OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY.
1. Wherein Identity consists.
ANOTHER occasion the mind often takes of comparing, is the very being
of things, when, considering ANYTHING AS EXISTING AT ANY DETERMINED
TIME AND PLACE, we compare it with ITSELF EXISTING AT ANOTHER TIME, and
thereon form the ideas of IDENTITY and DIVERSITY. When we see anything
to be in any place in any instant of time, we are sure (be it what it
will) that it is that very thing, and not another which at that same
time exists in another place, how like and undistinguishable soever it
may be in all other respects: and in this consists IDENTITY, when the
ideas it is attributed to vary not at all from what they were that
moment wherein we consider their former existence, and to which we
compare the present. For we never finding, nor conceiving it possible,
that two things of the same kind should exist in the same place at the
same time, we rightly conclude, that, whatever exists anywhere at any
time, excludes all of the same kind, and is there itself alone. When
therefore we demand whether anything be the SAME or no, it refers
always to something that existed such a time in such a place, which it
was certain, at that instant, was the same with itself, and no other.
From whence it follows, that one thing cannot have two beginnings of
existence, nor two things one beginning; it being impossible for two
things of the same kind to be or exist in the same instant, in the very
same place; or one and the same thing in different places. That,
therefore, that had one beginning, is the same thing; and that which
had a different beginning in time and place from that, is not the same,
but diverse. That which has made the difficulty about this relation has
been the little care and attention used in having precise notions of
the things to which it is attributed.
2. Identity of Substances.
We have the ideas but of three sorts of substances: 1. GOD. 2. FINITE
INTELLIGENCES. 3. BODIES.
First, GOD is without beginning, eternal, unalterable, and everywhere,
and therefore concerning his identity there can be no doubt.
Secondly, FINITE SPIRITS having had each its determinated time and
place of beginning to exist, the relation to that time and place will
always determine to each of them its identity, as long as it exists.
Thirdly, The same will hold of every PARTICLE OF MATTER, to which no
addition or subtraction of matter being made, it is the same. For,
though these three sorts of substances, as we term them, do not exclude
one another out of the same place, yet we cannot conceive but that they
must necessarily each of them exclude any of the same kind out of the
same place: or else the notions and names of identity and diversity
would be in vain, and there could be no such distinctions of
substances, or anything else one from another. For example: could two
bodies be in the same place at the same time; then those two parcels of
matter must be one and the same, take them great or little; nay, all
bodies must be one and the same. For, by the same reason that two
particles of matter may be in one place, all bodies may be in one
place: which, when it can be supposed, takes away the distinction of
identity and diversity of one and more, and renders it ridiculous. But
it being a contradiction that two or more should be one, identity and
diversity are relations and ways of comparing well founded, and of use
to the understanding.
3. Identity of modes and relations.
All other things being but modes or relations ultimately terminated in
substances, the identity and diversity of each particular existence of
them too will be by the same way determined: only as to things whose
existence is in succession, such as are the actions of finite beings,
v. g. MOTION and THOUGHT, both which consist in a continued train of
succession, concerning THEIR diversity there can be no question:
because each perishing the moment it begins, they cannot exist in
different times, or in different places, as permanent beings can at
different times exist in distant places; and therefore no motion or
thought, considered as at different times, can be the same, each part
thereof having a different beginning of existence.
4. Principium Individuationis.
From what has been said, it is easy to discover what is so much
inquired after, the PRINCIPIUM INDIVIDUATIONIS; and that, it is plain,
is existence itself; which determines a being of any sort to a
particular time and place, incommunicable to two beings of the same
kind. This, though it seems easier to conceive in simple substances or
modes; yet, when reflected on, is not more difficult in compound ones,
if care be taken to what it is applied: v.g. let us suppose an atom,
i.e. a continued body under one immutable superficies, existing in a
determined time and place; it is evident, that, considered in any
instant of its existence, it is in that instant the same with itself.
