CHAPTER VI. 877 in the nature of things by any certain and unalterable bounds: the essences of many things do not consist in indivisibility, 'or in one evident indivisible point, as some have imagined ; but by va- rious degrees they approach nearer to, or differ more from others that are of a kindred nature. So (as I have hinted before) is the very middle of each of the arches of a rainbow, the colours of green, yellow, and red, are sufficiently distinguished ; but near the borders of the several arches they run into one another, so that you hardly know how to limitthe colours, nor whether to call it red, or yellow, green, or blue. 5th, As the highest or chief genuses, namely, being and not- being, can never be defined, because there is no genus su- perior to them ; so neither can single ideas or individuals be well defined, because either they have no essential differences from other individuals, or their differences are not known ; and there- fore individuals are only to be described by their particular cir- cumstances ; so I {ing George is distinguished from all other men and other kings, by describing him as the first king of Great- Britain of the _louse of Brunswick; and Westminster -Hall is described by its situation and its use, 81c. That individual bodies can hardly have any essential differ- ence, at least within the reach of our knowledge, may be made thus to appear ; Methuselah, when he was nine hundred and sixty years old, and perhaps worn out with age and weakness, was the same person as when he was in his full vigour of man- hood, or when he was an infant newly born ; but how far was his body the same ? Who can tell whether there was any fibre of his flesh or his bones that continued the same throughout his whole life ? Or who can determine which were those fibres? The ship in which Sir Frances Drake sailed round the world, might be new built, and refitted so often, that few of the same timbers remained ; and who can say whether it must be called the same ship or no? And what is its essential difference.? I3ow shall we define Sir Francis Drake's ship, or make a definition for Methuselah ? To this bead belongs that most difficult question, What is the principle of individuation f Or what is it that makes any one thing the same as it was some time before ? This is too large and laborious an enquiry to dwell upon in this place : yet I cannot forbear to mention this hint, namely, since our own bodies must rise at the last (lay for us to receive rewards or punishments in them, there may be perhaps seine original fi':res of each human body, some stamina vita, or primeval seed of life, which may remain unchanged through all the stages of life, death and the grave ; these may become the springs and principles of a resurrection, and sufficient to denominate it the same body. But if there hb any such constant and vital atoms which distin- guish every human body, they are known to God only.
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