Page:Four Dissertations - David Hume (1757).djvu/146

 mediately retracted, and causes the same kind of passion, as when, from a contrariety of chances, contrary passions are produced.

, which are certain, have sometimes the same effect as the possible or impossible. A man, in a strong prison, without the least means of escape, trembles at the thoughts of the rack, to which he is sentenced. The evil is here fixed in itself; but the mind has not courage to fix upon it; and this fluctuation gives rise to a passion of a similar appearance with fear.

7. it is not only where good or evil is uncertain as to its existence, but also as to its kind, that fear or hope arises. If any one were told, that one of his sons is suddenly killed; the passion, occasioned by this event, would not settle into grief, till he got certain information, which of his sons he had lost. Tho' each side of the question produces here the same passion; that passion cannot settle, but receives from the imagination, which is unfixt, a tremulous, unsteddy motion, resembling the mixture and contention of grief and joy.