Thus any
part of our bodies, vitally united to that which is conscious in us,
makes a part of ourselves: but upon separation from the vital union by
which that consciousness is communicated, that which a moment since
was part of ourselves, is now no more so than a part of another
man's self is a part of me: and it is not impossible but in a little
time may become a real part of another person. And so we have the same
numerical substance become a part of two different persons; and the
same person preserved under the change of various substances. Could we
suppose any spirit wholly stripped of all its memory or
consciousness of past actions, as we find our minds always are of a
great part of ours, and sometimes of them all; the union or separation
of such a spiritual substance would make no variation of personal
identity, any more than that of any particle of matter does. Any
substance vitally united to the present thinking being is a part of
that very same self which now is; anything united to it by a
consciousness of former actions, makes also a part of the same self,
which is the same both then and now.
26. "Person" a forensic term. Person, as I take it, is the name
for this self. Wherever a man finds what he calls himself, there, I
think, another may say is the same person. It is a forensic term,
appropriating actions and their merit; and so belongs only to
intelligent agents, capable of a law, and happiness, and misery.
Pages:
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502