BOOK II PART II
quality to join them in the imagination; it is im-
possible they can remain long united, or have
any considerable influence on each other.
I have observed in considering the nature of
ambition, that the great feel a double pleasure
in authority from the comparison of their own
condition with that of their slaves; and that this
comparison has a double influence, because it
is natural, and presented by the subject. When
the fancy, in the comparison of objects, passes
not easily from the one object to the other, the
action of the mind is, in a great measure, broke,
and the fancy, in considering the second object,
begins, as it were, upon a new footing. The im-
pression, which attends every object, seems not
greater in that case by succeeding a less of the
same kind; but these two impressions are dis-
tinct, and produce their distinct effects, with-