The very image, which is present to the senses, is with us the real body; and it is to these interrupted images we ascribe a perfect identity.

But as the interruption of the appearance seems contrary to the identity, and naturally leads us to regard these resembling perceptions as different from each other, we here find ourselves at a loss how to reconcile such opposite opinions.
The smooth passage of the imagination along the ideas of the resembling perceptions makes us ascribe to them a perfect identity.

The interrupted manner of their appearance makes us consider them as so many resembling, but still distinct beings, which appear after certain intervals.

The perplexity arising from this contradiction produces a propension to unite these broken appearances by the fiction of a continued existence, which is the third part of that hypothesis I proposed to explain.
Nothing is more certain from experience, than that any contradiction either to the sentiments or passions gives a sensible uneasiness, whether it proceeds from without or from within; from the opposition of external objects, or from the combat of internal principles.

On the contrary, whatever strikes in with the natural propensities, and either externally forwards their satisfaction, or internally concurs with their movements, is sure to give a sensible pleasure.