BOOK II PART III
sion 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 succes-
sion 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. Noth-
ing but an absolute necessity can oblige an his-
torian to break the order of time, and in his nar-
ration 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 ob-
served, that the present situation of the person
is always that of the imagination, and that it