assert, that it is something felt by the mind, which distinguishes the
ideas of the judgment from the fictions of the imagination. It gives them
more force and influence; makes them appear of greater importance;
infixes them in the mind; and renders them the governing principles of
all our actions.

This definition will also be found to be entirely conformable to every
one's feeling and experience. Nothing is more evident, than that those
ideas, to which we assent, are more strong, firm and vivid, than the
loose reveries of a castle-builder. If one person sits down to read a
book as a romance, and another as a true history, they plainly receive
the same ideas, and in the same order; nor does the incredulity of the
one, and the belief of the other hinder them from putting the very same
sense upon their author. His words produce the same ideas in both; though
his testimony has not the same influence on them. The latter has a more
lively conception of all the incidents. He enters deeper into the
concerns of the persons: represents to himself their actions, and
characters, and friendships, and enmities: He even goes so far as to form
a notion of their features, and air, and person. While the former, who
gives no credit to the testimony of the author, has a more faint and
languid conception of all these particulars; and except on account of the
style and ingenuity of the composition, can receive little entertainment
from it.



SECT. VIII. OF THE CAUSES OF BELIEF.


Having thus explained the nature of belief, and shewn that it consists in