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England, and in London. But as in duration, fo in extenfion and bulk, there are fome ideas that are relative, which we fignify by names that are thought pofitive; as great and little are truly relations. For here alfo having, by obfervation, fettled in our minds the ideas of the bignefs of feveral fpecies of things, from those we have been most accustomed to, we make them as it were the standards whereby to denominate the bulk of others. Thus we call a great apple, fuch a one as is bigger than the ordinary fort of thofe we have been. ufed to; and a little horse, fuch a one as comes not up to the fize of that idea which we have in our minds to belong ordinarily to horfes; and that will be a great horfe to a Welshman, which is but a little one to a Fleming; they two having, from the different breed of their countries, taken feveral fized ideas to which they compare, and in relation to which they denominate their great and their little.

§ 6. Abfolute Terms often fland for Relations. So likewife queak and ftrong are but relative denominations of power compared to fome ideas we have at that time, of greater or lefs power. Thus, when we say a weak man, we mean one that has not fo much strength or power to move, as usually men have, or usually thofe of his fize have; which is a comparing his ftrength to the idea we have of the ufual strength of men, or men of fuch a fize. The like, when we fay the creatures are all weak things; weak, there, is but a relative term, fignifying the difproportion there is in the power of God and the creatures. And fo abundance of words, in ordinary fpeech, ftand only for relations (and perhaps the greatest part) which at first fight seem to have no fuch fignification; v. g. the fhip has neceflary ftores. Neceffary and fores are both relative words; one having a relation to the accomplishing the voyage intended, and the other to future ufe. All which relations, how they are confined to and terminate in ideas derived from fenfation and reflection, is too obvious to need any explica

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CHAP. XXVII.

OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY.

1. Wherein Identity confifts.

NOTHER occafion the mind often takes of comparing, is the very being of things, when confidering any thing as exifting at any determined time and place, we compare it with its self-existing at another time, and thereon form the ideas of identity and diverfity. When we fee any thing to be in any place in any instant of time, we are fure (be it what it will) that it is that very thing, and not another, which at that fame time exilts in another place, how like and undiftinguishable foever it may be in all other refpects: And in this confifts identity, when the ideas it is attributed to vary not at all from what they were that moment wherein we confider their former existence, and to which we compare the present. For we never finding nor conceiving it poffible, that two things of the fame kind fhould exift in the fame place at the fame time, we rightly conclude, that whatever exifts any where at any time, excludes all of the fame kind, and is there itself alone. When therefore we demand, whether any thing be the fame or no, it refers always to fomething that existed such a time in fuch a place, which it was certain at that inftant was the fame with itself, and no other. From whence it follows, that one thing cannot have two beginnings of existence, nor two things one beginning; it being impoffible for two things of the fame kind to be or exift in the fame inftant, in the very fame place, or one and the fame thing in different places. That therefore that had one beginning, is the fame thing; and that which had a different beginning in time and place from that, is not the fame, but diverfe. That which has made the difficulty about this relation, has been the little care and attention used in having precife notions of the things to which it is attributed.

§ 2. Identity of Subftances.

WE have the ideas but of three forts of fubftances; 1. God. 2. Finite intelligences. 3. Bodies. First, God is without beginning, eternal, unalterable, and every where; and therefore, concerning his identity there can be no doubt. Secondly, Finite fpirits having had each its determinate time and place of beginning to exift, the relation to that time and place will always determine to each of them its identity, as long as it exists. Thirdly, The fame will hold of every particle of matter, to which no addition or fubtraction of matter being made, it is the fame. For though these three forts of substances, as we term them, do not exclude one another out of the fame place, yet we cannot conceive but that they must neceffarily each of them exclude any of the fame kind out of the fame place: or else the notions and names of identity and diversity would be in vain, and there could be no fuch diftinction of subftances, or any thing elfe one from another. For example: Could two bodies be in the fame place at the fame time, then those two parcels of matter must be one and the fame, take them great or little. Nay, all bodies must be one and the fame; for, by the fame reafon that two particles of matter may be in one place, all bodies may be in one place; which, when it can be fuppofed, takes away the distinction of identity and diversity of one and more, and renders it ridiculous. But it being a contradiction that two or more should be one, identity and diverfity are relations and ways of comparing well founded, and of ufe to the understanding. All other things being but modes or relations ultimately terminated in fubftances, the identity and diversity of each particular existence of them too will be by the fame way determined: only as to things whofe exiftence is in fucceffion; fuch as are the actions of finite beings, v. g. motion and thought, both which confift in a continued train of fucceffion: Concerning their diverfity, there can be no question, because each perifhing the moment it begins, they cannot exist in different times, or in different places, as permanent beings can at different times

