affirmation of absolute identity may not be equally consistent? “Behold the child, by nature's kindly law, Pleas'd with a rattle, tickled with a straw; Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, A little louder, but as empty quite; Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage; And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age. Pleas'd with this bauble still, as that before; Till, tir'd, he sleeps,--and life's poor play is o'er.”[48] The supposed test of identity, when applied to the mind in these cases, completely fails. It neither affects, nor is affected, in the same manner, in the same circumstances. It, therefore, if the test be a just one, is _not_ the same identical mind. This argument against the identity of the mind, drawn from the occasional striking contrasts of character in the same individual at different periods of life, or when, by great changes of fortune, he may have been placed suddenly in circumstances remarkably different, must, in some degree, have forced itself upon every one who has been at all accustomed to reflect; and yet, in no one instance, I may safely say, can it have produced conviction even for a moment. I have stated it to you, without attempting to lessen its force by any allusion to the fallacy on which it is founded; because the nature of this fallacy is afterwards to be fully considered by us. There is another argument that may be urged against the identity of the sentient and thinking principle, which has at least equal semblance of force, though it does not occur so readily, because it does not proceed on those general and lasting changes of character with which every one must be struck, but on the passing phenomena of the moment, which are not inconsistent with a continuance of the _same general character_, and which, as common to all mankind, and forming, indeed, the whole customary and familiar series of our thoughts and emotions, excite no astonishment when we look back on them in the order of their succession.