| In all these Cases, and particularly that of accession, there is first a natural union betwixt the Idea of the person and that of the object, and afterwards a new and moral union produced by that right or property, which we ascribe to the person. |
| But here there occurs a difficulty, which merits our attention, and may afford us an opportunity of putting to tryal that singular method of reasoning, which has been employed on the present subject. |
| I have already observed that the imagination passes with greater facility from little to great, than from great to littie, and that the transition of ideas is always easier and smoother in the former case than in the latter. |
| Now as the right of accession arises from the easy transition of ideas, by which related objects are connected together, it shoued naturally be imagined, that the right of accession must encrease in strength, in proportion as the transition of ideas is performed with greater facility. |
| It may, therefore, be thought, that when we have acquired the property of any small object, we shall readily consider any great object related to it as an accession, and as belonging to the proprietor of the small one; since the transition is in that case very easy from the small object to the great one, and shoued connect them together in the closest manner. |
| But In fact the case is always found to be otherwise, The empire of Great Britain seems to draw along with it the dominion of the Orkneys, the Hebrides, the isle of Man, and the Isle of Wight; but the authority over those lesser islands does not naturally imply any title to Great Britain. |
| In short, a small object naturally follows a great one as its accession; but a great one Is never supposed to belong to the proprietor of a small one related to it, merely on account of that property and relation. |
| Yet in this latter case the transition of ideas is smoother from the proprietor to the small object, which is his property, and from the small object to the great one, than in the former case from the proprietor to the great object, and from the great one to the small. |
| It may therefore be thought, that these phaenomena are objections to the foregoing hypothesis, THAT THE ASCRIBING OF PROPERTY TO ACCESSION IS NOTHING BUT AN AFFECT OF THE RELATIONS OF IDEAS, AND OF THE SMOOTH TRANSITION OF THE IMAGINATION. |
| It will be easy to solve this objection, if we consider the agility and unsteadiness of the imagination, with the different views, in which it is continually placing its objects. |
| When we attribute to a person a property in two objects, we do not always pass from the person to one object, and from that to the other related to it. |
| The objects being here to be considered as the property of the person, we are apt to join them together, and place them in the same light. |
| Suppose, therefore, a great and a small object to be related together; if a person be strongly related to the great object, he will likewise be strongly related to both the objects, considered together, because he Is related to the most considerable part. |
| On the contrary, if he be only related to the small object, he will not be strongly related to both, considered together, since his relation lies only with the most trivial part, which is not apt to strike us in any great degree, when we consider the whole. |
| And this Is the reason, why small objects become accessions to great ones, and not great to small. |
| It is the general opinion of philosophers and civilians, that the sea is incapable of becoming the property of any nation; and that because it is impossible to take possession of it, or form any such distinct relation with it, as may be the foundation of property. |
| Where this reason ceases, property immediately takes place. |
| Thus the most strenuous advocates for the liberty of the seas universally allow, that friths and hays naturally belong as an accession to the proprietors of the surrounding continent. |
| These have properly no more bond or union with the land, than the pacific ocean would have; but having an union in the fancy, and being at the same time inferior, they are of course regarded as an accession. |
| The property of rivers, by the laws of most nations, and by the natural turn of our thought, Is attributed to the proprietors of their banks, excepting such vast rivers as the Rhine or the Danube, which seem too large to the imagination to follow as an accession the property of the neighbouring fields. |
| Yet even these rivers are considered as the property of that nation, thro' whose dominions they run; the idea of a nation being of a suitable bulk to correspond with them, and bear them such a relation in the fancy. |