BOOK II PART III
existence; and following what seems the nat-
ural succession of time, proceed from past to
present, and from present to future. By which
means we conceive the future as flowing every
moment nearer us, and the past as retiring. An
equal distance, therefore, in the past and in the
future, has not the same effect on the imagina-
tion; and that because we consider the one as
continually encreasing, and the other as con-
tinually diminishing. The fancy anticipates the
course of things, and surveys the object in that
condition, to which it tends, as well as in that,
which is regarded as the present.