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 is 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 no body, could he be [326]sure that the Soul of Heliogabalus were in one of his Hogs, would yet say that Hog were a Man or Heliogabalus.
§ 7. ’Tis 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 […].
§ 8. 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 organiz’d living Body. And whatever is talked of other definitions, ingenuous 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 and 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. […] For I presume ’tis not the Idea of a thinking or rational Being alone, that makes the Idea of a Man [328]in most Peoples 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.
§ 9. 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 it self as it self, 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 any thing, 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 ’tis that, that 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 ’tis by the same self with this present one that now reflects on it, that that Action was done.
§ 10. But it is farther enquir’d, whether it be the same Identical Substance. This few would think they had reason to doubt [330]of, if these Perceptions, with their consciousness, always remain’d present in the Mind, whereby the same thinking thing would be always consciously present, and, as would be thought, evidently the same to it self. 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. […]
§ 11. 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 [332]touch’d, and are affected by, and conscious of good or harm that happens to them, are a part of our selves: i. e. of our thinking conscious self. Thus the Limbs of his Body is to every one a part of himself: He sympathizes and is concerned for them. Cut off an hand, and thereby separate it from that consciousness, we 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.
§ 12. 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. […]
§ 13. […] 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 resolv’d, but by those, who know what kind of Substances they are, that do think; and whether the consciousness of past Actions can be transferr’d from one thinking Substance to another. […] it must be allowed, That if the same consciousness (which, as has been shewn, is quite a different thing from the same numerical Figure or Motion in Body) can be transferr’d from one thinking Substance to another, it will be possible, that two thinking Substances may make but one [334]person. For the same consciousness being preserv’d, whether in the same or different Substances, the personal Identity is preserv’d.
§ 14. 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 Actions of its past Duration, may be wholly stripp’d of all the consciousness of its past Existence, and lose it beyond the power of ever retrieving 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, ’tis plain Experience would be against them. So that personal Identity reaching no farther than consciousness reaches, a pre-existent Spirit not having continued so many Ages in a state of Silence, must needs make different Persons. […]
§ 15. And thus we may 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.
