This may show us
wherein personal identity consists: not in the identity of
substance, but, as I have said, in the identity of consciousness,
wherein if Socrates and the present mayor of Queinborough agree,
they are the same person: if the same Socrates waking and sleeping
do not partake of the same consciousness, Socrates waking and sleeping
is not the same person. And to punish Socrates waking for what
sleeping Socrates thought, and waking Socrates was never conscious of,
would be no more of right, than to punish one twin for what his
brother-twin did, whereof he knew nothing, because their outsides were
so like, that they could not be distinguished; for such twins have
been seen.
20. Absolute oblivion separates what is thus forgotten from the
person, but not from the man. But yet possibly it will still be
objected,- Suppose I wholly lose the memory of some parts of my
life, beyond a possibility of retrieving them, so that perhaps I shall
never be conscious of them again; yet am I not the same person that
did those actions, had those thoughts that I once was conscious of,
though I have now forgot them? To which I answer, that we must here
take notice what the word I is applied to; which, in this case, is the
man only. And the same man being presumed to be the same person, I
is easily here supposed to stand also for the same person.
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