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The phrases in their context!

Extract from A TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE:

Let any one examine his own mind, and he will evidently find this to be the truth.
Secondly, Whatever may be the case, with regard to this distinct impression, it must be allowed, that the mind has a firmer hold, or more steady conception of what it takes to be matter of fact, than of fictions.
Why then look any farther, or multiply suppositions without necessity?
Thirdly, We can explain the causes of the firm conception, but not those of any separate impression.
And not only so, but the causes of the firm conception exhaust the whole subject, and nothing is left to produce any other effect.
An inference concerning a matter of fact is nothing but the idea of an object, that is frequently conjoined, or is associated with a present impression.
This is the whole of it.
Every part is requisite to explain, from analogy, the more steady conception; and nothing remains capable of producing any distinct impression.
Fourthly, The effects of belief, in influencing the passions and imagination, can all be explained from the firm conception; and there is no occasion to have recourse to any other principle.
These arguments, with many others, enumerated in the foregoing volumes, sufficiently prove, that belief only modifies the idea or conception; and renders it different to the feeling, without producing any distinct impression.
Thus upon a general view of the subject, there appear to be two questions of importance, which we may venture to recommend to the consideration of philosophers, Whether there be any thing to distinguish belief from the simple conception beside the feeling of sentiment? And, Whether this feeling be any thing but a firmer conception, or a faster hold, that we take of the object?
If, upon impartial enquiry, the same conclusion, that I have formed, be assented to by philosophers, the next business is to examine the analogy, which there is betwixt belief, and other acts of the mind, and find the cause of the firmness and strength of conception: And this I do not esteem a difficult task.
The transition from a present impression, always enlivens and strengthens any idea.
When any object is presented, the idea of its usual attendant immediately strikes us, as something real and solid.
It is felt, rather than conceived, and approaches the impression, from which it is derived, in its force and influence.
This I have proved at large.
I cannot add any new arguments.
I had entertained some hopes, that however deficient our theory of the intellectual world might be, it would be free from those contradictions, and absurdities, which seem to attend every explication, that human reason can give of the material world.
But upon a more strict review of the section concerning personal identity, I find myself involved in such a labyrinth, that, I must confess, I neither know how to correct my former opinions, nor how to render them consistent.
If this be not a good general reason for scepticism, it is at least a sufficient one (if I were not already abundantly supplied) for me to entertain a diffidence and modesty in all my decisions.
I shall propose the arguments on both sides, beginning with those that induced me to deny the strict and proper identity and simplicity of a self or thinking being.