An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - pg. 21

In the remaining paragraphs of Section 3 (3.4-18), Hume applies these ideas about association and connection to the connectedness and unity found in literary and historical works. He maintains that the writer os these compositions has a definite plan or object. The events or actions that the writer relates are connected in the imagination; and the work has a 'certain unity' created by a connecting principle (3.6, 10). The connecting principle among the various events forming the subject differs in accordance with the different designs of the writer. Some writers use the connecting principle of resemblance. For example, the events depicted might resemble each other in that they are all miracles. Writers, especially annalists and historians, also employ the connecting principle of contiguity in time and place to connect the depicted events (3.7-8). For example, historians generally structure their accounts so that events immediately follow one another in time, and often in close geographical proximity.