Besides the propensity to a gradual progression through the points of space and time, we have another peculiarity in our method of thinking, which concurs in producing this phenomenon. We always follow the succession of time in placing our ideas, and from the consideration of any object pass more easily to that which follows immediately after it, than to that which went before it. We may learn this, among other instances, from the order which is always observed in historical narrations. Nothing but an absolute necessity can oblige an historian to break the order of time, and in his _narration_ give the precedence to an event, which was in _reality_ posterior to another. This will easily be applied to the question in hand, if we reflect on what I have before observed, that the present situation of the person is always that of the imagination, and that 'tis from thence we proceed to the conception of any distant object. When the object is past, the progression of the thought in passing to it from the present is contrary to nature, as proceeding from one point of time to that which is preceding, and from that to another preceding, in opposition to the natural course of the succession. On the other hand, when we turn our thought to a future object, our fancy flows along the stream of time, and arrives at the object of an order, which seems most natural, passing always from one point of time to that which is immediately posterior to it. This easy progression of ideas favours the imagination, and makes it conceive its object in a stronger and fuller light, than when we are continually opposed in our passage, and are obliged to overcome the difficulties arising from the natural propensity of the fancy. A small degree of distance in the past has, therefore, a greater effect in interrupting and weakening the conception, than a much greater in the future. From this effect of it on the imagination is derived its influence on the will and passions.