4. "Identity," an idea not innate.
If identity (to instance that alone) be a native impression, and consequently so
clear and obvious to us that we must needs know it even from our cradles, I would gladly be resolved by any one
of seven, or seventy years old, whether a man, being a creature consisting of soul and body, be the same man
when his body is changed? Whether Euphorbus and Pythagoras, having had the same soul, were the same men,
though they lived several ages asunder? Nay, whether the cock too, which had the same soul, were not the same
with both of them? Whereby, perhaps, it will appear that our idea of sameness is not so settled and clear as to
deserve to be thought innate in us. For if those innate ideas are not clear and distinct, so as to be universally
known and naturally agreed on, they cannot be subjects of universal and undoubted truths, but will be the
unavoidable occasion of perpetual uncertainty. For, I suppose every one's idea of identity will not be the same that
Pythagoras and thousands of his followers have. And which then shall be true? Which innate? Or are there two
different ideas of identity, both innate?