For, being at that instant what it is, and nothing else, it is the
same, and so must continue as long as its existence is continued; for
so long it will be the same, and no other. In like manner, if two or
more atoms be joined together into the same mass, every one of those
atoms will be the same, by the foregoing rule: and whilst they exist
united together, the mass, consisting of the same atoms, must be the
same mass, or the same body, let the parts be ever so differently
jumbled. But if one of these atoms be taken away, or one new one added,
it is no longer the same mass or the same body. In the state of living
creatures, their identity depends not on a mass of the same particles,
but on something else. For in them the variation of great parcels of
matter alters not the identity: an oak growing from a plant to a great
tree, and then lopped, is still the same oak; and a colt grown up to a
horse, sometimes fat, sometimes lean, is all the while the same horse:
though, in both these cases, there may be a manifest change of the
parts; so that truly they are not either of them the same masses of
matter, though they be truly one of them the same oak, and the other
the same horse. The reason whereof is, that, in these two cases—a MASS
OF MATTER and a LIVING BODY—identity is not applied to the same thing.
5. Identity of Vegetables.
We must therefore consider wherein an oak differs from a mass of
matter, and that seems to me to be in this, that the one is only the
cohesion of particles of matter any how united, the other such a
disposition of them as constitutes the parts of an oak; and such an
organization of those parts as is fit to receive and distribute
nourishment, so as to continue and frame the wood, bark, and leaves,
&c., of an oak, in which consists the vegetable life. That being then
one plant which has such an organization of parts in one coherent body,
partaking of one common life, it continues to be the same plant as long
as it partakes of the same life, though that life be communicated to
new particles of matter vitally united to the living plant, in a like
continued organization conformable to that sort of plants. For this
organization, being at any one instant in any one collection of matter,
is in that particular concrete distinguished from all other, and IS
that individual life, which existing constantly from that moment both
forwards and backwards, in the same continuity of insensibly succeeding
parts united to the living body of the plant, it has that identity
which makes the same plant, and all the parts of it, parts of the same
plant, during all the time that they exist united in that continued
organization, which is fit to convey that common life to all the parts
so united.
6. Identity of Animals.
The case is not so much different in BRUTES but that any one may hence
see what makes an animal and continues it the same. Something we have
like this in machines, and may serve to illustrate it. For example,
what is a watch? It is plain it is nothing but a fit organization or
construction of parts to a certain end, which, when a sufficient force
is added to it, it is capable to attain. If we would suppose this
machine one continued body, all whose organized parts were repaired,
increased, or diminished by a constant addition or separation of
insensible parts, with one common life, we should have something very
much like the body of an animal; with this difference, That, in an
animal the fitness of the organization, and the motion wherein life
consists, begin together, the motion coming from within; but in
machines the force coming sensibly from without, is often away when the
organ is in order, and well fitted to receive it.
7. The Identity of Man.
This also shows wherein the identity of the same MAN consists; viz. in
nothing but a participation of the same continued life, by constantly
fleeting particles of matter, in succession vitally united to the same
organized body. He that shall place the identity of man in anything
else, but, like that of other animals, in one fitly organized body,
taken in any one instant, and from thence continued, under one
organization of life, in several successively fleeting particles of
matter united to it, will find it hard to make an embryo, one of years,
mad and sober, the SAME man, by any supposition, that will not make it
possible for Seth, Ismael, Socrates, Pilate, St. Austin, and Caesar
Borgia, to be the same man. For if the identity of SOUL ALONE makes the
same MAN; and there be nothing in the nature of matter why the same
individual spirit may not be united to different bodies, it will be
possible that those men, living in distant ages, and of different
tempers, may have been the same man: which way of speaking must be from
a very strange use of the word man, applied to an idea out of which
body and shape are excluded. And that way of speaking would agree yet
worse with the notions of those philosophers who allow of
transmigration, and are of opinion that the souls of men may, for their
miscarriages, be detruded into the bodies of beasts, as fit
habitations, with organs suited to the satisfaction of their brutal
inclinations. But yet I think nobody, could he be sure that the SOUL of
Heliogabalus were in one of his hogs, would yet say that hog were a MAN
or Heliogabalus.
8. Idea of Identity suited to the Idea it is applied to.
It is not therefore unity of substance that comprehends all sorts of
identity, or will determine it in every case; but to conceive and judge
of it aright, we must consider what idea the word it is applied to
stands for: it being one thing to be the same SUBSTANCE, another the
same MAN, and a third the same PERSON, if PERSON, MAN, and SUBSTANCE,
are three names standing for three different ideas;—for such as is the
idea belonging to that name, such must be the identity; which, if it
had been a little more carefully attended to, would possibly have
prevented a great deal of that confusion which often occurs about this
matter, with no small seeming difficulties, especially concerning
PERSONAL identity, which therefore we shall in the next place a little
consider.
