A Treatise of Human Nature

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BOOK III PART II


that singular method of reasoning, which has
been employed on the present subject. I have
already observed that the imagination passes
with greater facility from little to great, than
from great to littie, and that the transition of
ideas is always easier and smoother in the for-
mer case than in the latter. Now as the right
of accession arises from the easy transition of
ideas, by which related objects are connected
together, it shoued naturally be imagined, that
the right of accession must encrease in strength,
in proportion as the transition of ideas is per-
formed with greater facility. It may, therefore,
be thought, that when we have acquired the
property of any small object, we shall readily
consider any great object related to it as an ac-
cession, and as belonging to the proprietor of
the small one; since the transition is in that case
very easy from the small object to the great one,

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