We may add force to these experiments by others of a different kind, in considering the effects of contiguity, as well as of resemblance.  It is certain, that distance diminishes the force of every idea, and that upon our approach to any object; though it does not discover itself to our senses; it operates upon the mind with an influence that imitates an immediate impression.  The thinking on any object readily transports the mind to what is contiguous; but it is only the actual presence of an object, that transports it with a superior vivacity.  When I am a few miles from home, whatever relates to it touches me more nearly than when I am two hundred leagues distant; though even at that distance the reflecting on any thing in the neighbourhood of my friends and family naturally produces an idea of them.  But as in this latter case, both the objects of the mind are ideas; notwithstanding there is an easy transition betwixt them; that transition alone is not able to give a superior vivacity to any of the ideas, for want of some immediate impression. [Footnote 6.]

[Footnote 6.  NATURANE Nobis, in quit, datum DICAM, an ERRORE QUODAM, UT, cum EA LOCA VIDEAMUS, in quibus MEMORIA DIGNOS VIROS ACCEPERIMUS MULTURN ESSE VERSATOS, MAGIS MOVEAMUR, Quam SIQUANDO EORUM IPSORUM AUT JACTA AUDIAMUS, AUT SCRIPTUM ALIQUOD LEGAMUS?  VELUT Ego nunc MOVEOR.  VENIT ENIM MIHI PLATONIS in MENTEM:  QUEM ACCIPIMUS PRIMURN hic DISPUTARE SOLITUM:  CUJUS ETIAM ILLI HORTULI PROPINQUI non memoriam Solum MIHI AFFERUNT, sed IPSUM VIDENTUR in CONSPECTU Meo hic PONERE.  Hic Speusippus, hic xenocrates, hic EJUS auditor Polemo; cujus IPSA Illa SESSIO FUIT, Quam VIDEAMUS.  EQUIDEM ETIAM CURIAM NOSTRAM, HOSTILIAM DICO, non HANC NOVAM, QUAE MIHI Minor ESSE VIDETUR Post Quam est Major, sole Barn INTUENS SCIPIONEM, CATONEM, LACLIUM, nostrum vero in PRIMIS AVUM COGITARE.  Tanta Vis ADMONITIONIS INEST in LOCIS; UT non sine CAUSA ex his MEMORIAE DUCTA sit DISCIPLINA.  Cicero de Finibus, lib. 5.

{"Should I, he said, “attribute to instinct or to some kind of illusion the fact that when we see those places in which we are told notable men spent much of their time, we are more powerfully affected than when we hear of the exploits of the men themselves or read something written?  This is just what is happening to me now; for I am reminded of Plato who, we are told, was the first to make a practice of holding discussions here.  Those gardens of his near by do not merely put me in mind of him; they seem to set the man himself before my very eyes.  Speusippus was here; so was Xenocrates; so was his pupil, Polemo, and that very seat which we may view was his.