[6] To prevent all ambiguity, I must observe, that where I oppose the imagination to the memory, I mean in general the faculty that presents our fainter ideas. In all other places, and particularly when it is opposed to the understanding, I understand the same faculty, excluding only our demonstrative and probable reasonings. SECTION VIII. OF MALICE AND ENVY. We must now proceed to account for the passion of _malice_, which imitates the effects of hatred as pity does those of love, and gives us a joy in the sufferings and miseries of others, without any offence or injury on their part. So little are men governed by reason in their sentiments and opinions, that they always judge more of objects by comparison than from their intrinsic worth and value. When the mind considers, or is accustomed to any degree of perfection, whatever falls short of it, though really estimable, has, notwithstanding, the same effect upon the passions as what is defective and ill. This is an _original_ quality of the soul, and similar to what we have every day experience of in our bodies. Let a man heat one hand and cool the other; the same water will at the same time seem both hot and cold, according to the disposition of the different organs. A small degree of any quality, succeeding a greater, produces the same sensation as if less than it really is, and even sometimes as the opposite quality. Any gentle pain that follows a violent one, seems as nothing, or rather becomes a pleasure; as, on the other hand, a violent pain succeeding a gentle one, is doubly grievous and uneasy. This no one can doubt of with regard to our passions and sensations. But there may arise some difficulty with regard to our ideas and objects. When an object augments or diminishes to the eye or imagination, from a comparison with others, the image and idea of the object are still the same, and are equally extended in the _retina_, and in the brain or organ of perception. The eyes refract the rays of light, and the optic nerves convey the images to the brain in the very same manner, whether a great or small object has preceded; nor does even the imagination alter the dimensions of its object on account of a comparison with others. The question then is, how, from the same impression, and the same idea, we can form such different judgments concerning the same object, and at one time admire its bulk, and at another despise its littleness? This variation in our judgments must certainly proceed from a variation in some perception; but as the variation lies not in the immediate impression or idea of the object, it must lie in some other impression that accompanies it.