9. Same man.
An animal is a living organized body; and consequently the same animal,
as we have observed, is the same continued LIFE communicated to
different particles of matter, as they happen successively to be united
to that organized living body. And whatever is talked of other
definitions, ingenious observation puts it past doubt, that the idea in
our minds, of which the sound man in our mouths is the sign, is nothing
else but of an animal of such a certain form. Since I think I may be
confident, that, whoever should see a creature of his own shape or
make, though it had no more reason all its life than a cat or a parrot,
would call him still a MAN; or whoever should hear a cat or a parrot
discourse, reason, and philosophize, would call or think it nothing but
a CAT or a PARROT; and say, the one was a dull irrational man, and the
other a very intelligent rational parrot.
10. Same man.
For I presume it is not the idea of a thinking or rational being alone
that makes the IDEA OF A MAN in most people’s sense: but of a body, so
and so shaped, joined to it; and if that be the idea of a man, the same
successive body not shifted all at once, must, as well as the same
immaterial spirit, go to the making of the same man.
11. Personal Identity.
This being premised, to find wherein personal identity consists, we
must consider what PERSON stands for;—which, I think, is a thinking
intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider
itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and
places; which it does only by that consciousness which is inseparable
from thinking, and, as it seems to me, essential to it: it being
impossible for any one to perceive without PERCEIVING that he does
perceive. When we see, hear, smell, taste, feel, meditate, or will
anything, we know that we do so. Thus it is always as to our present
sensations and perceptions: and by this every one is to himself that
which he calls SELF:—it not being considered, in this case, whether the
same self be continued in the same or divers substances. For, since
consciousness always accompanies thinking, and it is that which makes
every one to be what he calls self, and thereby distinguishes himself
from all other thinking things, in this alone consists personal
identity, i.e. the sameness of a rational being: and as far as this
consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought,
so far reaches the identity of that person; it is the same self now it
was then; and it is by the same self with this present one that now
reflects on it, that that action was done.
12. Consciousness makes personal Identity.
But it is further inquired, whether it be the same identical substance.
This few would think they had reason to doubt of, if these perceptions,
with their consciousness, always remained present in the mind, whereby
the same thinking thing would be always consciously present, and, as
would be thought, evidently the same to itself. But that which seems to
make the difficulty is this, that this consciousness being interrupted
always by forgetfulness, there being no moment of our lives wherein we
have the whole train of all our past actions before our eyes in one
view, but even the best memories losing the sight of one part whilst
they are viewing another; and we sometimes, and that the greatest part
of our lives, not reflecting on our past selves, being intent on our
present thoughts, and in sound sleep having no thoughts at all, or at
least none with that consciousness which remarks our waking thoughts,—I
say, in all these cases, our consciousness being interrupted, and we
losing the sight of our past selves, doubts are raised whether we are
the same thinking thing, i.e. the same SUBSTANCE or no. Which, however
reasonable or unreasonable, concerns not PERSONAL identity at all. The
question being what makes the same person; and not whether it be the
same identical substance, which always thinks in the same person,
which, in this case, matters not at all: different substances, by the
same consciousness (where they do partake in it) being united into one
person, as well as different bodies by the same life are united into
one animal, whose identity is preserved in that change of substances by
the unity of one continued life. For, it being the same consciousness
that makes a man be himself to himself, personal identity depends on
that only, whether it be annexed solely to one individual substance, or
can be continued in a succession of several substances. For as far as
any intelligent being CAN repeat the idea of any past action with the
same consciousness it had of it at first, and with the same
consciousness it has of any present action; so far it is the same
personal self. For it is by the consciousness it has of its present
thoughts and actions, that it is SELF TO ITSELF now, and so will be the
same self, as far as the same consciousness can extend to actions past
or to come; and would be by distance of time, or change of substance,
no more two persons, than a man be two men by wearing other clothes
to-day than he did yesterday, with a long or a short sleep between: the
same consciousness uniting those distant actions into the same person,
whatever substances contributed to their production.
