That which has made the difficulty
about this relation has been the little care and attention used in
having precise notions of the things to which it is attributed.
2. Identity of substances. We have the ideas but of three sorts of
substances: 1. God. 2. Finite intelligences. 3. Bodies.
First, God is without beginning, eternal, unalterable, and
everywhere, and therefore concerning his identity there can be no
doubt.
Secondly, Finite spirits having had each its determinate time and
place of beginning to exist, the relation to that time and place
will always determine to each of them its identity, as long as it
exists.
Thirdly, The same will hold of every particle of matter, to which no
addition or subtraction of matter being made, it is the same. For,
though these three sorts of substances, as we term them, do not
exclude one another out of the same place, yet we cannot conceive
but that they must necessarily each of them exclude any of the same
kind out of the same place: or else the notions and names of
identity and diversity would be in vain, and there could be no such
distinctions of substances, or anything else one from another. For
example: could two bodies be in the same place at the same time;
then those two parcels of matter must be one and the same, take them
great or little; nay, all bodies must be one and the same.
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