Page:Essays, Moral and Political - David Hume (1741).djvu/125

 of Government to ly in one Man, or one Family, cannot easily agree with his Fellow-Citizen, who thinks, that another Man or Family is possest of this Right. Each naturally wishes that Right may take Place, according to his own Notions of it. But where the Difference of Principles begets no Contrariety of Action, but each may follow his own Way, without interfering with his Neighbour, as happens in all religious Controversies; what Madness, what Fury can beget such unhappy and such fatal Divisions?

Men, travelling on the High-way, of whom one goes East, the other West, can easily pass each other, if the Way be broad enough: But two Men, reasoning upon opposite Principles of Religion, cannot so easily pass, without shocking; tho' one shou'd think, that the Way were also, in that Case, sufficiently broad, and that each might proceed, without Interruption, in his own Way. But such is the Nature of the human Mind, that it always takes hold of every Mind that approaches it; and as it is wonderfully strengthen'd and corroborated by an Unanimity of Sentiments, so it is shock'd and disturb'd by