13. Personal Identity in Change of Substance.
That this is so, we have some kind of evidence in our very bodies, all
whose particles, whilst vitally united to this same thinking conscious
self, so that WE FEEL when they are touched, and are affected by, and
conscious of good or harm that happens to them, are a part of
ourselves; i.e. of our thinking conscious self. Thus, the limbs of his
body are to every one a part of himself; he sympathizes and is
concerned for them. Cut off a hand, and thereby separate 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
remotest part of matter. Thus, we see the SUBSTANCE whereof personal
self consisted at one time may be varied at another, without the change
of personal identity; there being no question about the same person,
though the limbs which but now were a part of it, be cut off.
14. Personality in Change of Substance.
But the question is, Whether if the same substance which thinks be
changed, it can be the same person; or, remaining the same, it can be
different persons?
And to this I answer: First, This can be no question at all to those
who place thought in a purely material animal constitution, void of an
immaterial substance. For, whether their supposition be true or no, it
is plain they conceive personal identity preserved in something else
than identity of substance; as animal identity is preserved in identity
of life, and not of substance. And therefore those who place thinking
in an immaterial substance only, before they can come to deal with
these men, must show why personal identity cannot be preserved in the
change of immaterial substances, or variety of particular immaterial
substances, as well as animal identity is preserved in the change of
material substances, or variety of particular bodies: unless they will
say, it is one immaterial spirit that makes the same life in brutes, as
it is one immaterial spirit that makes the same person in men; which
the Cartesians at least will not admit, for fear of making brutes
thinking things too.
15. Whether in Change of thinking Substances there can be one Person.
But next, as to the first part of the question, Whether, if the same
thinking substance (supposing immaterial substances only to think) be
changed, it can be the same person? I answer, that cannot be resolved
but by those who know there can what kind of substances they are that
do think; and whether the consciousness of past actions can be
transferred from one thinking substance to another. I grant were the
same consciousness the same individual action it could not: but it
being a present representation of a past action, why it may not be
possible, that that may be represented to the mind to have been which
really never was, will remain to be shown. And therefore how far the
consciousness of past actions is annexed to any individual agent, so
that another cannot possibly 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
substances, who cannot think without being conscious of it. But that
which we call the same consciousness, not being the same individual
act, why one intellectual substance may not have represented to it, as
done by itself, what IT never did, and was perhaps done by some other
agent—why, I say, such a representation may not possibly be without
reality of matter of fact, as well as several representations in dreams
are, which yet whilst dreaming we take for true—will be difficult to
conclude from the nature of things. And that it never is so, will by
us, till we have clearer views of the nature of thinking substances, be
best resolved into the goodness of God; who, as far as the happiness or
misery of any of his sensible creatures is concerned in it, will not,
by a fatal error of theirs, transfer from one to another that
consciousness which draws reward or punishment with it. How far this
may be an argument against those who would place thinking in a system
of fleeting animal spirits, I leave to be considered. But yet, to
return to the question before us, it must be allowed, that, if the same
consciousness (which, as has been shown, is quite a different thing
from the same numerical figure or motion in body) can be transferred
from one thinking substance to another, it will be possible that two
thinking substances may make but one person. For the same consciousness
being preserved, whether in the same or different substances, the
personal identity is preserved.
16. Whether, the same immaterial Substance remaining, there can be two
Persons.
As to the second part of the question, Whether the same immaterial
substance remaining, there may be two distinct persons; which question
seems to me to be built on this,—Whether the same immaterial being,
being conscious of the action of its past duration, may be wholly
stripped of all the consciousness of its past existence, and lose it
beyond the power of ever retrieving it again: and so as it were
beginning a new account from a new period, have a consciousness that
CANNOT reach beyond this new state. All those who hold pre-existence
are evidently of this mind; since they allow the soul to have no
remaining consciousness of what it did in that pre-existent state,
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
personal identity, reaching no further than consciousness reaches, a
pre-existent spirit not having continued so many ages in a state of
silence, must needs make different persons. Suppose a Christian
Platonist or a Pythagorean should, upon God’s having ended all his
works of creation the seventh day, think his soul hath existed ever
since; and should imagine it has revolved in several human bodies; as I
once met with one, who was persuaded his had been the SOUL of Socrates
(how reasonably I will not dispute; this I know, that in the post he
filled, which was no inconsiderable one, he passed for a very rational
man, and the press has shown that he wanted not parts or
learning;)—would any one say, that he, being not conscious of any of
Socrates’s actions or thoughts, could be the same PERSON with Socrates?
