In this ftate, therefore, or at our entrance upon life, we are influenced almost wholly by fenfation, or the actual impreffion of external objects upon our fenfes. But when traces of thefe impreflions, i. e. ideas are left in the fenforium, which may be excited by other ideas affociated with them, fo that notices of things may be had without the prefence of real objects, we are capable of being influenced by them, as well as by the objects themselves. And fince the stock of our ideas increafes without limits, and is accumulating through the whole courfe of our lives, we must be continually more and more actuated by them; and there will be lefs occafion for the prefence of external objects, either to roufe us to action, or to give us the fenfe of pleafure or pain; that is, we grow more intellectual, and lefs fenfual every day.

When our stock of ideas is become confiderable, and, confequently, their mutual affociations are pretty extenfive and intimate; if the circumftances that have always been found to precede any gratification be perceived,

perceived, the gratification itself is immediately anticipated; we look upon it as certain, and have a real enjoyment of it, though it be not prefent. In this cafe, when the gratification actually comes, it makes but little alteration in what we feel, and is but a small addition to our previous happiness; which now depends chiefly upon ideas, which are continually increafing, and to which external fenfations bear, every day, a lefs and lefs proportion.

The probable expectation of happiness hath a fimilar effect; and hence the great power of mere hope to leffen the evils of life, and make us bear up under great difficulties and trials. If any pleasure hath been abfolutely depended upon, for a long space of time, the happiness we have experienced in the frequent contemplation of it, may far exceed that of the enjoyment, which is fingle and momentary, and, moreover, accompanied with the difagreeable idea of its being fo. For the fame reafon, the fear of evil may, in time, be far more diftreffing and grievous than the evil itself. The man H 3 who

who loses a limb by a fudden accident is to be envied, in comparison of him who hath been fentenced to that lofs, as a punishment, fome months before the operation. In like manner, if two perfons be confined in prifon, and one of them be releafed without any previous expectation of so agreeable an event, while the other knew that he was to be confined only for the fame limited time; the former will feel more tumultuous joy upon the occafion, but the latter will have had the idea of it prefent to his mind, during the whole time of his confinement, fweetening all the bitterness of it, and will never have known the diftrefs of uncertainty, or the agony of despair.

When ideas only are concerned, and not both ideas and fenfations, the influence of hope and fear is much more diftin&tly perceived, and the nature of this comprehenfion of mind will be better understood by it. Instead, then, of putting a cafe in which we ourselves are concerned, let us put the cafe of a wife, a child, or any other near relation, or friend, with whom we can truly fympathize,

fympathize, taking part in all their joys and forrows. If we see them in prison, and, after apprehending that their confinement would be for life, have private information that they will be releafed, and placed in very agreeable circumstances in a few days, weeks, or months; we can fee them in the mean time, even though we are not allowed to communicate our intelligence to them, with joy almost unmixed; because the future is realized, and the agreeableness of it heightened in our ideas by its contraft with the prefent; which, being temporary, is overlooked by us, as nothing, and has not power to damp our fatisfaction.

If

my

child be peevish and obftinate, and I be fenfible that pain and mortification will do him good, I can, without the help of much anger, have a kind of fatisfaction in inflicting it, and have little or no fympathy with what he suffers; though, for a time, he be in an agony of distress, and think very unkindly of me. On the other hand, if I forefaw that he would lofe a limb in a few days, weeks, or months, I fhould look upon him

H 4

him in the mean time with a most painful compaffion, notwithstanding he himself should be ever so happy, and enjoy himself ever so much; nay, the want of apprehension and feeling in him, would fharpen their painful effects in me.

The effect is nearly the fame if, with respect to ourselves, impreffions from the external fenfes be left out of the queftion, and a cafe be put that is purely intellectual, Suppofe, for inftance, my character be unjuftly traduced, and, for a time, I be reckoned a most infamous fcoundrel; yet, if I be certain, that in a few days my innocence will be effectually cleared, fo that no perfon whatever will entertain the leaft doubt of it, fhall I, in the mean time, be affected and mortified, with the fenfe of my difgrace? No, I fhall hardly feel it at all; but shall rather fecretly exult in the future triumph of my innocence, and fhall fhow an unabashed and chearful countenance, till the prefent load of infamy be removed. It must be owned, however, that the fenfe of infamy, in this cafe, will be felt more or lefs,

according