The second marriage of a mother breaks not the relation of child and parent; and that relation suffices to convey my imagination from myself to her with the greatest ease and facility.  But after the imagination is arrived at this point of view, it finds its object to be surrounded with so many other relations, which challenge its regard, that it knows not which to prefer, and is at a loss what new object to pitch upon.  The ties of interest and duty bind her to another family, and prevent that return of the fancy from her to myself, which is necessary to support the union.  The thought has no longer the vibration, requisite to set it perfectly at ease, and indulge its inclination to change.  It goes with facility, but returns with difficulty; and by that interruption finds the relation much weakened from what it would be were the passage open and easy on both sides.

Now to give a reason, why this effect follows not in the same degree upon the second marriage of a father:  we may reflect on what has been proved already, that though the imagination goes easily from the view of a lesser object to that of a greater, yet it returns not with the same facility from the greater to the less.  When my imagination goes from myself to my father, it passes not so readily from him to his second wife, nor considers him as entering into a different family, but as continuing the head of that family, of which I am myself a part.  His superiority prevents the easy transition of the thought from him to his spouse, but keeps the passage still open for a return to myself along the same relation of child and parent.  He is not sunk in the new relation he acquires; so that the double motion or vibration of thought is still easy and natural.  By this indulgence of the fancy in its inconstancy, the tie of child and parent still preserves its full force and influence.  A mother thinks not her tie to a son weakened, because it is shared with her husband:  Nor a son his with a parent, because it is shared with a brother.  The third object is here related to the first, as well as to the second; so that the imagination goes and comes along all of them with the greatest facility.

SECT.  V OF OUR ESTEEM FOR THE RICH AND POWERFUL

Nothing has a greater tendency to give us an esteem for any person, than his power and riches; or a contempt, than his poverty and meanness:  And as esteem and contempt are to be considered as species of love and hatred, it will be proper in this place to explain these phaenomena.

Here it happens most fortunately, that the greatest difficulty is not to discover a principle capable of producing such an effect, but to choose the chief and predominant among several, that present themselves.  The satisfaction we take in the riches of others, and the esteem we have for the possessors may be ascribed to three different causes.  First, To the objects they possess; such as houses, gardens, equipages;