oblige an historian to
break the order of time, and in his narration give the precedence to an
event, which was in reality posterior to another.

This will easily be applied to the question in hand, if we reflect on
what I have before observed, that the present situation of the person is
always that of the imagination, and that it is from thence we proceed
to the conception of any distant object. When the object is past, the
progression of the thought in passing to it from the present is contrary
to nature, as proceeding from one point of time to that which is
preceding, and from that to another preceding, in opposition to the
natural course of the succession. On the other hand, when we turn our
thought to a future object, our fancy flows along the stream of time,
and arrives at the object by an order, which seems most natural, passing
always from one point of time to that which is immediately posterior to
it. This easy progression of ideas favours the imagination, and makes
it conceive its object in a stronger and fuller light, than when we
are continually opposed in our passage, and are obliged to overcome the
difficulties arising from the natural propensity of the fancy. A small
degree of distance in the past has, therefore, a greater effect, in
interupting and weakening the conception, than a much greater in
the future. From this effect of it on the imagination is derived its
influence on the will and passions.

There is another cause, which both contributes to the same effect, and
proceeds from the same quality of the fancy, by which we are determined
to trace the succession of time by a similar succession of ideas. When
from the present instant we consider two points of time equally distant
in the future and in the past, it is evident, that, abstractedly
considered, their relation to the present is almost equal. For as the
future will sometime be present, so the past was once present. If we
coued, therefore, remove this quality of the imagination, an equal
distance in the past and in the future, would have a similar influence.
Nor is this only true, when the fancy remains fixed, and from the
present instant surveys the future and the past; but also when it
changes its situation, and places us in different periods of time. For
as on the one hand, in supposing ourselves existent in a point of time
interposed betwixt the present instant and the future object, we find
the future object approach to us, and the past re