arrive at some analogies, which may afford a more perfect
explication of it. I say, then, that belief is nothing but a more
vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than
what the imagination alone is ever able to attain. This variety of
terms, which may seem so unphilosophical, is intended only to
express that act of the mind, which renders realities, or what is
taken for such, more present to us than fictions, causes them to weigh
more in the thought, and gives them a superior influence on the
passions and imagination. Provided we agree about the thing, it is
needless to dispute about the terms. The imagination has the command
over all its ideas, and can join and mix and vary them, in all the
ways possible. It may conceive fictitious objects with all the
circumstances of place and time. It may set them, in a manner,
before our eyes, in their true colours, just as they might have
existed. But as it is impossible that this faculty of imagination
can ever, of itself, reach belief, it is evident that belief
consists not in the peculiar nature or order of ideas, but in the
manner of their conception, and in their feeling to the mind. I
confess, that it is impossible perfectly to explain this feeling or
manner of conception. We may make use of words which express something
near it. But its true and proper name, as we observed before, is
belief; which is a term that every one sufficiently understands in
common life. And in philosophy, we can go no farther than assert, that
belief is something felt by the mind, which distinguishes the ideas of
the judgement from the fictions of the imagination. It gives them more
weight and influence; makes them appear of greater importance;
enforces them in the mind; and renders them the governing principle of
our actions. I hear at present, for instance, a person's voice, with
whom I am acquainted; and the sound comes as from the next room.
This impression of my senses immediately conveys my thought to the
person, together with all the surrounding objects. I paint them out to
myself as existing at present, with the same qualities and
relations, of which I formerly knew them possessed. These ideas take
faster hold of my mind than ideas of an enchanted castle. They are
very different to the feeling, and have a much greater influence of
every kind, either to give pleasure or pain, joy or sorrow.

  Let us, then, take in the whole compass of this doctrine, and allow,
that the sentiment of belief is nothing but a conception more
intense and steady than what attends the mere fictions of the
imagination, and that this manner of conception arises from a
customary conjunction of the object with something present to the
memory or senses: I believe that it will not be difficult, upon
these suppositions, to find other operations of the mind analogous
to it, and to trace up these phenomena to principles still more
general.

  41. We have already observed that nature has established
connexions among particular ideas, and that no sooner one idea
occurs to our thoughts than it introduces its correlative, and carries
our attention towards it, by a gentle and insensible movement. These
principles of connexion or association we have reduced to three,
namely, Resemblance, Contiguity and Causation; which are the only
bonds that unite our thoughts together, and beget that regular train
of reflection or discourse, which, in a greater or less degree,
takes place among all mankind. Now here arises a question, on which
the solution of the present difficulty will depend. Does it happen, in
all these relations, that, when one of the objects is presented to the
senses or memory, the mind is not only carried to the conception of
the correlative, but reaches a steadier and stronger conception of
it than what otherwise it would have been able to attain? This seems
to be the case with that belief which arises from the relation of
cause and effect. And if the case be the same with the other relations
or principles of associations, this may be established as a general
law, which takes place in all the operations of the mind.

  We may, therefore, observe, as the first experiment to our present
purpose, that, upon the appearance of the picture of an absent friend,
our idea of him is evidently enlivened by the resemblance, and that
every passion, which that idea occasions, whether of joy or sorrow,
acquires new force and vigour. In producing this effect, there
concur both a relation and a present impression. Where the picture
bears him no resemblance, at least was not intended for him, it
never so much as conveys our thought to him: And where it is absent,
as well as the person, though the mind may pass from the thought of
the one to that of the other, it feels its idea to be rather
weakened than enlivened by that transition. We take a pleasure in
viewing the picture of a friend, when it is set before us; but when it
is removed, rather choose to consider him directly than by
reflection in an image, which is equally distant and obscure.

  The ceremonies of the Roman Catholic religion may be considered as
instances of the same nature. The devotees of that superstition
usually plead in excuse for the mummeries, with which they are
upbraided, that they feel the good effect of those external motions,
and postures, and actions, in enlivening their devotion and quickening
their fervour, which otherwise would decay, if directed entirely to
distant and immaterial objects. We shadow out the objects of our
faith, say they, in sensible types and images, and render them more
present to us by the immediate presence of these types, than it is
possible for us to do merely by an intellectual view and
contemplation. Sensible objects have always a greater influence on the
fancy than any other; and this influence they readily convey to
those ideas to which they are related, and which they resemble. I
shall only infer from these practices, and this reasoning, that the
effect of resemblance in enlivening the ideas is very common; and as
in every case a resemblance and a present impression must concur, we
are abundantly supplied with experiments to prove the reality of the
foregoing principle.