When we see anything to be in any place in any
instant of time, we are sure (be it what it will) that it is that very
thing, and not another which at that same time exists in another
place, how like and undistinguishable soever it may be in all other
respects: and in this consists identity, when the ideas it is
attributed to vary not at all from what they were that moment
wherein we consider their former existence, and to which we compare
the present. For we never finding, nor conceiving it possible, that
two things of the same kind should exist in the same place at the same
time, we rightly conclude, that, whatever exists anywhere at any time,
excludes all of the same kind, and is there itself alone. When
therefore we demand whether anything be the same or no, it refers
always to something that existed such a time in such a place, which it
was certain, at that instant, was the same 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
impossible for two things of the same kind to be or exist in the
same instant, in the very same place; or one and the same thing in
different places. That, therefore, that had one beginning, is the same
thing; and that which had a different beginning in time and place from
that, is not the same, but diverse.
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