Let any one reflect upon himself, and conclude that he has in himself
an immaterial spirit, which is that which thinks in him, and, in the
constant change of his body keeps him the same: and is that which he
calls HIMSELF: let him also suppose it to be the same soul that was in
Nestor or Thersites, at the siege of Troy, (for souls being, as far as
we know anything of them, in their nature indifferent to any parcel of
matter, the supposition has no apparent absurdity in it,) which it may
have been, as well as it is now the soul of any other man: but he now
having no consciousness of any of the actions either of Nestor or
Thersites, does or can he conceive himself the same person 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 existed? So that this consciousness, not reaching to any
of the actions of either of those men, he is no more one SELF with
either of them than of the soul of immaterial spirit that now informs
him had been created, and began to exist, when it began to inform his
present body; though it were never so true, that the same SPIRIT that
informed Nestor’s or Thersites’ body were numerically the same that now
informs his. For this would no more make him the same person with
Nestor, than if some of the particles of smaller that were once a part
of Nestor were now a part of this man the same immaterial substance,
without the same consciousness, no more making the same person, by
being united to any body, than the same particle of matter, without
consciousness, united to any body, makes the same person. But let him
once find himself conscious of any of the actions of Nestor, he then
finds himself the same person with Nestor.
17. The body, as well as the soul, goes to the making of a Man.
And thus may we be able, without any difficulty, to conceive the same
person at the resurrection, though in a body not exactly in make or
parts the same which he had here,—the same consciousness going along
with the soul that inhabits it. But yet the soul alone, in the change
of bodies, would scarce to any one but to him that makes the soul the
man, be enough to make the same man. For should the soul of a prince,
carrying with it the consciousness of the prince’s past life, enter and
inform the body of a cobbler, as soon as deserted by his own soul,
every one sees he would be the same PERSON with the prince, accountable
only for the prince’s actions: but who would say it was the same MAN?
The body too goes to the making the man, and would, I guess, to
everybody determine the man in this case, wherein the soul, with all
its princely thoughts about it, would not make another man: but he
would be the same cobbler to every one besides himself. I know that, in
the ordinary way of speaking, the same person, and the same man, stand
for one and the same thing. And indeed every one will always have a
liberty to speak as he pleases, and to apply what articulate sounds to
what ideas he thinks fit, and change them as often as he pleases. But
yet, when we will inquire what makes the same SPIRIT, MAN, or PERSON,
we must fix the ideas of spirit, man, or person in our minds; and
having resolved 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 same,
and when not.
18. Consciousness alone unites actions into the same Person.
But though the same immaterial substance or soul does not alone,
wherever it be, and in whatsoever state, make the same MAN; yet it is
plain, consciousness, as far as ever it can be extended—should it be to
ages past—unites existences and actions very remote in time into the
same PERSON, as well as it does the existences and actions of the
immediately preceding moment: so that whatever has the consciousness of
present and past actions, is the same person to whom they both belong.
Had I the same consciousness that I saw the ark and Noah’s flood, as
that I saw an overflowing of the Thames last winter, or as that I write
now, I could no more doubt that I who write this now, that saw the
Thames overflowed last winter, and that viewed the flood at the general
deluge, was the same SELF,—place that self in what SUBSTANCE you
please—than that I who write this am the same MYSELF now whilst I write
(whether I consist of all the same substance material or immaterial, or
no) that I was yesterday. For as to this point of being the same self,
it matters not whether this present self be made up of the same or
other substances—I being as much concerned, and as justly accountable
for any action that was done a thousand years since, appropriated to me
now by this self-consciousness, as I am for what I did the last moment.
19. Self depends on Consciousness, not on Substance.
SELF is that conscious thinking thing,—whatever substance made up of,
(whether spiritual or material, simple or compounded, it matters
not)—which is sensible or conscious of pleasure and pain, capable of
happiness or misery, and so is concerned for itself, as far as that
consciousness extends. Thus every one finds that, whilst comprehended
under that consciousness, the little finger is as much a part of
himself as what is most so. Upon separation of this little finger,
should this consciousness go along with the little finger, and leave
the rest of the body, it is evident the little finger would be the
person, the same person; and self then would have nothing to do with
the rest of the body. As in this case it is the consciousness that goes
along with the substance, when one part is separate from another, which
makes the same person, and constitutes this inseparable self: so it is
in reference to substances remote in time. That with which the
consciousness of this present thinking thing CAN join itself, makes the
same person, and is one self with it, and with nothing else; and so
attributes to itself, and owns all the actions of that thing, as its
own, as far as that consciousness reaches, and no further; as every one
who reflects will perceive.
