BOOK I PART III
the imagination reposes itself indolently on the
idea; and the passion, being softened by the
want of belief in the subject, has no more than
the agreeable effect of enlivening the mind, and
fixing the attention.
The present hypothesis will receive addi-
tional confirmation, if we examine the effects
of other kinds of custom, as well as of other re-
lations. To understand this we must consider,
that custom, to which I attribute all belief and
reasoning, may operate upon the mind in in-
vigorating an idea after two several ways. For
supposing that in all past experience we have
found two objects to have been always con-
joined together, it is evident, that upon the ap-
pearance of one of these objects in an impres-
sion, we must from custom make an easy tran-
sition to the idea of that object, which usually