And therefore those who
place thinking in an immaterial substance only, before they can come
to deal with these men, must show why personal identity cannot be
preserved in the change of immaterial substances, or variety of
particular immaterial substances, as well as animal identity is
preserved in the change of material substances, or variety of
particular bodies: unless they will say, it is one immaterial spirit
that makes the same life in brutes, as it is one immaterial spirit
that makes the same person in men; which the Cartesians at least
will not admit, for fear of making brutes thinking things too.
13. Whether in change of thinking substances there can be one
person. But next, as to the first part of the question, Whether, if
the same thinking substance (supposing immaterial substances only to
think) be changed, it can be the same person? I answer, that cannot be
resolved but by those who know what kind of substances they are that
do think; and whether the consciousness of past actions can be
transferred from one thinking substance to another. I grant were the
same consciousness the same individual action it could not: but it
being a present representation of a past action, why it may not be
possible, that that may be represented to the mind to have been
which really never was, will remain to be shown.
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