But
yet, to return to the question before us, it must be allowed, that, if
the same consciousness (which, as has been shown, is quite a different
thing from the same numerical figure or motion in body) can be
transferred from one thinking substance to another, it will be
possible that two thinking substances may make but one person. For the
same consciousness being preserved, whether in the same or different
substances, the personal identity is preserved.
14. Whether, the same immaterial substance remaining, there can be
two persons. As to the second part of the question, Whether the same
immaterial substance remaining, there may be two distinct persons;
which question seems to me to be built on this,- Whether the same
immaterial being, being conscious of the action of its past
duration, may be wholly stripped of all the consciousness of its
past existence, and lose it beyond the power of ever retrieving it
again: and so as it were beginning a new account from a new period,
have a consciousness that cannot reach beyond this new state. All
those who hold pre-existence are evidently of this mind; since they
allow the soul to have no remaining consciousness of what it did in
that pre-existent state, either wholly separate from body, or
informing any other body; and if they should not, it is plain
experience would be against them.
Pages:
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490