20. Persons, not Substances, the Objects of Reward and Punishment.
In this personal identity is founded all the right and justice of
reward and punishment; happiness and misery being that for which every
one is concerned for HIMSELF, and not mattering what becomes of any
SUBSTANCE, not joined to, or affected with that consciousness. For, as
it is evident in the instance I gave but now, if the consciousness went
along with the little finger when it was cut off, that would be the
same self which was concerned for the whole body yesterday, as making
part of itself, whose actions then it cannot but admit as its own now.
Though, if the same body should still live, and immediately from the
separation of the little finger have its own peculiar consciousness,
whereof the little finger knew nothing, it would not at all be
concerned for it, as a part of itself, or could own any of its actions,
or have any of them imputed to him.
21. Which shows wherein Personal identity consists.
This may show us wherein personal identity consists: not in the
identity of substance, but, as I have said, in the identity of
consciousness, wherein if Socrates and the present mayor of
Queenborough agree, they are the same person: if the same Socrates
waking and sleeping do not partake of the same consciousness, Socrates
waking and sleeping is not the same person. And to punish Socrates
waking for what sleeping Socrates thought, and waking Socrates was
never conscious of, would be no more of right, than to punish one twin
for what his brother-twin did, whereof he knew nothing, because their
outsides were so like, that they could not be distinguished; for such
twins have been seen.
22. Absolute oblivion separates what is thus forgotten from the person,
but not from the man.
But yet possibly it will still be objected,—Suppose I wholly lose the
memory of some parts of my life, beyond a possibility of retrieving
them, so that perhaps I shall never be conscious of them again; yet am
I not the same person that did those actions, had those thoughts that I
once was conscious of, though I have now forgot them? To which I
answer, that we must here take notice what the word _I_ is applied to;
which, in this case, is the MAN only. And the same man being presumed
to be the same person, I is easily here supposed to stand also for the
same person. But if it be possible for the same man to have distinct
incommunicable consciousness at different times, it is past doubt the
same man would at different times make different persons; which, we
see, is the sense of mankind in the solemnest declaration of their
opinions, human laws not punishing the mad man for the sober man’s
actions, nor the sober man for what the mad man did,—thereby making
them two persons: which is somewhat explained by our way of speaking in
English when we say such an one is ‘not himself,’ or is ‘beside
himself’; in which phrases it is insinuated, as if those who now, or at
least first used them, thought that self was changed; the selfsame
person was no longer in that man.
23. Difference between Identity of Man and of Person.
But yet it is hard to conceive that Socrates, the same individual man,
should be two persons. To help us a little in this, we must consider
what is meant by Socrates, or the same individual MAN.
First, it must be either the same individual, immaterial, thinking
substance; in short, the same numerical soul, and nothing else.
Secondly, or the same animal, without any regard to an immaterial soul.
Thirdly, or the same immaterial spirit united to the same animal.
Now, take which of these suppositions you please, it is impossible to
make personal identity to consist in anything but consciousness; or
reach any further than that does.
For, by the first of them, it must be allowed possible that a man born
of different women, and in distant times, may be the same man. A way of
speaking which, whoever admits, must allow it possible for the same man
to be two distinct persons, as any two that have lived in different
ages without the knowledge of one another’s thoughts.
By the second and third, Socrates, in this life and after it, cannot be
the same man any way, but by the same consciousness; and so making
human identity to consist in the same thing wherein we place personal
identity, there will be difficulty to allow the same man to be the same
person. But then they who place human identity in consciousness only,
and not in something else, must consider how they will make the infant
Socrates the same man with Socrates after the resurrection. But
whatsoever to some men makes a man, and consequently the same
individual man, wherein perhaps few are agreed, personal identity can
by us be placed in nothing but consciousness, (which is that alone
which makes what we call SELF,) without involving us in great
absurdities.
24.
