perfons, than a man be two men by wearing other cloaths to-day than he did yesterday, with a long or a fhort fleep between: the fame consciousness uniting those distant actions into the fame perfon, whatever substances contributed to their production. Perfonal identity in change of fubftances., §. II. That this is fo, we have fome kind of evidence in our very bodies, all whose particles, whilft vitally united to this fame thinking confcious felf, so that we feel when they are touched, and are affected by, and confcious of good or harm that happens to them, are a part of ourselves; i. e. of our thinking conscious felf. Thus the limbs of his body are to every one a part of himself: he fympathizes and is concerned for them. Cut off an hand, and thereby feparate it from that consciousness he had of its heat, cold, and other affections, and it is then no longer a part of that which is himself, any more than the remoteft part of matter. Thus we see the fubftance, whereof perfonal felf confifted at one time, may be varied at another, without the change of perfonal identity; there being no queftion about the fame perfon, though the limbs, which but now were a part of it, be cut off. §. 12. But the queftion is, " whether if the fame "substance which thinks, be changed, it can be the "fame perfon; or, remaining the fame, it can be dif"ferent perfons?" Whether in the change of thinking fub ftances. And to this I answer, first, This can be no question at all to those who place thought in a purely material animal conftitution, void of an immaterial fubftance. For whether their fuppofition be true or no, it is plain they conceive perfonal identity preferved in fomething elfe than identity of fubftance; as animal identity is preserved in identity of life, and not of substance. And therefore thofe who place thinking in an immaterial substance only, before they can come to deal with these men, must show why perfonal identity cannot be preferved in the change of immaterial fubftances, or variety of particular immaterial fubftances, as well as animal identity is preferved in the change of material 8 fubftances, Book 2. fubftances, or variety of particular bodies: unless they will fay, it is one immaterial fpirit that makes the fame life in brutes, as it is one immaterial spirit that makes the fame perfon in men; which the Cartefians at least will not admit, for fear of making brutes thinking things too. S. 13. But next, as to the first part of the queftion, "whether if the fame thinking fubftance (fuppofing « immaterial substances only to think) be changed, it " can be the fame perfon?" I answer, that cannot be refolved, but by those who know what kind of fubftances they are that do think, and whether the confcioufnefs of paft actions can be transferred from one thinking fubftance to another. I grant, were the fame consciousness the fame individual action, it could not: but it being a prefent representation of a past action, why it may not be poffible, that that may be represented to the mind to have been, which really never was, will remain to be fhown. And therefore how far the consciousness of paft actions is annexed to any individual agent, fo that another cannot poffibly have it, will be hard for us to determine, till we know what kind of action it is that cannot be done without a reflex act of perception accompanying it, and how performed by thinking fubftances, who cannot think without being confcious of it. But that which we call the fame consciousness, not being the fame individual act, why one intellectual fubftance may not have reprefented to it, as done by itself, what it never did, and was perhaps done by fome other agent; why, I fay, fuch a reprefentation may not poffibly be without reality of matter of fact, as well as feveral reprefentations in dreams are, which yet whilft dreaming we take for true, will be difficult to conclude from the nature of things. And that it never is fo, will by us, till we have clearer views of the nature of thinking fubftances, be beft refolved into the goodnefs of God, who, as far as the happiness or mifery of any of his fenfible creatures is concerned in it, will not by a fatal error of theirs transfer from one to another that confcioufnefs which draws reward or punishment with it. How far this may be an argument against against those who would place thinking in a fyftem of fleeting animal fpirits, I leave to be confidered. But yet to return to the queftion before us, it must be allowed, that if the fame consciousness (which, as has been shown, is quite a different thing from the fame numerical figure or motion in body) can be transferred from one thinking fubftance to another, it will be poffible that two thinking substances may make but one perfon. For the fame confcioufnefs being preserved, whether in the fame or different fubftances, the perfonal identity is preferved. §. 