BOOK I PART III
est and most intimate manner to each other, so
as to make us imagine them to be absolutely in-
separable. Resemblance, then, has the same or
a parallel influence with experience; and as the
only immediate effect of experience is to asso-
ciate our ideas together, it follows, that all be-
lief arises from the association of ideas, accord-
ing to my hypothesis.
It is universally allowed by the writers on
optics, that the eye at all times sees an equal
number of physical points, and that a man on
the top of a mountain has no larger an image
presented to his senses, than when he is cooped
up in the narrowest court or chamber. It is only
by experience that he infers the greatness of the
object from some peculiar qualities of the im-
age; and this inference of the judgment he con-
founds with sensation, as is common on other