stance of place, &c. but that is not all; for supposing there were no such external difference, yet there is a difference between them, as several individuals of the same nature. And here lies the true common idea of a person, which arises from that manner of substance which is in one individual, and is not communicable to another. An individual, intelligent substance, is rather supposed to the making of a person, than the proper definition of it: for a person relates to something, which doth distinguish it from another intelligent substance in the same nature; and therefore the foundation of it lies in the peculiar manner of subsistence, which agrees to one, and to none. else of the kind: and this is it which is called personality."

But then your lordship asks, "but how do our simple ideas help us out in this matter? Can we learn from them the difference of nature and person?"

If nature and person are taken for two real beings, that do or can exist any where, without any relation to these two names, I must confess I do not see how simple ideas, or any thing else, can help us out in this matter; nor can we from simple ideas, or any thing else that I know, learn the difference between them, nor what they are.

The reason why I speak thus, is because your lordship, in your fore-cited words, says, "here lies the true idea of a person;" and in the foregoing discourse speaks of nature, as if it were some steady, established being, to which one certain precise idea necessarily belongs to make it a true idea: whereas, my lord, in the way of ideas, I begin at the other end, and think that the word person in itself signifies nothing; and so no idea belonging to it, nothing can be said to be the true idea of it. But as soon as the common use of any language has appropriated it to any idea, then that is the true idea of a person, and so of nature: but because the propriety of language, i. e. the precise idea that every word stands for, is not always exactly known, but is often disputed, there is no other way for him that uses a word that is in dispute, but to define what

he signifies by it; and then the dispute can be no longer verbal, but must necessarily be about the idea which he tells us he puts it for.

Taking therefore nature and person for the signs of two ideas they are put to stand for, there is nothing, I think, that helps us so soon, nor so well to find the difference of nature and person, as simple ideas; for by enumerating all the simple ideas, that are contained in the complex idea that each of them is made to stand for, we shall immediately see the whole difference thatis between them.

Far be it from me to say there is no other way but this: your lordship proposing to clear the distinction between nature and person, and having declared, "we can have no clear and distinct idea of it by sensation or reflection, and that the grounds of identity and distinction come not into our minds by the simple ideas of sensation and reflection;" gave me some hopes of getting farther insight into these matters, so as to have more clear and distinct apprehensions concerning nature and person, than was to be had by ideas. But after having, with attention, more than once read over what your lordship, with so much application, has writ thereupon; I must, with regret, confess, that way is too delicate, and the matter too abstruse, for my capacity; and that I learned nothing out of your lordship's elaborate discourse but this, that I must content myself with the condemned way of ideas, and despair of ever attaining any knowledge by any other than that, or farther than that will lead me to it.

the

The remaining part of the chapter containing no remarks of your lordship upon any part of my book, I am glad I have no occasion to give your lordship any farther trouble, but only to beg your lordship's pardon for this, and to assure your lordship that I am,

My lord,

Your lordship's most humble

And most obedient servant,

JOHN LOCKE.

POSTSCRIPT.

My Lord,

UPON a review of these papers, I can hardly forbear wondering at myself what I have been doing in them; since I can scarce find upon what ground this controversy with me stands, or whence it rose, or whither it tends. And I should certainly repent my pains in it, but that I conclude that your lordship, who does not throw away your time upon slight matters, and things of small moment, having a quicker sight and larger views than I have, would not have troubled yourself so much with my book, as to bestow on it seven-and-twenty pages together of a very learned treatise, and that on a very weighty subject; and in those twenty-seven pages bring seven-and-twenty quotations out of my book; unless there were something in it wherein it is very material that the world should be set right; which is what I earnestly desire should be done; and to that purpose alone have taken the liberty to trouble your lordship with this letter.

If I have any where omitted any thing of moment in your lordship's discourse concerning my notions, or any where mistaken your lordship's sense in what I have taken notice of, I beg your lordship's pardon; with this assurance, that it was not wilfully done. And if any where, in the warm pursuit of an argument, overattention to the matter should have made me let slip any form of expression, in the least circumstance not carrying with it the utmost marks of that respect that I acknowledge due, and shall always pay to your lordship's person and known great learning, I disown it; and desire your lordship to look on it as not coming from my intention, but inadvertency.

Nobody's notions, I think, are the better or truer, for ill manners joined with them; and I conclude your lordship, who so well knows the different cast of men's heads, and of the opinions that possess them, will not think it ill manners in any one, if his notions differ from your lordship's, that he owns that difference, and explains the grounds of it as well as he can. I have always thought, that truth and knowledge, by the ill and over-eager management of controversies, lose a great deal of the advantages they might receive, from the variety of conceptions there is in men's understandings. Could the heats, and passion, and ill language be left out of them, they would afford great improvements to those who could separate them from byinterests and personal prejudices. These I look upon your lordship to be altogether above.

It is not for me, who have so mean a talent in it myself, to prescribe to any one how he should write; for when I have said all I can, he, it is like, will follow his own method, and perhaps cannot help it. Much less would it be good manners in me, to offer any thing that way to a person of your lordship's high rank, above me, in parts and learning, as well as place and dignity. But yet your lordship will excuse it to my short-sightedness, if I wish sometimes that your lordship would have been pleased, in this debate, to have kept every one's part separate to himself; that what I am concerned in might not have been so mingled with the opinions of others, which are no tenets of mine, nor, as I think, does what I have written any way relate to; but that I

and

every one might have seen whom your lordship's arguments bore upon, and what interest he had in the controversy, and how far. At least, my lord, give me leave to wish, that your lordship had shown what connexion any thing I have said about ideas, and particularly about the idea of substance, about the possibility that God, if he pleased, might endue some systems of matter with a power of thinking; or what I have said to prove a God, &c. has with any objections, that are made by others, against the doctrine of the Trinity, or against mysteries: for many passages concerning ideas,

substances, the possibility of God's bestowing thoughts on some systems of matter, and the proof of a God, &c. your lordship has quoted out of my book, in a chapter wherein your lordship professes to answer "objections against the Trinity, in point of reason." Had I been able to discover in these passages of my book, quoted by your lordship, what tendency your lordship had observed in them to any such objections, I should perhaps have troubled your lordship with less impertinent answers. But the uncertainty I was very often in, to what purpose your lordship brought them, may have made my explications of myself less apposite, than what your lordship might have expected. If your lordship had showed me any thing in my book, that contained or implied any opposition in it to any thing revealed in holy writ concerning the Trinity, or any other doctrine contained in the Bible, I should have been thereby obliged to your lordship for freeing me from that mistake, and for affording me an opportunity to own to the world that obligation, by publicly retracting my error. For I know not any thing more disingenuous, than not publicly to own a conviction one has received concerning any thing erroneous in what one has printed; nor can there, I think, be a greater offence against mankind, than to propagate a falsehood whereof one is convinced, especially in a matter wherein men are highly concerned not to be misled.

The holy scripture is to me, and always will be, the constant guide of my assent; and I shall always hearken to it, as containing infallible truth, relating to things of the highest concernment. And I wish I could say, there were no mysteries in it: I acknowledge there are to me, and I fear always will be. But where I want the evidence of things, there yet is ground enough for me to believe, because God has said it: and I shall presently condemn and quit any opinion of mine, as soon as I am shown that it is contrary to any revelation in the holy scripture. But I must confess to your lordship, that I do not perceive any such contrariety in any thing in my Essay of Human Understanding.

Oates, Jan. 7, 1696-7.