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But it may be remarked that our adult impressions os sense are fallaciotis: that each object casis an inverted reflection on theretina of the eye. This Would be valid objection could it boshown that a similar idea is presented to the mirid, but of tho communication we know nothing. Supposing that tho idea os the mind coincidod with the image of the eye, stili ali thingsbeside Would bo in the fame position. The inversion would begenerat. Lord Manssield has decided that thsero is no law in this happy country against Walking in the air With tho Dot
We are told that our senses are not Worthy os implicit credit: that their misinformations are frequent. We arereminded that, When We gage On the Setting Sun, We See notthe orb itself, hecause a limb of Our earth is interposed be- tween ii and our cye. But though the horigon is uiareat, bytho laws of rofraction it is the fame to Us as is the sun Were actually upon it,-and the light talis With as true an impaci onour sense of vision. Is I see a mali frona a height he appears diminutive: is I place a stich in Water, it seems to bend Domthe poliat os immersion. But the impressioris are just anil reat: the varieti an e os vision causes the one, and the refraction of the rays of tho light froin the sursace explains the Other. Having ondeavoured to fhoW that the belles in Our identityiS nece88ary, and that, as nece88am, it is agree te to faci, this may be the place to illustrato thosse instruments of mind by whicli this intuitive conviction operates. Only in this investigation We must guard against the opinion that one poWer of miniican produce another. The minit is assected in a common orderos succession ,-that ordor amounts to a laW--but What are
Invenies primis ab senSibus esse creatam Notitiam veri, neque Sensus POSSe refelli: Quid majore fide porro quam sensus haberi Debet ΘV LucretiuS.
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dition devoid of it, and requiring iis absence. The conditionos the body in the grave is alWays connected in our thoughis With colit, and imprisonment, and dissolution. The condition isthought of as consciolis stili. It has to do with the present
That admirabie ossay published by Bishop Buller on this subjeci, fatis, though it is a single eXception, in this precision ofideas. Consciolisness is, then, the Deling of our present Sel It does not constitute that self, as many have thought. Itmight as wolt be maintained that sight constitutes colour, and hearing, 8ound . Ιis necessity to identity has, hoWever, beenoverstate i. For identity is relative and retrospective, butconsciolisness is only of the present moment and thought. Consciolisness is therefore individual. Even in solitoquy We are obliged to personisy a second party to address ourselves. Andilio sentiment is not less philosophie because of the sotarce whonca it is derived: What man knoweth the things of a man, favo the spirit of man whicli is in him 8' Νor is tho figure lossjust,-- the hidden mari os the heart.' ' Consciolisness beingat ways current, itS impressions Would be very fugitive, Werethere no other state of mind. Alemory giVes permanence tothem. It is not alWays easy to distinguisti their functions. Who can sever the present and the past 3 Thero is a Lindos paulo-post future whicli ali must seel. When a luminous potnt is rapidly whirled round, distinci sensations are generaled
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Αs the Association of ideas is another state the mind is osten found iii, it may be proper to mention it; since it involves a laxu Whicli unites separate recollections, and eStablishes a pleaSing and useful relation belween them. HOW, in obedienceto this law of mind, do former scenes revive,-us When the land-
scape, hid by gloom, and Iost in distance, staris into vioW, and gloWs with beauty, beneath a sudden calch and shoot of tho declining sun l
Our sense of identity is, then, impressed iapon iis through
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these Delings and remembrances vanished, but only to malleroom for others of the fame pyrpori and of greater steadiness: and these again Were succoeded by those firm and lasting impressions Which We can now, though fur removed, Deely examine and must unequivocatly obcy. And Doni these falliares of memory We haVe no more reason to doubi our identity, thantho traveller can siid to suspect the continuod progress of his j ourn , because he recollecis not a feW circumstances of the
conformabie to truth, belleve the one to bu a beggar, theother to be a monarch, stili. Their imaginings could notreverse the nature and reali ty of things. But they Who sup POSe it gratuitotis, or confound it With any state of mindWhicli simply apprehends it, must be perpleXed to the extreme
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Centre,-personal and mental character are there re nonentities. Not only is identity dented but the tablet os memory is Ahivered, the bond of association is Anapped, and tho light os consciolisness is extinguished i It would not bo difficuli toshow that the Berkleian theory does not warrant the use Whichthe Scotch philosopher mahes of it: that it is most disingenu-ousty perverted by him: biit a reserenoe to the respective authorities Will amply satisfy ali hoW oble an antagonisi ho is prouod in the lisis with that Giant Reasoner and Amiable Sage. Thero mill como no holp to the a bove assertion froin the just views of the human mind. We Ahould not hesitate tosay in reply to the question, Where is it 8 that it is noti here. For the question is biit a materialistic trap to involgio into an admission that minit is a thing of eoetension. Tho που is a question of matter. Deny the where, the eitension, the materiat predicament, to mind. But alloW ali that thoobjector can demand or you need Wish,-that mitid is a related
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thing, to the individualed body, to the generat system. Itadmits of numerous relation S, to matter, to space. What is the nature of those relations, beyond their practical Working, Done can divine. Vere any induction os facts necessary to confirm our impressions of identity, it might be eastly pursiaed. On any other principie, hoW could We compare our ideas and impressions Θ We are consciolas of What now occurs as repugnant to What has occurred; this is pleasant, that is di iastesul; one eliciis complacency, the other roUSOS RVerSion.
