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125 u essay iv u Personal Identityi Every man by nature has a sense of himself and of hisownexistence;which, for the most part, accompanies every thought and action. I say, for themost part, because this sense does not always operate. In a dead sleep we have no consciousness of self. And even some of our waking thoughts pass without it: during a reverie, the mind never thinks of itself. Without this sense, mankind would be in a perpetual reverie: ideas constantly floating in the mind without ever being connected with self. Neither would there be any notion of personal identity; for a man cannot consider himself to be the same person at different times, when he has no consciousness of himself at all. This consciousness is of a lively kind. Self-preservation is every one’s peculiar care; and the vivacity of that consciousness makes us attentive to our own interest, particularly to shun every appearance of danger: a man in a reverie has no attention to himself. It is remarkable, that one seldom falls asleep till this consciousness vanisheth: its vivacity preserves the mind in motion so as to bar sleep. A purling stream disposes to sleep: it fixes the attention both by sound and sight; and without creating any agitation in the mind, occupies it so much as to make it forget itself. The reading of some books, by similar means, produces the same effect. The consciousness of self leads me to attribute self to others as I do to myself. When I talk to a person, I say yourself. When I talk of a person, I say his self. When I talk of a thing, I say itself. I know not by what wrong bias many learned men have been led tothink that nothing is to be believed but what can be demonstrated logically.How came they to overlook the evidence of their senses, internal and external, which in instances without number produces conviction superior to that 126 personal identity of the strictest demonstration? The celebrated Des Cartes was agreatmathematician ;andsomuchaccustomedtodemonstration,thathewouldadmit no truth but what could be demonstrated in form. So arrant a Quixote was he on this subject, that he was pleased to doubt even of his own existence, till he discovered that notable argument cogito, ergo sum.1 Had he not as good reason to doubt of his thinking as of his existing? Strange! that in a long life the absurdity of this argument never occurred to him. A plainman would have informed him, that every human being has as thorough a conviction of his existence without reasoning, as the most expert mathematician can have with it. So much for self. We proceed to personal identity. Animals are divided by nature into kinds or species, the individuals of each kind having uniformly the same external figure and internal disposition; but differing in both from the individuals of other kinds. Hence identity of kind in contradistinction to every other kind. Next, though the corporeal part of an animal is continually changing by perspiration and admission, yet it continues the same animal from birth to dissolution, the same with respect to its life, its faculties, its temper and disposition. Thus identity is predicated of an animal in contradistinction to every other animal. What is here said with respect to animals is equally applicable to plants. Identity is also attributed to works of art, changes in the component parts notwithstanding. A ship may have been repaired at different times, till not a single original rope or plank be left. It is however held to be the same ship, not now from its component parts, but from thesameideabeing applied to it in all its changes. Law conforms itself to this sort of identity: a man is entitled to have a watch he had lost restored to him, considerable alterations in its constituent parts notwithstanding. The identity of a river cannot depend on the water, which is continually flowing; nor on the bed, which frequently changes, but on the same idea being invariably attributed to it in all its changes. The name of a ship, of a river, or of any work of art, tends to keep the mind steady in its idea of their identity. The identity of an animal or of a plant is the work of nature, independent of our ideas: 1. René Descartes, Discourse on Method (1637; reprint, trans. Donald A. Cress, Indianapolis : Hackett Publishing, 1998), pt. 4, p. 18. [18.116.118.244...

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