Book 2. "vous? It answered, De Marinnan. The prince, A qui eftes vous? The parrot, A un Portugais. Prince, Que fais tu la? Parrot, Je garde les poulles. The prince laughed, and faid, Vous gardez les poulles? "The parrot anfwered, Oui moi, & je fcai bien faire; "and made the chuck four or five times that people "ufe to make to chickens when they call them. I fet "down the words of this worthy dialogue in French, juft as prince Maurice faid them to me. I asked "him in what language the parrot spoke, and he said, "in Brafilian; I asked whether he understood Brafi"lian; he faid, no, but he had taken care to have two interpreters by him, the one a Dutchman that spoke "Brafilian, and the other a Brafilian that spoke "Dutch; that he asked them feparately and privately, "and both of them agreed in telling him juft the fame thing that the parrot had faid. I could not but tell "this odd ftory, because it is fo much out of the way, "and from the first hand, and what may pafs for a good "one; for I dare fay this prince at least believed him"felf in all he told me, having ever paffed for a very "honeft and pious man: I leave it to naturalifts to " reason, and to other men to believe, as they please upon it; however, it is not, perhaps, amifs to re"lieve or enliven a bufy fcene fometimes with fuch digreffions, whether to the purpose or no." I have taken care that the reader fhould Same man. have the ftory at large in the author's own words, because he feems to me not to have thought it incredible; for it cannot be imagined that fo able a man as he, who had fufficiency enough to warrant all the teftimonies he gives of himself, fhould take fo much pains, in a place where it had nothing to do, to pin fo close not only on a man whom he mentions as his friend, but on a prince in whom he acknowledges very great honefty and piety, a ftory, which if he himfelf thought incredible, he could not but also think ridiculous. The prince, it is plain, who vouches this story, and our author, who relates it from him, both of them call this talker a parrot: and I afk any one elfe, who thinks fuch a flory fit to be told, whether if Perfonal identity. 333 this parrot, and all of its kind, had always talked, as we have a prince's word for it this one did, whether, I fay, they would not have paffed for a race of rational animals but yet whether for all that they would have been allowed to be men, and not parrots? For I prefume it is not the idea of a thinking or rational being alone that makes the idea of a man in moft people's fenfe, but of a body, fo and fo fhaped, joined to it: and if that be the idea of a man, the fame fucceffive body not shifted all at once, muft, as well as the same immaterial fpirit, go to the making of the fame man. §. 9. This being premifed, to find wherein perfonal identity confifts, we must confider what perfon ftands for; which, I think, is a thinking intelligent being, that has reafon and reflection, and can confider itfelf as itfelf, the fame thinking thing in different times and places; which it does only by that confcioufnefs which is infeparable from thinking, and as it feems to me effential to it: it being impoffible for any one to perceive, without perceiving that he does perceive. When we fee, hear, fmell, tafte, feel, meditate, or will any thing, we know that we do fo. Thus it is always as to our prefent fenfations and perceptions: and by this every one is to himself that which he calls felf; it not being confidered in this case whether the fame felf be continued in the fame or divers fubftances. For fince conscioufnefs always accompanies thinking, and it is that which makes every one to be what he calls felf, and thereby diftinguishes himself from all other thinking things; in this alone confifts perfonal identity, i. e. the famenefs of a rational being: and as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought, fo far reaches the identity of that perfon; it is the fame felf now it was then; and it is by the fame felf with this prefent one that now reflects on it, that that action was done. §. 10. But it is farther inquired, whether it be the fame identical fubftance? This few would think they had reafon to doubt of, if thefe perceptions, with their Confcioufnefs makes perfonal identity. соп confciousness, always remained prefent in the mind, whereby the fame thinking thing would be always confciously prefent, and, as would be thought, evidently the fame to itself. But that which feems 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 paft actions before our eyes in one view, but even the best memories lofing the fight of one part whilft they are viewing another; and we fometimes, and that the greatest part of our lives, not reflecting on our past felves, being intent on our present thoughts, and in found fleep having no thoughts at all, or at least none with that consciousness which remarks our waking thoughts: I fay, in all these cafes, our confciousness being interrupted, and we lofing the fight of our paft felves, doubts are raised whether we are the fame thinking thing, i. e. the same substance or no. Which, however reasonable or unreasonable, concerns not perfonal identity at all the queftion, being, what makes the fame perfon, and not whether it be the fame identical fubftance, which always thinks in the fame perfon; which in this cafe matters not at all: different fubftances, by the fame consciousness, (where they do partake in it) being united into one perfon, as well as different bodies by the fame life are united into one animal, whose identity is preferved, in that change of fubftances, by the unity of one continued life. For it being the fame confciousness that makes a man be himself to himself, perfonal identity depends on that only, whether it be annexed folely to one individual fubftance, or can be continued in a fucceffion of feveral fubftances. For as far as any intelligent being can repeat the idea of any past action with the fame confcioufnefs it had of it at first, and with the fame consciousness it has of any prefent action; fo far it is the fame perfonal felf. For it is by the confcioufnefs it has of its prefent thoughts and actions, that it is felf to itself now, and fo will be the fame felf, as far as the fame confciousness can extend to actions paft or to come; and would be by distance of time, or change of fubftance, no more two 8 perfons, Perfonal fubftances. perfons, than a man be two men by wearing other §. 12. But the queftion is, "whether if the fame "fubftance which thinks, be changed, it can be the fame perfon; or, remaining the fame, it can be dif"ferent perfons?" Whether in the change of thinking fub ftances. And to this I answer, firft, This can be no question at all to thofe who place thought in a purely material animal conftitution, void of an immaterial fubftance. For whether their fuppofition be true or no, it is plain they conceive perfonal identity preferved in fomething elfe than identity of fubftance; as animal identity is preserved in identity of life, and not of fubftance. And therefore thofe who place thinking in an immaterial fubftance only, before they can come to deal with these men, must show why perfonal identity cannot be preferved in the change of immaterial fubftances, or variety of particular immaterial fubftances, as well as animal identity is preferved in the change of materia fubftances! Book 2. fubftances, or variety of particular bodies: unless they will fay, it is one immaterial fpirit that makes the fame life in brutes, as it is one immaterial spirit that makes the fame perfon in men; which the Cartefians at least will not admit, for fear of making brutes thinking things too. . 13. But next, as to the firft part of the queftion, "whether if the fame thinking fubftance (fuppofing "immaterial fubftances only to think) be changed, it " can be the fame perfon?" I anfwer, that cannot be refolved, but by those who know what kind of fubftances they are that do think, and whether the confcioufnefs of paft actions can be transferred from one thinking fubftance to another. I grant, were the fame consciousness the fame individual action, it could not: but it being a prefent representation of a past action, why it may not be poffible, that that may be represented to the mind to have been, which really never was, will remain to be fhown. And therefore how far the consciousness of past actions is annexed to any individual agent, fo that another cannot poffibly 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 fubftances, who cannot think without being conscious of it. But that which we call the fame consciousness, not being the fame individual act, why one intellectual fubftance may not have reprefented to it, as done by itself, what it never did, and was perhaps done by fome other agent; why, I fay, fuch a reprefentation may not poffibly be without reality of matter of fact, as well as feveral reprefentations in dreams are, which yet whilft dreaming we take for true, will be difficult to conclude from the nature of things. And that it never is fo, will by us, till we have clearer views of the nature of thinking fubftances, be beft refolved into the goodnefs of God, who, as far as the happinefs or mifery of any of his fenfible creatures is concerned in it, will not by a fatal error of theirs transfer from one to another that confcioufnefs which draws reward or punishment with it. How far this may be an argument. against |