even though
it presents nothing to us on any side but what is good and desireable. A
virgin, on her bridalnight goes to bed full of fears and apprehensions,
though she expects nothing but pleasure of the highest kind, and what
she has long wished for. The newness and greatness of the event, the
confusion of wishes and joys so embarrass the mind, that it knows not
on what passion to fix itself; from whence arises a fluttering or
unsettledness of the spirits which being, in some degree, uneasy, very
naturally degenerates into fear.

Thus we still find, that whatever causes any fluctuation or mixture of
passions, with any degree of uneasiness, always produces fear, or at
least a passion so like it, that they are scarcely to be distinguished.

I have here confined myself to the examination of hope and fear in
their most simple and natural situation, without considering all the
variations they may receive from the mixture of different views and
reflections. Terror, consternation, astonishment, anxiety, and other
passions of that kind, are nothing but different species and degrees of
fear. It is easy to imagine how a different situation of the object, or
a different turn of thought, may change even the sensation of a passion;
and this may in general account for all the particular sub-divisions of
the other affections, as well as of fear. Love may shew itself in the
shape of tenderness, friendship, intimacy, esteem, good-will, and in
many other appearances; which at the bottom are the same affections; and
arise from the same causes, though with a small variation, which it is
not necessary to give any particular account of. It is for this reason I
have all along confined myself to the principal passion.

The same care of avoiding prolixity is the reason why I wave the
examination of the will and direct passions, as they appear in animals;
since nothing is more evident, than that they are of the same nature,
and excited by the same causes as in human creatures. I leave this to
the reader's own observation; desiring him at the same time to consider
the additional force this bestows on the present system.

SECT. X OF CURIOSITY, OR THE LOVE OF TRUTH

But methinks we have been not a little inattentive to run over so many
different parts of the human mind, and examine so many passions, without
taking once into the consideration that love of truth, which was the
first source of all our enquiries. Twill therefore be proper