fhould have fomething very much like the body of an animal, with this difference, that in an animal the fitnefs of the organization, and the motion wherein life confifts, begin together, the motion coming from within; but in machines, the force coming fenfibly from without, is often away when the organ is in order, and well fitted to receive it.

§6. Identity of Man.

THIS alfo fhows wherein the identity of the fame man confifts, viz. in nothing but a participation of the same continued life, by constantly fleeting particles of matter, in fucceflion vitally united to the fame organized body. He that fhall place the identity of man in any thing elfe, but, like that of other animals, in one fitly organized body, taken in any one inftant, and from thence continued under one organization of life in feveral fucceffively flecting particles of matter united to it, will find it hard to make an embryo, one of years, mad and fober, the fame man, by any fuppofition, that will not make it poffible for Seth, Ifmael, Socrates, Pilate, St. Auftin, and Cæfar Borgia, to be the fame man. For if the identity of foul alone makes the fame man, and there be nothing in the nature of matter, why the fame individual fpirit may not be united to different bodies, it will be poffible that thofe men living in diftant ages, and of different tempers, may have been the fame man; which way of fpeaking muft be, from a very ftrange use of the word man, applied to an idea, out of which body and fhape is excluded: And that way of Speaking would agree yet worfe with the notions of thofe philofophers who allow of tranfmigration, and are of opinion that the fouls of men may, for their miscarriages, be detruded into the bodies of beafts, as fit habitations, with organs fuited to the fatisfaction of their brutal inclinations. But yet, I think, nobody, could he be fure that the foul of Heliogabalus were in one of his hogs, would yet fay, that hog were a man or Heliogabalus.

§2. Identity fuited to the Idea.

It is not therefore unity of fubftance that comprehends

all forts of identity, or will determine it in every cafe; but to conceive and judge of it aright, we muft confider what idea the word it is applied to ftands for; it being one thing to be the fame fubjlance, another the fame man, and a third the fame perfon, if person, man, and fubfiance are three names ftanding for three different ideas; for fuch as is the idea belonging to that name, fuch must be the identity: which, if it had been a litle more carefully attended to, would poffibly have prevented a great deal of that confufion, which often occurs about this matter, with no fall feeming difficulties, especially concerning perfonal identity, which therefore we fhall in the next place a little confider.

8. Same Man.

AN animal is a living organized body; and confequently the fame animal, as we have obferved, is the fame continued life communicated to different particles of matter, as they happen fucceffively to be united to that organized living body. And whatever is talked of other definitions, ingenious obfervation puts it paft doubt, that the idea in our minds, of which the found man in our mouths is the fign, is nothing effe but of an animal of fuch a certain form: fince I think I may be confident, that whoever should see a creature of his own fhape and make, though it had no more reafon all its life than a cat or a parrot, would call him still a man ; or whoever fhould hear a cat or a parrot difcourfe, reafon and philofophife, would call or think it nothing but a cat or a parrot, and fay, the one was a dull irrational man, and the other a very intelligent rational parrot. A relation we have in an author of great note, is fufficient to countenance the fuppofition of a rational parrot. His

words are :

"I had a mind to know from Prince Maurice's own "mouth, the account of a common, but much credited "ftory, that I had heard so often from many others, of "an old parrot he had in Brafil during his government. "there, that spoke, and afked and answered common • Memoirs of what paffed in Chriftendom, from 1672 to 1679, P.57-39%.

Book II. "questions like å reasonable creature; fo that those of "his train there generally concluded it to be witchery or poffeffion; and one of his chaplains, who lived "long afterwards in Holland, would never from that "time endure a parrot, but said they all had a devil in "them. I had heard many particulars of this ftory, "and affevered by people hard to be difcredited, which "made me afk Prince Maurice what there was of it. "He faid, with his ufual plainnefs and drynefs in talk, "there was fomething true, but a great deal falfe, of "what had been reported. I defired to know of him •• what there was of the first? He told me short and "coldly, that he had heard of fuch an old parrot "when he came to Brafil; and though he believ"ed nothing of it, and it was a good way off, yet "he had fo much of curiofity as to fend for it: That "it was a very great and a very old one; and when it came first into the room where the prince was, with "a great many Dutchmen about him, it faid prefent"ly, What a company of white men are here! They "afked it, what he thought that man was, pointing "to the prince? It anfwered, Some general or other. "When they brought it close to him, he asked it, * D'ou "venes vous? It answered, De Marinnan. The prince, "A qui efles vous? The parrot, A un Portugais. Prince, "Que fais tu la? Parrot, Je garde les poulles. The

prince laughed, and faid, Vous gardes les poulles? "The parrot answered, Ouy moy, & je feay 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, "just as Prince Maurice faid them to me. I asked

"him in what language the parrot spoke, and he said, "in Brafilian; I afked, whether he understood Brafi"lian? He faid no; but he had taken care to have

« Whence come ye?" It answered, " From Marinnan." The prince, "To whom do you belong?" The parrot," To a Portuguese." Prince, "What do you there?" Parrot, "I look after the chickens." The prince laughed, and faid, "You look after the chickens?" The parrot answered, " Yes I, and I know well enough how to do it."

"two interpreters by him, the one a Dutchman that "fpoke Brafilian, and the other a Brafilian that spoke "Dutch; that be afked them feparately and privately, "and both of them agreed in telling him juft the fame "thing that the parrot faid. I could not but tell this "odd ftory, because it is fo much out of the way, "and from the firft hand, and what may pafs for a "good one; for, I dare fay, this prince at least be"lieved himself in all he told me, having ever paffed for 66 a very honest and pious man: I leave it to naturalists "to reafon, and to other men to believe as they please "upon it. However, it is not perhaps amifs to relieve "or enliven a bufy fcene fometimes with fuch digref "fions, whether to the purpose or no."

Same Man.

I HAVE taken care that the reader should have the story at large, in the author's own words, because he seems to me not to have thought it incredible; for it cannot be imagined that so able a man as he, who had sufficiency 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 honesty and piety, a story which, if he himself thought incredible, he could not but also think ridiculous. The prince, it is plain, who vouches this ftory, and our author, who relates it from him, both of them call this talker a parrot; and I ask any one elfe, who thinks fuch a story fit to be told, whether if this parrot, and all of its kind, had always talked, as we have a prince's word for it, as 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 fhifted all at once, muft, as

well as the fame immaterial fpirit, go to the making of

fame man.

$9. Perfonal Identity.

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 itself, the fame thinking thing in different times and places; which it does by that confcioufnefs which is infeparable from thinking, and, as it seems 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 himfelf that which he calls felf; it not being confidered in this cafe, whether the fame felf be continued in the fame or divers fubftances: For, fince consciousness always accompanies thinking, and it is that that 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 fameness of a rational being: And as far as this confciousness can be extended backwards to any paft 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. Consciousness makes perfonal Identity.

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, 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 seems to make the difficulty is this, that this confcioufnefs being interrupted always by forgetfulness, there being no moment of our lives wherein we have the whole train of all our past actions before our eyes in one view, but even the best