BOOK II PART III
the will and passions. Contiguous objects must
have an influence much superior to the distant
and remote. Accordingly we find in common
life, that men are principally concerned about
those objects, which are not much removed ei-
ther in space or time, enjoying the present, and
leaving what is afar off to the care of chance
and fortune. Talk to a man of his condition
thirty years hence, and he will not regard you.
Speak of what is to happen tomorrow, and he
will lend you attention. The breaking of a mir-
ror gives us more concern when at home, than
the burning of a house, when abroad, and some
hundred leagues distant.
But farther; though distance both in space
and time has a considerable effect on the imag-
ination, and by that means on the will and
passions, yet the consequence of a removal in