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because personality is not a permanent but a transient thing, I can think of no argument to convince him of his error. But although it is by consciousness and memory that the sameness of our being is ascertained to ourselves, it is by no means correct to say with Locke, that consciousness constitutes personal identity; a doctrine which, as Butler justly remarks," involves, as an obvious consequence, "that a person has not existed a single moment, nor done "one action but what he can remember; indeed none but

"what he reflects upon. "One should really think "it self-evident," (as the same author further remarks) "that consciousness of personal identity presupposes, "and therefore cannot constitute personal identity, any "more than knowledge in any other case constitutes "those truths which are its own objects."-The previous existence of the truths is manifestly implied in the very supposition of their being objects of knowledge.

While, however, I assent completely to the substance of these acute and important strictures upon Locke's doctrine, I think it necessary for me to observe, that the language of Butler himself is far from being unexceptionable. He speaks of our consciousness of personal identity; whereas it must appear evident, upon a moment's reflection, even to those who acquiesce in the common statement which ascribes immediately to consciousness, our belief of our present existence,-that our belief of our personal identity presupposes, over and above this knowledge, the exercise of memory, and the idea of time. The importance of attending carefully to the distinc

* See the dissertation on personal identity, subjoined to Butler's Analogy.

tion between the phenomena which are the immediate objects of consciousness, and the concomitant notions and truths which are suggested to our thoughts by these phenomena, will appear from the considerations to be stated n the next chapter; in following which, however, I must request my readers to remember, that the distinction becomes important merely from the palpable refutation it affords of the prevailing theory concerning the origin of our knowledge; and not from any difference between the two classes of truths, in point of evidence.

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CHAPTER SECOND.

INCONSISTENCY OF OUR CONCLUSIONS IN THE FOREGOING CHAPTER WITH LOCKE'S ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN OF OUR KNOWLEDGE.

IT was already observed, that it is from consciousness,

or rather from reflection, that we derive all our notions of the faculties and operations of the mind; and that, in analysing these, we must lay our account with arriving, sooner or later, at certain simple notions or ideas, which we have no means of conveying to others, but by teaching those to whom our reasonings are addressed, how to direct their attention with accuracy to what passes within them. These mental phenomena form the direct and appropriate subjects of consciousness; and, indeed, the only direct and appropriate subjects of consciousness, in the strict acceptation of that word.

the

It must not, however, be concluded from this, that

proper subjects of consciousness (when the phrase is thus understood) comprehend all the simple notions or ideas about which the science of mind is conversant; far less (as some philosophers have imagined) that they comprehend all the elements into which human knowledge may, in the last result, be analysed. Not to mention such notions as those of extension and figure, (both of which are inseparable concomitants of some of our external perceptions, and which certainly bear no resemblance to any thing of which we are conscious within ourselves,) there is a great variety of others so connected K

memory,

with our different intellectual faculties, that the exercise of the faculty may be justly regarded as a condition indispensably necessary to account for the first origin of the notion. Thus, by a mind destitute of the faculty of neither the ideas of time, nor of motion, nor of personal identity, could possibly have been formed; ideas which are confessedly among the most familiar of all those we possess, and which cannot be traced immediately to consciousness, by any effort of logical subtilty. In like manner, without the faculty of abstraction, we never could have formed the idea of number; nor of lines, surfaces, and solids, as they are considered by the mathematician; nor would it have been possible for us to comprehend the meaning of such words as classes or assortments, or indeed of any one of the grammatical parts of speech, but proper names. Without the power of reason or understanding, it is no less evident, that no comment could have helped us to unriddle the import of the words, truth, certainty, probability, theorem, premises, conclusion; nor of any one of those which express the various sorts of relation which fall under our knowledge. In such eases, all that can be said is, that the exercise of a particular faculty furnishes the occasion on which certain simple notions are, by the laws of our constitution, presented to our thoughts; nor does it seem possible for us to trace the origin of a particular notion any farther, than to ascertain what the nature of the occasion was, which, in the first instance, introduced it to our acquaintance.

The conclusions we thus form concerning the origin of our knowledge, constitute what may be properly called the First Chapter of the natural history of the human mind. They constitute, at the same time, the only solid

basis of a rational logic; of that part of logic, more especially, which relates to the theory of evidence. In the order of investigation, however, they necessarily presuppose such an analysis of the faculties of the mind as I have attempted in another work;-a consideration of which I do not know that any logical writer has been hitherto aware; and which I must request my readers carefully to attend to, before they pass a judgment on the plan I have followed in the arrangement of my philosophical speculations.

If the foregoing remarks be well-founded, they are fatal to a fundamental principle of Locke's philosophy, which has been assumed by most of his successors as a demonstrated truth; and which, under a form somewhat disguised, has served to Hume as the basis of all his sceptical theories. It appears to me, that the doctrines of both these eminent authors, with respect to the origin of our ideas, resolve into the supposition, that consciousness is exclusively the source of all our knowledge. Their language, indeed, particularly that of Locke, seems to imply the contrary; but that this was really their opinion, may, with certainty, be inferred from their own comments. My reasons for saying so, I shall endeavour to explain as clearly and concisely as I can.

"Let us suppose" (says Locke) "the mind to be, as "we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any "ideas: How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fan"cy of man has painted on it, with an almost endless va"riety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and "knowledge? To this I answer in a word, from experi"ence: In that all our knowledge is founded, and from

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