ESSAY XII. 477 Yet upon the whole, I think Mr. Locke is in the right, though the point has difficulties. And perhaps this is the truenotion of the sameness of matt as relating to this world only ; (viz.) That the same successive body changing itself by degrees, according to the laws of animal life, and united to the same conscious mind, must make the same man. 7.Iow far the doctrine of the resurrection requires the saine body, see Essay 8th foregoing. Thirdly, IIe comes to enquire in bis 9th section, wherein the sameness of a person consists, or personal identity. gore he first informs us, that he supposes, " A person is a thinking intel- ligent being, which has reason and reflection, and can consider itself asitself ; i. e. as the same thinking thing indifferent times and places, which it does only by that consciousness, which is in- separable from thinking." Now I question, whether we may so easily agree with him in this, as a sufficient account of what a person is. Let us consider a little. The words self and consciousness of self refer only to the pronoun I; but are not the pronouns thou and he personal pronouns as well as I ? Suppose Armando has slain his neighbour in the sight of Martys and Criton, and should be seized with sucha loss of memory afterward, or such distraction, as to blot out the consciousness of this action from the mind. Armando then would say, It was not I: But may not Martys and Criton still charge him, thou art the murderer ? May they not justly say of him, That he is guilty, and he should be put to death ? Are they not as good judges of the same per- son as Armando is himself ? What if Armando should deny the fact, as having really lost all consciousness of it ? Is he not still the same person that slew his neighbour ? Does not the witness of Martys and Criton declare him to be the sameperson ? They know his body to be the same .; and according to the laws of na- ture, they justly infer his soul must be the same also, whatsoever Armando's distraction might dictate concerning himself ; I think therefore, that the wort) person implies one thinking being, one intelligentsubstance, which is always the saine whether it be or be not conscious and mindful of its own actions in different times and phices.a But Mr. Locke seems to be of another mind ; for he adds, " By this consciousness every one is to himself that which he calls self; it not being considered in this ease, whether the saine selfbe continued in the same or divers substances. 'In this alone consists personal identity, that is, the sameness of u rational being." And in section 10th, the questien is, " What makes the same person, and not whether it be the same identical substance '5 This discourse' is entirely confined to personality among creatures,and has no reference to divine personality here.
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