A Treatise of Human Nature

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BOOK I PART III


ments on one side amount to ten thousand, and
on the other to ten thousand and one, the judg-
ment gives the preference to the latter, upon ac-
count of that superiority; though it is plainly
impossible for the mind to run over every par-
ticular view, and distinguish the superior vi-
vacity of the image arising from the superior
number, where the difference is so inconsid-
erable. We have a parallel instance in the af-
fections. It is evident, according to the prin-
ciples above-mentioned, that when an object
produces any passion in us, which varies ac-
cording to the different quantity of the object;
I say, it is evident, that the passion, properly
speaking, is not a simple emotion, but a com-
pounded one, of a great number of weaker
passions, derived from a view of each part of
the object. For otherwise it were impossible
the passion should encrease by the encrease of

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