourselves, who communicates to us all the
actions of his mind; makes us privy to his inmost sentiments and
affections; and lets us see, in the very instant of their production,
all the emotions, which are caused by any object. Every lively idea
is agreeable, but especially that of a passion, because such an idea
becomes a kind of passion, and gives a more sensible agitation to the
mind, than any other image or conception.

This being once admitted, all the rest is easy. For as the company
of strangers is agreeable to us for a short time, by inlivening our
thought; so the company of our relations and acquaintance must be
peculiarly agreeable, because it has this effect in