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 or 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 as 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 or 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: any thing 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.

26. "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 that 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.

27. 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 Melibæus himself, as well as it did of his ram.

28. 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 any thing into the same and diverse will easily be conceived, and there can arise no doubt about it.

29. Continued existence makes identity.-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 remains, 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.*

* See note at the end of this chapter.-EDIT.

NOTE.

THE doctrine of identity and diversity contained in this chapter, the bishop of Worcester pretends to be inconsistent with the doctrine of the Christian faith, concerning the resurrection of the dead. His way of arguing from it is this: he says, "The reason of believing the resurrection of the same body, upon Mr. Locke's grounds, is from the idea of identity." To which our author answers: "Give me leave, my lord, to say, that the reason of believing any article of the Christian faith, (such as your lordship is here speaking of,) to me, and upon my grounds, is its being a part of divine revelation. Upon this ground I believed it before I either writ that chapter of identity and diversity, and before I ever thought of those propositions which your lordship quotes out of that chapter; and upon the same ground I believe it still, and not from my idea of identity. This saying of your lordship's therefore, being a proposition neither self-evident, nor allowed by me to be true, remains to be proved. So that your foundation failing, all your large superstructure built thereon comes to nothing.

"But, my lord, before we go any farther, I crave leave humbly to represent to your lordship, that I thought you undertook to make out that my notion of ideas was inconsistent with the articles of the Christian faith. But that which your lordship instances in here is not, that I yet know, an article of the Christian faith. The resurrection of the dead I acknowledge to be an article of the Christian faith; but that the resurrection of the same body, in your lordship's sense of 'the same body,' is an article of the Christian faith, is what I confess I do not yet know.

"In the new testament (wherein I think are contained all the articles of the Christian faith) I find our Saviour and the apostles to preach 'the resurrection of the dead' and 'the resurrection from the dead'in many places; but I do not remember any place where the resurrection of the same body is so much as mentioned. Nay, which is very remarkable in the case, I do not remember, in any place of the New Testament where the general resurrection at the last day is spoken of, any such expression as 'the resurrection of the body,' much less of the same body.'

"Isay, 'the general resurrection at the last day;' because where the resurrection of some particular persons presently upon our Saviour's resurrection is mentioned, the words are, 'The graves were opened, and many bodies of saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared to many;' (Matt. xxvii. 52, 53 ;) of which peculiar way of speaking of this resurrection, the passage itself gives a reason in these words, 'appeared to many;' i. e. those who slept appeared, so as to be known to be risen. But this could not be known, unless they brought with them the evidence that they were those who had been dead; whereof * In his Third Letter to the Bishop of Worcester, p. 165, &c.

there were these two proofs,-their graves were opened, and their bodies not only gone out of them, but appeared to be the same to those who had known them formerly alive, and knew them to be dead and buried. For if they had been those who had been dead so long that all who knew them once alive were now gone, those to whom they appeared might have known them to be men, but could not have known they were risen from the dead, because they never knew they had been dead. All that by their appearing they could have known was, that they were so many living strangers, of whose resurrection they knew nothing. It was necessary therefore that they should come in such bodies as might, in make and size, &c. appear to be the same they had before, that they might be known to those of their acquaintance whom they appeared to. And it is probable they were such as were newly dead, whose bodies were not yet dissolved and dissipated; and therefore it is particularly said here, (differently from what is said of the general resurrection,) that their bodies arose, because they were the same that were then lying in their graves the moment before they arose.

"But your lordship endeavours to prove it must be the same body; and let us grant that your lordship, nay, and others too, think you have proved it must be the same body; will you therefore say, that he holds what is inconsistent with an article of faith who, having never seen this your lordship's interpretation of the scripture, nor your reasons for the same body, in your sense of 'same body;' or, if he has seen them, yet not understanding them, or, not perceiving the force of them, believes what the scripture proposes to him, viz. that at the last day the 'dead shall be raised,' without determining whether it shall be with the very same bodies or no?

"I know your lordship pretends not to erect your particular interpretations of scripture into articles of faith; and if you do not, he that believes the dead shall be raised, believes that article of faith which the scripture proposes; and cannot be accused of holding any thing inconsistent with it, if it should happen that what he holds is inconsistent with another proposition, viz. that the dead shall be raised with the same bodies, in your lordship's sense; which I do not find proposed in holy writ as an article of faith.

