10. Consciousness makes personal identity.
But it is further inquired, whether it be the same identical substance.
This few would think they had reason to doubt of, if these perceptions, with their consciousness, always remained
present in the mind, whereby the same thinking thing would be always consciously present, and, as would be
thought, evidently the same to itself. 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. For, it being
the same consciousness that makes a man be himself to himself, personal identity depends on that only, whether it
be annexed solely to one individual substance, or can be continued in a succession of several substances. For as
far as any intelligent being can repeat the idea of any past action with the same consciousness it had of it at first,
and with the same consciousness it has of any present action; so far it is the same personal self. For it is by the
consciousness it has of its present thoughts and actions, that it is self to itself now, and so will be the same self, as
far as the same consciousness can extend to actions past or to come. and would be by distance of time, or change
of substance, no more two persons, than a man be two men by wearing other clothes to-day than he did yesterday,
with a long or a short sleep between: the same consciousness uniting those distant actions into the same person,
whatever substances contributed to their production.