14. As to the second part of the question, "whe"ther the fame immaterial fubftance remaining, there may be two distinct perfons?" which question feems to me to be built on this, whether the fame immaterial being, being confcious of the action of its paft duration, may be wholly ftripped of all the consciousness of its paft existence, and lofe it beyond the power of ever retrieving again; and fo as it were beginning a new account from a new period, have a confciousness that cannot reach beyond this new ftate. All thofe who hold pre-existence are evidently of this mind, fince they allow the foul to have no remaining conscioufnefs of what it did in that pre-exiftent ftate, either wholly separate from body, or informing any other body; and if they should not, it is plain, experience would be against them. So that perfonal identity reaching no farther than conscioufnefs reaches, a preexiftent fpirit not having continued fo many ages in a ftate of filence, muft needs make different perfons. Suppose a Christian Platonist or Pythagorean fhould, upon God's having ended all his works of creation the feventh day, think his foul hath exifted ever fince; and would imagine it has revolved in feveral human bodies, as I once met with one, who was perfuaded his had been the foul of Socrates; (how reafonably I will not difpute; this I know, that in the poft he filled, which was no inconfiderable one, he paffed for a very rational man, and the prefs has fhown that he wanted not parts or learning) would any one fay, that he being not conscious of any of Socrates's actions or thoughts, VOL. I. could could be the fame perfon with Socrates? Let any one reflect upon himself, and conclude that he has in himfelf an immaterial fpirit, which is that which thinks in him, and in the conftant change of his body keeps him the fame; and is that which he calls himself: let him also suppose it to be the fame foul that was in Neftor or Therfites, at the fiege of Troy (for fouls being, as far as we know any thing of them in their nature, indifferent to any parcel of matter, the fuppofition has no apparent abfurdity in it) which it may have been, as well as it is now the foul of any other man: but he now having no confcioufnefs of any of the actions either of Neftor or Therfites, does or can he conceive himself the fame perfon with either of them? can he be concerned in either of their actions? attribute them to himself, or think them his own more than the actions of any other men that ever exifted? So that this confcioufnefs not reaching to any of the actions of either of thofe men, he is no more one self with either of them, than if the foul or immaterial fpirit that now informs him, had been created, and began to exift, when it began to inform his prefent body; though it were ever fo true, that the fame fpirit that informed Neftor's or Therfites's body, were numerically the fame that now informs his. For this would no more make him the fame person with Neftor, than if fome of the particles of matter that were once a part of Neftor, were now a part of this man; the fame immaterial fubftance, without the fame consciousness, no more making the fame perfon by being united to any body, than the fame particle of matter, without consciousness united to any body, makes the fame perfon. But let him once find himfelf confcious of any of the actions of Neftor, he then finds himself the fame perfon with Neftor. S. 15. And thus we may be able, without any difficulty, to conceive the fame perfon at the refurrection, though in a body not exactly in make or parts the fame which he had here, the fame confcioufnefs going along with the foul that inhabits it. But yet the foul alone, in the change of bodies, would fcarce to any one, but to him that makes the foul the man, be enough to 339 make the fame man. For fhould the foul of a prince, carrying with it the consciousness of the prince's past life, enter and inform the body of a cobler, as foon as deserted by his own foul, every one fees he would be the fame person with the prince, accountable only for the prince's actions: but who would fay it was the fame man? The body too goes to the making the man, and would, I guefs, to every body determine the man in this cafe; wherein the foul, with all its princely thoughts about it, would not make another man: but he would be the fame cobler to every one befides himfelf. I know that, in the ordinary way of speaking, the fame person, and the fame man, ftand for one and the fame thing. And indeed every one will always have a liberty to speak as he pleases, and to apply what articulate founds to what ideas he thinks fit, and change them as often as he pleases. But yet when we will inquire what makes the fame fpirit, man, or perfon, we must fix the ideas of spirit, man, or person in our minds; and having refolved with ourselves what we mean by them, it will not be hard to determine in either of them, or the like, when it is the fame, and when not. §. 16. But though the fame immaterial fubftance or foul does not alone, wherever it be, and in whatsoever ftate, make the fame man; yet it is plain consciousness, as far as ever it can be extended, fhould it be to ages past, unites existences and actions, very remote in time, into the fame perfon, as well as it does the existences and actions of the immediately preceding moment: fo that whatever has the confcioufnefs of present and past ac tions, is the fame perfon to whom they both belong. Had I the fame consciousness that I faw the ark and Noah's flood, as that I faw an overflowing of the Thames laft winter, or as that I write now; I could no more doubt that I who write this now, that saw the Thames overflowed laft winter, and that viewed the flood at the general deluge, was the fame felf, place that felf in what fubftance you please, than that I who write this am the fame myself now whilft I write (whether I confift of all the same substance, material or immaterial, or no) that I was yesterday. For as to this Z 2 Confcioufnefs makes the fame perfop. point |