"But your lordship argues 'it must be the same body;' which, as you explain 'same body,'* 'is not the same individual particles of matter which were united at the point of death, nor the same particles of matter that the sinner had at the time of the commission of his sins; but that it must be the same material substance which was vitally united to the soul here;' i. e. as I understand it, the same individual particles of matter which were, some time or other during his life here, vitally united to his soul.

6

"Your first argument to prove that it must be the same body in this sense of 'the saine body,' is taken from these words of our Saviour,† All that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth.' (John v. 28, 29.) From whence your lordship argues, that these words, 'all that are in their graves,' relate to no other substance than what was united to the soul in life, because a different substance cannot be said to be in the graves and to come out of them; which words of your lordship's, if they prove any thing, prove that the soul too is lodged in the grave, and raised out of it at the last day: for your lordship says, 'Can a different substance be said to be in their graves and come out of them?' So that, according to this interpretation of these words of our Saviour, no other substance being raised but what hears his voice; and no other substance hearing his voice but what, being called, comes out of the grave; and no other substance coming out of the grave but what was in the grave; any one must conclude that the soul, unless it be in the grave, will make no part of the person that is raised, unless, as your lordship argues against me, you * Pages 34, 35. † Page 37. + Ibid.

can make it out that a substance which never was in the grave may come out of it,' or that the soul is no substance.

"But, setting aside the substance of the soul, another thing that will make any one doubt whether this your interpretation of our Saviour's words be necessarily to be received as their true sense, is, that it will not be very easily reconciled to your saying you do not mean by the same body, 'the same individual particles which were united at the point of death;'* and yet, by this interpretation of our Saviour's words, you can mean no other particles but such as were united at the point of death, because you mean no other substance but what comes out of the grave; and no substance, no particles come out, you say, but what were in the grave; and I think your lordship will not say, that the particles that were separate from the body by perspiration before the point of death were laid up in the grave.

"But your lordship, I find, has an answer to this, † viz. that 'by comparing this with other places, you find that the words [of our Saviour above quoted] are to be understood of the substance of the body to which the soul was united, and not to' (I suppose your lordship writ of') 'those individual particles,' i. e. those individual particles that are in the grave at the resurrection; for so they must be read to make your lordship's sense entire, and to the purpose of your answer here; and then methinks this last sense of our Saviour's words, given by your lordship, wholly overturns the sense which you have given of them above, where from those words you press the belief of the resurrection of the same body, by this strong argument,-that a substance could not, upon hearing the voice of Christ, come out of the grave, which was never in the grave, There (as far as I can understand your words) your lordship argues that our Saviour's words must be understood of the particles in the grave, 'unless,' as your lordship says, 'one can make it out that a substance which never was in the grave may come out of it.' And here your lordship expressly says, that our Saviour's words are to be understood of the substance of that body to which the soul was [at any time] united, and not to those individual particles that are in the grave; which, put together, seems to me to say, that our Saviour's words are to be understood of those particles only that are in the grave, and not of those particles only which are in the grave, but of others also which have at any time been vitally united to the soul, but never were in the grave. "The next text your lordship brings to make the resurrection of the same body, in your sense, an article of faith, are these words of St. Paul: 'For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.' (2 Cor. v. 10.) To which your lordship subjoins this question: Can these words be understood of any other material substance, but that body in which these things were done?'t Answer. A man may suspend his determining the meaning of the apostle to be, that a sinner shall suffer for his sins in the very same body wherein he committed them; because St. Paul does not say he shall have the very same body when he suffers that he had when he sinned. The apostle says, indeed, 'done in his body.' The body he had and did things in at five or fifteen, was no doubt his body as much as that which he did things in at fifty was his body, though his body were not the very same body at those different ages; and so will the body which he shall have after the resurrection be his body, though it be not the very same with that which he had at five, or fifteen, or fifty. He that at threescore is broke on the wheel for a murder he committed at twenty, is punished for what he did in his body, though the body he has, i. e. his body at threescore, be not the same, i. e. made up of the same individual particles of matter that that body was which he had forty years before. When your lordship has resolved with yourself † Page 37. + Page 38.

* Page 34.