| For if it be not analogous to any other sentiment, we must despair of explaining its causes, and must consider it as an original principle of the human mind. |
| If it be analogous, we may hope to explain its causes from analogy, and trace it up to more general principles. |
| Now that there is a greater firmness and solidity in the conceptions, which are the objects of conviction and assurance, than in the loose and indolent reveries of a castle-builder, every one will readily own. |
| They strike upon us with more force; they are more present to us; the mind has a firmer hold of them, and is more actuated and moved by them. |
| It acquiesces in them; and, in a manner, fixes and reposes itself on them. |
| In short, they approach nearer to the impressions, which are immediately present to us; and are therefore analogous to many other operations of the mind. |
| There is not, in my opinion, any possibility of evading this conclusion, but by asserting, that belief, beside the simple conception, consists in some impression or feeling, distinguishable from the conception. |
| It does not modify the conception, and render it more present and intense: It is only annexed to it, after the same manner that will and desire are annexed to particular conceptions of good and pleasure. |
| But the following considerations will, I hope, be sufficient to remove this hypothesis. |
| First, It is directly contrary to experience, and our immediate consciousness. |
| All men have ever allowed reasoning to be merely an operation of our thoughts or ideas; and however those ideas may be varied to the feeling, there is nothing ever enters into our conclusions but ideas, or our fainter conceptions. |
| For instance; I hear at present a person's voice, whom I am acquainted with; and this sound comes from the next room. |
| This impression of my senses immediately conveys my thoughts to the person, along with all the surrounding objects. |
| I paint them out to myself as existent at present, with the same qualities and relations, that I formerly knew them possessed of. |
| These ideas take faster hold of my mind, than the ideas of an inchanted castle. |
| They are different to the feeling; but there is no distinct or separate impression attending them. |
| It is the same case when I recollect the several incidents of a journey, or the events of any history. |
| Every particular fact is there the object of belief. |
| Its idea is modified differently from the loose reveries of a castle-builder: But no distinct impression attends every distinct idea, or conception of matter of fact. |
| This is the subject of plain experience. |
| If ever this experience can be disputed on any occasion, it is when the mind has been agitated with doubts and difficulties; and afterwards, upon taking the object in a new point of view, or being presented with a new argument, fixes and reposes itself in one settled conclusion and belief. |