present impression. This is the whole of it. Every part is
requisite to explain, from analogy, the more steady conception; and
nothing remains capable of producing any distinct impression.

Fourthly, The effects of belief, in influencing the passions and
imagination, can all be explained from the firm conception; and there
is no occasion to have recourse to any other principle. These arguments,
with many others, enumerated in the foregoing volumes, sufficiently
prove, that belief only modifies the idea or conception; and renders
it different to the feeling, without producing any distinct impression.
Thus upon a general view of the subject, there appear to be two
questions of importance, which we may venture to recommend to the
consideration of philosophers, Whether there be any thing to distinguish
belief from the simple conception beside the feeling of sentiment? And,
Whether this feeling be any thing but a firmer conception, or a faster
hold, that we take of the object?

If, upon impartial enquiry, the same conclusion, that I have formed,
be assented to by philosophers, the next business is to examine the
analogy, which there is betwixt belief, and other acts of the mind, and
find the cause of the firmness and strength of conception: And this I do
not esteem a difficult task. The transition from a present impression,
always enlivens and strengthens any idea. When any object is presented,
the idea of its usual attendant immediately strikes us, as something
real and solid. It is felt, rather than conceived, and approaches the
impression, from which it is derived, in its force and influence. This I
have proved at large. I cannot add any new arguments.

I had entertained some hopes, that however deficient our theory of the
intellectual world might be, it would be free from those contradictions,
and absurdities, which seem to attend every explication, that human
reason can give of the material world. But upon a more strict review of
the section concerning personal identity, I find myself involved in
such a labyrinth, that, I must confess, I neither know how to correct
my former opinions, nor how to render them consistent. If this be not a
good general reason for scepticism, it is at least a sufficient one (if
I were not already abundantly supplied) for me to entertain a diffidence
and modesty in all my decisions. I shall propose the arguments on both
sides, beginning with those that induced me to deny the strict and
prop