§ 9. This being premised to find wherein personal Identity consists, we must consider what Person stands for; which, I think, is a thinking intelligent Being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider it self as it self, the same thinking thing in different times and places; which it does only by that consciousness, which is inseparable from thinking, and as it seems to me essential to it: It being impossible for any one to perceive, without perceiving, that he does perceive. When we see, hear, smell, taste, feel, meditate, or will any thing, we know that we do so. Thus it is always as to our present Sensations and Perceptions: And by this every one is to himself, that which he calls self: It not being considered in this case, whether the same self be continued in the same, or divers Substances. For since consciousness always accompanies thinking, and ’tis that, that makes every one to be, what he calls self; and thereby distinguishes himself from all other thinking things, in this alone consists personal Identity, i. e. the sameness of a rational Being: And as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past Action or Thought, so far reaches the Identity of that Person; it is the same self now it was then; and ’tis by the same self with this present one that now reflects on it, that that Action was done.
§ 10. But it is farther enquir’d, whether it be the same Identical Substance. This few would think they had reason to doubt [330]of, if these Perceptions, with their consciousness, always remain’d present in the Mind, whereby the same thinking thing would be always consciously present, and, as would be thought, evidently the same to it self. But that which seems to make the difficulty is this, that this consciousness, being interrupted always by forgetfulness, there being no moment of our Lives wherein we have the whole train of all our past Actions before our Eyes in one view: But even the best Memories losing the sight of one part whilst they are viewing another; and we sometimes and that the greatest part of our Lives, not reflecting on our past selves, being intent on our present Thoughts, and in sound sleep, having no Thoughts at all, or at least none with that consciousness, which remarks our waking Thoughts. I say, in all these cases, our consciousness being interrupted, and we losing the sight of our past selves, doubts are raised whether we are the same thinking thing; i. e. the same substance or no. Which however reasonable, or unreasonable, concerns not personal Identity at all. The Question being what makes the same Person, and not whether it be the same Identical Substance, which always thinks in the same Person, which in this case matters not at all. Different Substances, by the same consciousness (where they do partake in it) being united into one Person; as well as different Bodies, by the same Life are united into one Animal, whose Identity is preserved, in that change of Substances, by the unity of one continued Life. […]
§ 11. That this is so, we have some kind of Evidence in our very Bodies, all whose Particles, whilst vitally united to this same thinking conscious self, so that we feel when they are [332]touch’d, and are affected by, and conscious of good or harm that happens to them, are a part of our selves: i. e. of our thinking conscious self. Thus the Limbs of his Body is to every one a part of himself: He sympathizes and is concerned for them. Cut off an hand, and thereby separate it from that consciousness, we had of its Heat, Cold, and other Affections; and it is then no longer a part of that which is himself, any more than the remotest part of Matter. Thus we see the Substance, whereof personal self consisted at one time, may be varied at another, without the change of personal Identity: There being no Question about the same Person, though the Limbs, which but now were a part of it, be cut off.
§ 12. But the Question is, whether if the same Substance, which thinks, be changed, it can be the same Person, or remaining the same, it can be different Persons. […]
§ 13. […] 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 resolv’d, but by those, who know what kind of Substances they are, that do think; and whether the consciousness of past Actions can be transferr’d from one thinking Substance to another. […] it must be allowed, That if the same consciousness (which, as has been shewn, is quite a different thing from the same numerical Figure or Motion in Body) can be transferr’d from one thinking Substance to another, it will be possible, that two thinking Substances may make but one [334]person. For the same consciousness being preserv’d, whether in the same or different Substances, the personal Identity is preserv’d.
§ 14. 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 Actions of its past Duration, may be wholly stripp’d of all the consciousness of its past Existence, and lose it beyond the power of ever retrieving 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, ’tis plain Experience would be against them. So that personal Identity reaching no farther than consciousness reaches, a pre-existent Spirit not having continued so many Ages in a state of Silence, must needs make different Persons. […]
§ 15. And thus we may be able without any difficulty to conceive, the same Person at the Resurrection, though in a Body not exactly in make or parts the same which he had here, the same consciousness going along with the Soul that inhabits it. But yet the Soul alone in the change of Bodies, would scarce to any one, but to him that makes the Soul the Man, be enough to make the same Man. For should the Soul of a Prince, carrying with it the consciousness of the Prince’s past Life, enter and [336]inform the Body of a Cobler as soon as deserted by his own Soul, every one sees, he would be the same Person with the Prince, accountable only for the Prince’s Actions: But who would say it was the same Man? The Body too goes to the making the Man, and would, I guess, to every Body determine the Man in this case, wherein the Soul, with all its Princely Thoughts about it, would not make another Man: But he would be the same Cobler to every one besides himself. I know that in the ordinary way of speaking, the same Person, and the same Man, stand for one and the same thing. […] But yet when we will enquire, what makes the same Spirit, Man, or Person, we must fix the Ideas of Spirit, Man, or Person, in our Minds; and having resolved with our selves what we mean by them, it will not be hard to determine, in either of them, or the like, when it is the same, and when not.
§ 16. […] whatever has the consciousness of present and past Actions, is the same Person to whom they both belong. Had I the same consciousness, that I saw the Ark and Noah’s Flood, as that I saw an overflowing of the Thames last Winter, or as that I write now, I could no more doubt that I, that write this now, that saw the Thames overflow’d last Winter, and that view’d the Flood at the general Deluge, was the same self, place that self in what Substance you please, than that I that write this am the same my self now whilst I write (whether I consist of all the same Substance, material or immaterial, or no) that I [338]was Yesterday. For as to this point of being the same self, it matters not whether this present self be made up of the same or other Substances, I being as much concern’d, and as justly accountable for any Action that was done a thousand Years since, appropriated to me now by this self-consciousness, as I am, for what I did the last moment.
§ 17. Self is that conscious thinking thing, (whatever Substance, made up of whether Spiritual, or Material, Simple, or Compounded, it matters not) which is sensible, or conscious of Pleasure and Pain, capable of Happiness or Misery, and so is concern’d for it self, as far as that consciousness extends. Thus every one finds, that whilst comprehended under that consciousness, the little Finger is as much a part of it self, as what is most so. Upon separation of this little Finger, should this consciousness go along with the little Finger, and leave the rest of the Body, ’tis evident the little Finger would be the Person, the same Person; and self then would have nothing to do with the rest of the Body. As in this case it is the consciousness that goes along with the Substance, when one part is separate from another, which makes the same Person,