exift in diftant places; and therefore no motion or thought, confidered as at different times, can be the fame, each part thereof having a different beginning of existence.

3. Principium Individuationis.

FROM what has been faid, it is easy to discover what is fo much inquired after, the principium individuationis ; and that, it is plain, is existence itself, which determines a being of any fort to a particular time and place incommunicable to two beings of the fame kind. This, though it feems easier to conceive in fimple substances or modes, yet when reflected on, is not more difficult in compounded ones, if care be taken to what it is applied: v. g. Let us fuppofe an atom, i. e. a continued body, under one immutable fuperficies, exifting in a determined time and place; it is evident that, confidered in any inftant of its existence, it is in that inftant the fame with itself; for being at that inftant what it is, and nothing elfe, it is the fame, and fo must continue as long as its existence is continued; for fo long it will be the fame, and no other. In like manner, if two or more atoms be joined together into the fame mais, every one of those atoms will be the fame, by the foregoing rule; and whilft they exift united together, the mafs, confifting of the fame atoms, must be the fame mals, or the fame body, let the parts be ever fo differently jumbled; but if one of thefe atoms be taken away, or one new one added, it is no longer the fame mafs, or the fame body. In the ftate of living creatures, their identity depends not on a mafs of the fame particles, but on fomething elfe; for in them the variation of great parcels of matter alters not the identity: An oak growing from a plant to a great tree, and then lopped, is ftill the fame oak; and a colt grown up to a horfe, fometimes fat, fometimes lean, is all the while the fame horfe; though in both thefe cafes, there may be a manifeft change of the parts; so that truly they are not either of them the fame mafies of matter, though they be truly one of them the fame oak, and the other the fame horfe. The reafon whereof is,

that in these two cafes of a mafs of matter, and a living body, identity is not applied to the fame thing.

§ 4. Identity of Vegetables.

WE must therefore confider wherein an oak differs from a mass of matter, and that seems to me to be in this, that the one is only the cohesion of particles of matter any how united, the other fuch a difpofition of them as conftitutes the parts of an oak; and fuch an organization of those parts as is fit to receive and distribute nourishment, fo as to continue and frame the wood, bark, and leaves, &c. of an oak, in which confifts the vegetable life. That being then one plant which has fuch an organization of parts in one coherent body partaking of one common life, it continues to be the fame plant as long as it partakes of the fame life, though that life be communicated to new particles of matter vitally united to the living plant, in a like continued organiza tion conformable to that fort of plants. For this organization being at any one inftant in any one collection of matter, is in that particular concrete diftinguished from all other, and is that individual life, which exifting conftantly from that moment both forwards and backwards, in the fame continuity of infenfibly fucceeding parts united to the living body of the plant, it has that identity which makes the fame plant, and all the parts of it, parts of the fame plant, during all the time that they exift united in that continued organization, which is fit to convey that common life to all the parts fo united. § 5. Identity of Animals.

THE cafe is not fo much different in brutes, but that any one may hence fee what makes an animal, and continues it the fame. Something we have like this in machines, and may ferve to illuftrate it. For example, What is a watch? It is plain it is nothing but a fit organization, or conftruction of parts, to a certain end, which when a fufficient force is added to it, it is capable to attain. If we would suppose this machine one continued body, all whofe organized parts were repaired, increased or diminished, by a conftant addition or separation of infenfible parts, with one common life, we

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