[A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume]@TWC D-Link bookA Treatise of Human Nature PART I OF PRIDE AND HUMILITY 17/84
Thus a man, who, by any injury from another, is very much discomposed and ruffled in his temper, is apt to find a hundred subjects of discontent, impatience, fear, and other uneasy passions; especially if he can discover these subjects in or near the person, who was the cause of his first passion.
Those principles, which forward the transition of ideas, here concur with those, which operate on the passions; and both uniting in one action, bestow on the mind a double impulse.
The new passion, therefore, must arise with so much greater violence, and the transition to it must be rendered so much more easy and natural. Upon this occasion I may cite the authority of an elegant writer, who expresses himself in the following manner. "As the fancy delights in every thing that is great, strange, or beautiful, and is still more pleased the more it finds of these perfections in the same object, so it is capable of receiving a new satisfaction by the assistance of another sense.
Thus any continued sound, as the music of birds, or a fall of waters, awakens every moment the mind of the beholder, and makes him more attentive to the several beauties of the place, that lie before him.
Thus if there arises a fragrancy of smells or perfumes, they heighten the pleasure of the imagination, and make even the colours and verdure of the landschape appear more agreeable; for the ideas of both senses recommend each other, and are pleasanter together than when they enter the mind separately: As the different colours of a picture, when they are well disposed, set off one another, and receive an additional beauty from the advantage of the situation." [Addison, SPECTATOR 412, final paragraph.] In this phaenomenon we may remark the association both of impressions and ideas, as well as the mutual assistance they lend each other. SECT.
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