What, then, is this great comparing and distinguishing poWer 8And what but that whicli is individual and durabis could attach
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reason, and, more inconsistently than all, beu their own identity, to disputo it i They cannot debate it Without supposing thatthey are themselves, that they are noW thinhing thenaseives, that in meeting objections they must defend them solves: in
Shori, RS a perfeci Specimen of arguing in a circle and of self- confutation, they must belleve that they are theniselves to beconvinced that they are not them SelveS. In the fame manner os contradiction, Some have maintained that consciousness and memory are imperfeci pledges of identity,-that they may distori and belrV. Such persons give their opinions and adduce their arguments against identity, as byno means satisfactortly attested. But in this vory demur dothey not rely on their oWn consciolisne8s and memory 8 dothey not calculate on the correct state in Whicli theso oxist ΘEach pressent assent of mind is dependent on consciolisness: each previolas Step of reasoning, or faci os observation, dependson memory. There re they confess the accuracy of their consciolisness and the infallibility of their memory in resistingi lentity, While they denounce them both as vasue und trea herous when bellevers in identity appeal to them as the mediumsof their conviction. Identity is a relation,-it has respect to time. That whichwas momentary could not be the Same. The sanie With what ΘΙtsolf 8 It diu not, it Ges not, exist. The greater part of our perceptions is relative. What is space 8 We cannot conceivo ofiis abstraci and infinite, Ut We may conceive a relation ofdistanco froni body to body. What is motion 8 It is inconceiv- lo in itsolf, but we can conceive of it When it takes placebetween opposite potnis. What is time8 Our conceptionos it is in relation to succession . So is number; So is magnitude. Upon the nature of time We might reasonably descantas intimately bearing upon personat identity; but, as says old PoloniUS,
To expostulate Why, time is time, Were nothing but to Waste time.
A graver authority, Augustine, say8- I know What time is,
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The following lines of Byron, talion hom disserent paris of his Works, may illustrate the idea: -
Eut it is not in such succession that time can consist. Let theovenis and ideas os a life be croWded into one more bries, ordistributed over one more eX tended, is the time the fame pCould those ovenis and ideas curtati or enlarge it 8 Timo mustansWer to truth, on the fame sirst principies as have been resorted to in vindication of our identity: principies Whicli Contain the essence of reason, the Very aXioms of mind; Without whicli tho mind could not embra ce a theorem or Proposition : principies that consolidate the foundations of ali sensibis and demonstrativo knowledge: and that will dispes thogo wild
incoheretices Which We must stimulate Our fancy to conceive, and torture our understanding to defend.
The embarrassmenis to Whicli personat identity has beon reduced by some are specious and amusing. Knowing the hospitalities of this town, I trem bie to announce an objection, Whicli, is valid, will castiter them for ever. With horribie temerityEpicharmus Was Wont to say, he who is invited by any one
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Were I to say of Some antique mansion With a modern front,
open to captious objection. Let iis suppose,' says Berkeley, με seVeral men together,
ali onduod with the fame faculties, and consequently assected in like sort by the senses, and who have never yet known theuse of language ; they Would Without question agree with the perceptions. Though, perhaps, When they came to the Use of speech, Sonae regarding the Uniformiae8S of What Was perceived, might cali it the fame thing : others, especialty regarding the diversity of persons Who perceived, might choose the denomination of disserent things. But who sees not that ali the disputeis abolit a Word 8 Vig. Whether What is perceived by disserent perSonS may yet haVe the tertia, sume, applied to it 8 Is you fhould say Wo disser in Our notions, for that you Super
seen in diversisIed states and conditioris. It is tho subject of pleasures and patiis, of Sympathies and antipathies, and alinem acquisitions of knowledge give it a neW modification. These e fercises cannot be identical though they pertain to
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tho identical substance. What neW traiias of thought do wepursus, What additionat habits of enquiry do We adopi, What clashing motives of conduci do We entertaint Wo osten hiarry om one eXtreme to unother. We osten contradici in futuro liso ali tho pledges of our earlier years l These concessions forni the amount of the capital objections to the doctrino ofour identity. NoW, then, the objectors must haVe Some more perfectnotion of identity than mirid can authorise, et se Why deny toit identity in the absolute sense Z They must be capable of Conceiving, or accustomed to observe, something more identi cal. That something cannot be in their minds, for that Would givo up the dispute, t must there re be in the externat universe. In What is then designa ted, nature, is something Whicli is immutabie: something Which gives the idea of identity more strictly than can the human Aoul. To such a Supposition, Ianswer in the following Way. That the phaenomena by Whichwe ascertain matter are So distinct froni those whicli charactserisemind, that a perfeci comparison cannot be instituted belwesenthem; What Would be perfectly identical in matter Would nothe analogous to that Which Was persectly identical in mind. Eut I stili further remark, that there is no such persect identity in the physical universe; the relations os atoms and of Worlds are continuatly Varied; Whether those of the scalteroddust or tho fixed star. There is not only casual change, buta law of change in ali; constant productioia, decompoSition, undre-production. And again : diversity and identity impress them-Selves on ali things, and there is not a particio but of whichWe may say, that it is at once another and the Same. Μore-over, diversity is quite as hypothetical as identity, for thoughWe know that ali things change, yet the change is not rarelyimperceptible. Identity is, in such cases, the more obvioUS, though not the more necessary. And the objection weighs nomore again St our opinion than against itself: sor is divorsitydestroys identity, identity may be as unsparing to diversity. It may now be asked hoW wo learn that others are thesame With themseloes 8 Some Would reser to their materiality,