"That the fear, as a mere emotion, should be more intense, according to the greatness of the object, might indeed be expected; and if this were all, there would be nothing wonderful in the state of mind which I have now described. But there is not merely a greater intensity of fear, there is, in spite of reflection, a greater belief of probability of attack. There is fear, in short, and fear to which we readily yield, when otherwise all fear would have seemed absurd. The reason of this it will perhaps not be difficult for you to discover, if you remember the explanations formerly given by me, of some analogous phenomena. The loss of what is valuable in itself, is of course a great affliction. The slightest possibility of such an evil makes the evil itself occur to us, as an object of conception, though not at first, perhaps, as an object of what can be termed fear. Its very greatness, however, makes it, when thus conceived, dwell longer in the mind; and it cannot dwell long, even as a mere conception, without exciting, by the common influence of suggestion, the different states of mind, associated with the conception of any great evil; of which associate or resulting states, in such circumstances, fear is one of the most constant and prominent. The fear is thus readily excited as an associate feeling; and when the fear has once been excited, as a mere associate feeling, it continues to be still more readily suggested again, at every moment, by the objects that suggested it, and with the perception or conception of which it has recently co-existed. There is a remarkable analogy to this process, in the phenomena of giddiness, to which I have before more than once alluded. Whether the height on which we stand, be elevated only a few feet, or have beneath it a precipitous abyss of a thousand fathoms, our footing, if all other circumstances be the same, is in itself equally sure. Yet though we look down, without any fear, on the gentle slope, in the one case, we shrink back in the other case with painful dismay. The lively conception of the evil which we should suffer in a fall down the dreadful descent, which is very naturally suggested by the mere sight of the precipice, suggests and keeps before us the images of horror in such a fall, and thus indirectly the emotions of fear, that are the natural accompaniments of such images, and that but for those images never would have arisen. We know well, on reflection, that it is a footing of the firmest rock, perhaps, on which we stand, but in spite of reflection, we feel, at least, at every other moment, as if this very rock itself were crumbling or sinking beneath us. In this case, as in the case of the traveller, the liveliness of the mere conception of evil that may be suffered, gives a sort of temporary probability to that which would seem to have little likelihood in itself, and which derives thus from mere imagination all the terror that is falsely embodied by the mind in things that exist around.