| I suppose the virtue to belong to my companion, not to myself; and observe what follows from this alteration. |
| I immediately perceive the affections wheel to about, and leaving pride, where there is only one relation, viz, of impressions, fall to the side of love, where they are attracted by a double relation of impressions and ideas. |
| By repeating the same experiment, in changing anew the relation of ideas, I bring the affections back to pride; and by a new repetition I again place them at love or kindness. |
| Being fully convinced of the influence of this relation, I try the effects of the other; and by changing virtue for vice, convert the pleasant impression, which arises from the former, into the disagreeable one, which proceeds from the latter. |
| The effect still answers expectation. |
| Vice, when placed on another, excites, by means of its double relations, the passion of hatred, instead of love, which for the same reason arises from virtue. |
| To continue the experiment, I change anew the relation of ideas, and suppose the vice to belong to myself. |
| What follows? What is usual. |
| A subsequent change of the passion from hatred to humility. |
| This humility I convert into pride by a new change of the impression; and find after all that I have compleated the round, and have by these changes brought back the passion to that very situation, in which I first found it. |
| But to make the matter still more certain, I alter the object; and instead of vice and virtue, make the trial upon beauty and deformity, riches and poverty, power and servitude. |
| Each of these objects runs the circle of the passions in the same manner, by a change of their relations: And in whatever order we proceed, whether through pride, love, hatred, humility, or through humility, hatred, love, pride, the experiment is not in the least diversifyed. |
| Esteem and contempt, indeed, arise on some occasions instead of love and hatred; but these are at the bottom the same passions, only diversifyed by some causes, which we shall explain afterwards. |
| Fifth Experiment. |
| To give greater authority to these experiments, let us change the situation of affairs as much as possible, and place the passions and objects in all the different positions, of which they are susceptible. |
| Let us suppose, beside the relations above-mentioned, that the person, along with whom I make all these experiments, is closely connected with me either by blood or friendship. |
| He is, we shall suppose, my son or brother, or is united to me by a long and familiar acquaintance. |
| Let us next suppose, that the cause of the passion acquires a double relation of impressions and ideas to this person; and let us see what the effects are of all these complicated attractions and relations. |
| Before we consider what they are in fact, let us determine what they ought to be, conformable to my hypothesis. |
| It is plain, that, according as the impression is either pleasant or uneasy, the passion of love or hatred must arise towards the person, who is thus connected to the cause of the impression by these double relations, which I have all along required. |
| The virtue of a brother must make me love him; as his vice or infamy must excite the contrary passion. |