An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1: MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books 1 and 2Locke, John
Philosophy
An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1: MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books 1 and 2
Locke, John
Knowledge, Theory of -- Early works to 1800
Nestor, than if some of the particles of smaller that were once a part
of Nestor were now a part of this man the same immaterial substance,
without the same consciousness, no more making the same person, by
being united to any body, than the same particle of matter, without
consciousness, united to any body, makes the same person. But let him
once find himself conscious of any of the actions of Nestor, he then
finds himself the same person with Nestor.
17. The body, as well as the soul, goes to the making of a Man.
And thus may we 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
inform the body of a cobbler, 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
everybody 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 cobbler 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. And indeed every one will always have a
liberty to speak as he pleases, and to apply what articulate sounds to
what ideas he thinks fit, and change them as often as he pleases. But
yet, when we will inquire 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 ourselves 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.
18. Consciousness alone unites actions into the same Person.
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