But is not a man drunk and sober the same person? why else is he
punished for the fact he commits when drunk, though he be never
afterwards conscious of it? Just as much the same person as a man that
walks, and does other things in his sleep, is the same person, and is
answerable for any mischief he shall do in it. Human laws punish both,
with a justice suitable to THEIR way of knowledge;—because, in these
cases, they cannot distinguish certainly what is real, what
counterfeit: and so the ignorance in drunkenness or sleep is not
admitted as a plea. But in the Great Day, wherein the secrets of all
hearts shall be laid open, it may be reasonable to think, no one shall
be made to answer for what he knows nothing of; but shall receive his
doom, his conscience accusing or excusing him.
25. Consciousness alone unites remote existences into one Person.
Nothing but consciousness can unite remote existences into the same
person: the identity of substance will not do it; for whatever
substance there is, however framed, without consciousness there is no
person: and a carcass may be a person, as well as any sort of substance
be so, without consciousness.
Could we suppose two distinct incommunicable consciousnesses acting the
same body, the one constantly by day, the other by night; and, on the
other side, the same consciousness, acting by intervals, two distinct
bodies: I ask, in the first case, whether the day and the night—man
would not be two as distinct persons as Socrates and Plato? And
whether, in the second case, there would not be one person in two
distinct bodies, as much as one man is the same in two distinct
clothings? Nor is it at all material to say, that this same, and this
distinct consciousness, in the cases above mentioned, is owing to the
same and distinct immaterial substances, bringing it with them to those
bodies; which, whether true or no, alters not the case: since it is
evident the personal identity would equally be determined by the
consciousness, whether that consciousness were annexed to some
individual immaterial substance or no. For, granting that the thinking
substance in man must be necessarily supposed immaterial, it is evident
that immaterial thinking thing may sometimes part with its past
consciousness, and be restored to it again: as appears in the
forgetfulness men often have of their past actions; and the mind many
times recovers the memory of a past consciousness, which it had lost
for twenty years together. Make these intervals of memory and
forgetfulness to take their turns regularly by day and night, and you
have two persons with the same immaterial spirit, as much as in the
former instance two persons with the same body. So that self is not
determined by identity or diversity of substance, which it cannot be
sure of, but only by identity of consciousness.
26. Not the substance with which the consciousness may be united.
Indeed it may conceive the substance whereof it is now made up to have
existed formerly, united in the same conscious being: but,
consciousness removed, that substance is no more itself, or makes no
more a part of it, than any other substance; as is evident in the
instance we have already given of a limb cut off, of whose heat, or
cold, or other affections, having no longer any consciousness, it is no
more of a man’s self than any other matter of the universe. In like
manner it will be in reference to any immaterial substance, which is
void of that consciousness whereby I am myself to myself: so that I
cannot upon recollection join with that present consciousness whereby I
am now myself, it is, in that part of its existence, no more MYSELF
than any other immaterial being. For, whatsoever any substance has
thought or done, which I cannot recollect, and by my consciousness make
my own thought and action, it will no more belong to me, whether a part
of me thought or did it, than if it had been thought or done by any
other immaterial being anywhere existing.
27. Consciousness unites substances, material or spiritual, with the
same personality.
I agree, the more probable opinion is, that this consciousness is
annexed to, and the affection of, one individual immaterial substance.
But let men, according to their diverse hypotheses, resolve of that as
they please. This every intelligent being, sensible of happiness or
misery, must grant—that there is something that is HIMSELF, that he is
concerned for, and would have happy; that this self has existed in a
continued duration more than one instant, and therefore it is possible
may exist, as it has done, months and years to come, without any
certain bounds to be set to its duration; and may be the same self, by
the same consciousness continued on for the future. And thus, by this
consciousness he finds himself to be the same self which did such and
such an action some years since, by which he comes to be happy or
miserable now. In all which account of self, the same numerical
SUBSTANCE is not considered a making the same self; but the same
continued CONSCIOUSNESS, in which several substances may have been
united, and again separated from it, which, whilst they continued in a
vital union with that wherein this consciousness then resided, made a
part of that same self. Thus any part of our bodies, vitally united to
that which is conscious in us, makes a part of ourselves: but upon
separation from the vital union by which that consciousness is
communicated, that which a moment since was part of ourselves, is now
no more so than a part of another man’s self is a part of me: and it is
not impossible but in a little time may become a real part of another
person. And so we have the same numerical substance become a part of
two different persons; and the same person preserved under the change
of various substances. Could we suppose any spirit wholly stripped of
all its memory of consciousness of past actions, as we find our minds
always are of a great part of ours, and sometimes of them all; the
union or separation of such a spiritual substance would make no
variation of personal identity, any more than that of any particle of
matter does. Any substance vitally united to the present thinking being
is a part of that very same self which now is; anything united to it by
a consciousness of former actions, makes also a part of the same self,
which is the same both then and now.
