BOOK I PART IV
tion is an effect of the continued view of the
same object, it is for this reason we attribute
sameness to every succession of related objects.
The thought slides along the succession with
equal facility, as if it considered only one object;
and therefore confounds the succession with
the identity.
We shall afterwards see many instances of
this tendency of relation to make us ascribe an
identity to different objects; but shall here con-
fine ourselves to the present subject. We find by
experience, that there is such a constancy in al-
most all the impressions of the senses, that their
interruption produces no alteration on them,
and hinders them not from returning the same
in appearance and in situation as at their first
existence. I survey the furniture of my cham-
ber; I shut my eyes, and afterwards open them;