very
remote accidents.

The cause of this phaenomenon must evidently lie in the different
properties of space and time. Without having recourse to metaphysics,
any one may easily observe, that space or extension consists of a number
of co-existent parts disposed in a certain order, and capable of being
at once present to the sight or feeling. On the contrary, time or
succession, though it consists likewise of parts, never presents to us
more than one at once; nor is it possible for any two of them ever to
be co-existent. These qualities of the objects have a suitable effect on
the imagination. The parts of extension being susceptible of an union to
the senses, acquire an union in the fancy; and as the appearance of
one part excludes not another, the transition or passage of the thought
through the contiguous parts is by that means rendered more smooth and
easy. On the other hand, the incompatibility of the parts of time in
their real existence separates them in the imagination, and makes it
more difficult for that faculty to trace any long succession or series
of events. Every part must appear single and alone, nor can regularly
have entrance into the fancy without banishing what is supposed to have
been immediately precedent. By this means any distance in time causes a
greater interruption in the thought than an equal distance in space, and
consequently weakens more considerably the idea, and consequently the
passions; which depend in a great measure, on the imagination, according
to my system.

There is another phaenomenon of a like nature with the foregoing, viz,
the superior effects of the same distance in futurity above that in the
past. This difference with respect to the will is easily accounted for.
As none of our actions can alter the past, it is not strange it should
never determine the will. But with respect to the passions the question
is yet entire, and well worth the examining.

Besides the propensity to a gradual progression through the points of
space and time, we have another peculiarity in our method of thinking,
which concurs in producing this phaenomenon. We always follow the
succession of time in placing our ideas, and from the consideration of
any object pass more easily to that, which follows immediately after
it, than to that which went before it. We may learn this, among other
instances, from the order, which is always observed in historical
narrations. Nothing but an absolute necessity can