Book 112 agreed, perfonal identity can by us be placed in nothing but consciousness (which is that alone which makes what we call felf) without involving us in great absar. dities.isma Búr is not a man drunk and fober the fame person ? why elfe is he punished for the fact he commits when drunk, though he be never afterwards confcious of fit? Just as much the fame perfon, as a man that walks, and does other things in his fleep, is the fame perfon, and is answerable for any mischief he fhall do in it. Human laws punish both with a juftice fuitable to their way of knowledge, because in thefe cafes they cannot dif tinguish certainly what is real what counterfeit, and fo the ignorance in drunkennefs or fleep, is not admitted as a plea: For though punishment be annexed to per fonality, and perfonality to consciousness, and the drun kard perhaps be not confcious of what he did; yet hus man judicatures justly punish him, because the fact is proved against him, but want of confcioufnefs cannot be proved for him. But in the great day, wherein the fecrets of all hearts fhall be laid open, it may be reasonable to think, no one shall be made to answer for what he knows nothing of, but fhall receive his doom, his confcience accufing or excufing him. SM : $23. Consciousness alone makes Self. NOTHING but confcioufnefs can unite remote existences into the fame person, the identity of fubftance will not do it; for whatever fubftance there is, however framed, without consciousness there is no perfon; and a carcase may be a perfon, as well as any fort of fubftance be fo without confcioufnefs.. Could we fuppofe two diftinct incommunicable confcioufneffes acting the fame body, the one conftantly by. day, the other by night; and, on the other fide, the fame consciousnefs acting by intervals two distinct bodies: I afk in the firft cafe, whether the day and the night-man would not be two as diftinct perfons, as Sa crates and Plato? And whether, in the fecond cafe, there would not be one perfon in two distinct bodies, as 63 much as one man is the fame in two distinct clothings? Nor is it at all material to say, that this fame, and this diftinct sconfcioufnefs, in the cafes abovementioned, is owing to the fame and diftinct immaterial fubftances, bringing it with them to thofe bodies; which, whether true or no, alters not the cafe; fince it is evident the perfinal identity would equally be determined by the confèioufness, whether that confcioufnefs were annexed tomfome individual: immaterial substance or no: For granting that the thinking fubftance in man must be neceffarily fuppofed immaterial, it is evident that immaterial thinking thing may fometimes part with its paft confcioufnefs, and be restored to it again, as appears in the forgetfulness men often have of their paft actions: and the mind many times recovers the memory of a paft confcioufnefs, which it had loft for twenty years toge thera Make thefe intervals of memory and forgetfulness to take their turns regularly by day and night, and you have two perfons with the fame immaterial fpirit, as much as in the former inftance two perfons with the fame body: So that felf is not determined by identity or diversity of fubitance, which it cannot be fure of, but only by identity of consciousness. § 24. INDEED it may conceive the fubftance, whereof it is now made up, to have exifted formerly, united in the fame conscious being; but consciousness removed, that substance is no more it felf, or makes no more a part of itp than any other fubftance; as is evident in the in flance we have already given of a limb cut off, of whofe heat, or cold, or other affections, having no longer any consciousness, it is no more of a man's felf, than any other matter of the universe. In like manner it will be in reference to any immaterial fubftance, which is void of that confcioufnefs, whereby I am my felf to my self t if there be any part of its existence, which I cannot upon recollection join with that prefent confcioufnefs whereby I am now my self, it is in that part of its existence no more my felf, than any other immaterial being; for whatsoever any fubftance has thought or done, which I Book II. 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 any where exifting. $ 25. I AGREE, the more probable opinion is, that this consciousness is annexed to, and the affection of one individual immaterial fubftance. In all But let men, according to their diverfe hypothefes, refolve of that as they pleafe. This every intelligent being, fenfible of happinefs or misery, must grant, that there is fomething that is himself that he is concerned for, and would have happy; that this felf has existed in a continued duration more than one inftant, and therefore it is poffible may exift, as it has done, months and years to come, without any certain bounds to be fet to its duration, and may be the fame felf, by the fame consciousness continued on for the future: And thus, by this confcioufnefs, he finds himself to be the fame felf which did fuch or fuch