28. Person a forensic Term.
PERSON, as I take it, is the name for this self. Wherever a man finds
what he calls himself, there, I think, another may say is the same
person. It is a forensic term, appropriating actions and their merit;
and so belongs only to intelligent agents, capable of a law, and
happiness, and misery. This personality extends itself beyond present
existence to what is past, only by consciousness,—whereby it becomes
concerned and accountable; owns and imputes to itself past actions,
just upon the same ground and for the same reason as it does the
present. All which is founded in a concern for happiness, the
unavoidable concomitant of consciousness; that which is conscious of
pleasure and pain, desiring that that self that is conscious should be
happy. And therefore whatever past actions it cannot reconcile or
APPROPRIATE to that present self by consciousness, it can be no more
concerned in than if they had never been done: and to receive pleasure
or pain, i.e. reward or punishment, on the account of any such action,
is all one as to be made happy or miserable in its first being, without
any demerit at all. For, supposing a MAN punished now for what he had
done in another life, whereof he could be made to have no consciousness
at all, what difference is there between that punishment and being
CREATED miserable? And therefore, conformable to this, the apostle
tells us, that, at the great day, when every one shall ‘receive
according to his doings, the secrets of all hearts shall be laid open.’
The sentence shall be justified by the consciousness all persons shall
have, that THEY THEMSELVES, in what bodies soever they appear, or what
substances soever that consciousness adheres to, are the SAME that
committed those actions, and deserve that punishment for them.
29. Suppositions that look strange are pardonable in our ignorance.
I am apt enough to think I have, in treating of this subject, made some
suppositions that will look strange to some readers, and possibly they
are so in themselves. But yet, I think they are such as are pardonable,
in this ignorance we are in of the nature of that thinking thing that
is in us, and which we look on as OURSELVES. Did we know what it was;
or how it was tied to a certain system of fleeting animal spirits; or
whether it could or could not perform its operations of thinking and
memory out of a body organized as ours is; and whether it has pleased
God that no one such spirit shall ever be united to any but one such
body, upon the right constitution of whose organs its memory should
depend; we might see the absurdity of some of those suppositions I have
made. But taking, as we ordinarily now do (in the dark concerning these
matters,) the soul of a man for an immaterial substance, independent
from matter, and indifferent alike to it all; there can, from the
nature of things, be no absurdity at all to suppose that the same SOUL
may at different times be united to different BODIES, and with them
make up for that time one MAN: as well as we suppose a part of a
sheep’s body yesterday should be a part of a man’s body to-morrow, and
in that union make a vital part of Meliboeus himself, as well as it did
of his ram.
30. The Difficulty from ill Use of Names.
To conclude: Whatever substance begins to exist, it must, during its
existence, necessarily be the same: whatever compositions of substances
begin to exist, during the union of those substances, the concrete must
be the same: whatsoever mode begins to exist, during its existence it
is the same: and so if the composition be of distinct substances and
different modes, the same rule holds. Whereby it will appear, that the
difficulty or obscurity that has been about this matter rather rises
from the names ill-used, than from any obscurity in things themselves.
For whatever makes the specific idea to which the name is applied, if
that idea be steadily kept to, the distinction of anything into the
same and divers will easily be conceived, and there can arise no doubt
about it.
31. Continuance of that which we have made to be our complex idea of
man makes the same man.
For, supposing a rational spirit be the idea of a MAN, it is easy to
know what is the same man, viz. the same spirit—whether separate or in
a body—will be the SAME MAN. Supposing a rational spirit vitally united
to a body of a certain conformation of parts to make a man; whilst that
rational spirit, with that vital conformation of parts, though
continued in a fleeting successive body, remains, it will be the SAME
MAN. But if to any one the idea of a man be but the vital union of
parts in a certain shape; as long as that vital union and shape remain
in a concrete, no otherwise the same but by a continued succession of
fleeting particles, it will be the SAME MAN. For, whatever be the
composition whereof the complex idea is made, whenever existence makes
it one particular thing under any denomination, THE SAME EXISTENCE
CONTINUED preserves it the SAME individual under the same denomination.