BOOK I PART III
the imagination; and it is evident this vivacity
must gradually decay in proportion to the dis-
tance, and must lose somewhat in each transi-
tion. Sometimes this distance has a greater in-
fluence than even contrary experiments would
have; and a man may receive a more lively
conviction from a probable reasoning, which is
close and immediate, than from a long chain
of consequences, though just and conclusive
in each part. Nay it is seldom such reason-
ings produce any conviction; and one must
have a very strong and firm imagination to pre-
serve the evidence to the end, where it passes
through so many, stages.
But here it may not be amiss to remark a very
curious phaenomenon, which the present sub-
ject suggests to us. It is evident there is no point
of ancient history, of which we can have any as-