A great traveller, though in the same chamber, will pass for a very extraordinary person; as a Greek medal, even in our cabinet, is always esteemed a valuable curiosity.
Here the object, by a natural transition, conveys our views to the distance; and the admiration, which arises from that distance, by another natural transition, returns back to the object.
But though every great distance produces an admiration for the distant object, a distance in time has a more considerable effect than that in space.

Antient busts and inscriptions are more valued than Japan tables: And not to mention the Greeks and Romans, it is certain we regard with more veneration the old Chaldeans and Egyptians, than the modern Chinese and Persians, and bestow more fruitless pains to dear up the history and chronology of the former, than it would cost us to make a voyage, and be certainly informed of the character, learning and government of the latter.

I shall be obliged to make a digression in order to explain this phaenomenon.
It is a quality very observable in human nature, that any opposition, which does not entirely discourage and intimidate us, has rather a contrary effect, and inspires us with a more than ordinary grandeur and magnanimity.

In collecting our force to overcome the opposition, we invigorate the soul, and give it an elevation with which otherwise it would never have been acquainted.

Compliance, by rendering our strength useless, makes us insensible of it: but opposition awakens and employs it.
This is also true in the universe.