an action fome years fince, by which he comes to be happy or miserable now. which account of felf, the fame numerical fubftance is not confidered as making the fame felf; but the fame continued confcioufnefs, in which feveral fubftances may have been united, and again feparated from it, which, whilft they continued in a vital union with that, wherein this confcioufnefs then refided, made a part of that fame felf. Thus any part of our bodies vitally united to that which is confcious in us, makes a part of our felves but upon feparation from the vital union, by which that confcioufnefs is communicated, that which a moment fince was part of our felves, is no more fo, than a part of another man's Jelf is a part of me, and it is not impoffible, but in a little time may be come a real part of another perfon; and fo we have the fame numerical fubftance become a part of two dif ferent perfons, and the fame perfon preferved under the change of various fubftances. Could we fuppofe any fpirit wholly tripped of all its memory or confcioufnets of past actions, as we find our minds always are of a great part of ours, and fometimes of them all, the union or feparation of fuch a spiritual substance would make no variation of perfonal identity, any more than that of any particle of matter does. Any fubftance vitally united to the prefent thinking being, is a part of that very fame felf which now is: any thing united to it by a confcioufnels of former actions, makes alfo a part of the fame felf, which is the fame both then and now. 26. Perfen, a Forenfic Term. PERSON, as I take it, is the name of this felf. Wherever a man finds what he calls himself, there I think another may fay is the fame perfon. It is a forenfic term appropriating actions and their merit; and fo belongs only to intelligent agents capable of a law, and happinefs and mifery. This perfonality extends it felf beyond prefent exiftence to what is paft, only by confcioufnefs, whereby it becomes concerned and accountable, owns and imputes to it felf paft actions, juft upon the fame ground, and for the fame reafon that it does the prefent: All which is founded in a concern for happinefs, the unavoidable concomitant of confciousness; that which is confcious of pleasure and pain, defiring that that felf that is confcious fhould be happy. And therefore whatever paft actions it cannot reconcile or appropriate to that prefent felf by consciousness, it can be no more concerned in, than if they had never been done : and to receive pleafure or pain, i. e. reward or punishment, on the account of any fuch action, is all one as to be made happy or miferable in its firft being, without any demerit at all: For fuppofing a man punifhed 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 miferable? And therefore conformable to this the Apostle tells us, that at the great day, when every one fhall receive according to his doings, the fecrets of all hearts fhall be laid open; the fentence thall be juftified by the confcioufnefs all perfons fhall have, that they themselves, in what bodies foever they appear, or what fubftances fo Book II. ever that consciousness adheres to, are the fame that committed thofe actions, and deferve that punishment for them. 627 I AM apt enough to think I have, in treating of this fubject, made fome fuppofitions that will look ftrange to fome readers, and poffibly they are fo in themselves; but yet, I think, they are fuch 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 our felves. Did we know what it was, or how it was tied to a certain fyftem of fleeting animal fpirits; 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 pleafed God, that no one fuch fpirit fhall ever be united to any but one fuch body, upon the right conftitution of whofe organs its memory fhould depend; we might fee the abfurdity of fome of thofe fuppofitions I have made. But taking, as we ordinarily now do (in the dark concerning thefe matters), the foul of a man, for an immaterial fubftance, independent from matter, and indifferent alike to it all, there can from the nature of things be no abfurdity at all to fuppofe, that the fame foul may, at different times, be united to different bodies, and with them make up, for that time, one man : as well as we fuppofe a part of a sheep's body yesterday fhould be a part of a man's body to-morrow, and in that union make up a vital part of Melibaus himself, as well as it did of his ram. 28. The Difficulty from ill ufe of Names. To conclude, whatever fubftance begins to exift, it must, during its existence, neceffarily be the fame; whatever compofitions of fubftances begin to exift during the union of thofe fubftances, the concrete must be the fame; whatsoever mode begins to exift, during its exiftence, it is the fame and fo if the compofition be of distinct substances and different modes, the fame rule holds. Whereby it will appear, that the difficulty or obfcurity that has been about this matter, rather rifes from the names ill used, than from any obfcurity in |