that our own personal identity, and our own consciousness of it, are two distinct ideas; and that the former never can be constituted by the latter. Consciousness therefore never can constitute identity, though it is the only infallible evidence which we seem to have of it.

Whether consciousness be any thing more than an action of the mind, is not for me at present to inquire; but of this we are certain, that identity must, in its own nature, be immutable, intransferable, and exempted from all changes; and consequently our consciousness of it must, by being founded upon it, be equally permanent, (if its report be true) however fluctuating and unstable it may be in its own nature. In fact we can have no conception of consciousness, when detached from an object; and therefore we can have no decisive mark, by which to determine upon its nature. But, admitting it to be in itself nothing more than an action of the mind; nothing perhaps can be a greater mark of folly, than to conceive that our personal identity can consist in that which is fleeting, transitory, and unstable.

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As consciousness must either be an action, which results from some substance, or the peculiar modification of some substance itself; it must in the order of nature presuppose the existence of that substance from which it results, or of which it is a modification; because no peculiar modification can be coeval with the thing modified. And if, in the order of nature, the substance must have existed previously to those actions which result from it, and to those modifications which it may afterwards assume; it follows with all the evidence of demonstration, that

the identity of the substance, whether material or immaterial, can neither consist in, nor depend upon those actions or modifications of being, which depend entirely upon the substance itself for their own existence. I therefore think it to be unquestionable and decisive, that consciousness can never constitute the identity of any substance, whether material or immaterial though it must be the most unquestionable, and perhaps the only evidence which we have of its existence.

If consciousness constitute personal identity, it will follow, that where there is no consciousness there can be no identity. And, admitting the sentiments of those to be true, who discard all spiritual substances from the world, and admitting also that all matter is inert; there can be no such thing as identity in existence. And, to avoid these contradictions and absurdities, we must conclude that whether the substance in question, (if purely material) be animate or inanimate, its identity can neither be constituted nor destroyed by any mode of consciousness, which may either reside within or result from it..

Every distinct individual must have a distinct principle of identity, which cannot possibly lose itself in the identity of another; we now satisfactorily know that Peter is not Thomas, that Thomas is not Richard, and that Richard is not John. But all this might have been, if personal identity had no existence. It is only from the existence of identity, that it can be distinguished from that diversity, or that one individual can be distinguished from another; and the instant we suppose personal identity to be

destroyed, from that very instant the distinction between identity and diversity must be done away. But, if identity in the abstract be admitted to exist, and to exist as universally as substance, which cannot be denied, and yet to be constituted by a consciousness which is less universal; it will follow that identity is universal and not universal at the same time, which is a plain contradiction. Consciousness therefore can never constitute that identity, of which, to ourselves, it is an unquestionable evidence. As, therefore, some fixed principle of personal identity must be admitted, to render our consciousness of ourselves permanent and decisive; the question seems to be placed beyond all doubt, that neither our consciousness of an action, nor our consciousness of our own performance of it, can any longer retain either its name or nature, than while this fixed principle, upon which it is dependent, remains in a permanent state of being.

Were it possible that this principle of identity could be changed, while our consciousness of its sameness remained entire; the evidence of our consciousness would be falsified by fact. And in this case, as we could have no assurance whatever, that our consciousness of our own personal identity was founded upon that identity; we must instantly banish all our notions of assurance from the world, and place ourselves in a condition which would oblige us to doubt even of our own existence; and finally to doubt the existence even of those doubts which we professed to entertain. In short, it would introduce universal scepticism, which would reduce the

mind to a chaos of contradictions. For, should my consciousness presume to assure me, that I am now in point of personal identity the same person that I was ten or fifteen years ago, when in reality I am so far changed, that what then performed an action to which my consciousness bear witness, is now no longer in existence; the internal report of my consciousness must be falsified by the removal of that identity to which it bears witness. And, if the only evidence which I can possibly have of my own per sonal identity, deceive me, I am at once deprived of the only proof which can ascertain its existence, and by which I can distinguish the same from another. But, since these conclusions are contradictory and so big with absurdity, that they cannot be admitted, it appears infallibly certain, that while our consciousness of our own identity remains, the identity of our being must remain also; and that it is demonstrated to be the same, by that consciousness which we have of it. Without this, our consciousness of identity must be a consciousness of it, and no consciousness of it at the same time; and the conciousness of our own identity and not of our own identity in the same instant. And, as this act of consciousness which demonstrates the sameness of my person, must look backward through reiterated acts, to form a contact with that distant action which I am conscious that I performed in an early period of my life; so, as it will infallibly prove the certainty of 'that action, as that I am the same person that then and there performed it. And to deny the truth of these sentiments, we must suppose

that my consciousness of that early action is no consciousness of it; so that it will be consciousness and. no consciousness at the same time.

The certainty of an action will infallibly prove the certainty of an actor; and my consciousness that I am the person, and that that action was performed by me, will be indubitable evidence of both. And the future consciousness, which at any given period I may have of these facts, will prove with equal certainty (because consciousness of personal identity never can be transferred) that the substance in which that consciousness may inhere continues the same, whatever may be its abstract nature. Hence then we obtain, through the evidence of consciousness, a satisfactory assurance that it remains the same, notwithstanding all the mutations and modes and accidents to which we may have been exposed, during the intermediate spaces of duration, which have elapsed between the time of the action, and that time, when in future I may be conscious of it.

But, while I thus assert that our reiterated acts of consciousness, following in regular succession, will form an unbroken chain of evidence, of the most decisive nature, through which the sameness of that principle in which this consciousness inheres, and the certainty of the action may be to myself demonstrated; I would by no means insinuate that this chain of evidence will inform me what this principle of identity is, or how it is constituted. To know with precision in what it consists, must be a subject of distinct inquiry, with which this species of evi