ly and fully, and often with an air of pleasantry, that, but for the place in which we find it, as forming a part of a grave methodical essay on the understanding, would almost lead us to think, that he was himself smiling, in secret, at his own doctrine, and propounding it with the same mock solemnity with which the discoverer of Laputa has revealed to us all the secrets of the philosophy of that island of philosophers. He allows it to follow, from his doctrine, that, if we remembered at night, and never but at night, one set of the events of our life; as, for instance, those which happened five years ago; and never but in the day time, that different set of events, which happened six years ago; this, "day and night man," to use his own phrase, would be two as distinct persons, as Socrates and Plato; and, in short, that we are truly as many persons as we have, or can be supposed to have, at different times, separate and distinct remembrances of different series of events. In this case, indeed, he makes a distinction of the visible man, who is the same, and of the person who is different. "But yet possibly it will still be objected," he says, "suppose I wholly lose the memory of some parts of my life, beyond a possibility of retrieving them, so that perhaps I shall never be conscious of them again; yet am I not the same person that did those actions, had those thoughts that I once was conscious of, though I have now forgot them? To which I answer, that we must here take notice what the word I is applied to; which, in this case, is the man only. And the same man being presumed to be the same person, I is easily here supposed to stand also for the same person. But if it be possible for the same man to have distinct incommunicable consciousness at different times, it is past doubt the same man would at different times make different persons; which we see is the sense of mankind in the solemnest declaration of their opinions; human laws not punishing the mad man for the sober man's actions, nor the sober man for what the mad man did, thereby making them two persons: which is somewhat explained by our way of speaking in English, when we say such an one is not himself, or is beside himself; in which phrases it is insinuated, as if those who now, or at least first used them, thought that self was changed, the self-same person was no longer in that man."* Essay concerning Human Understanding, B. ii. c. xxvii. sect. 20. Such is the doctrine of a philosopher, whose intellectual excellence was unquestionably of the highest rank, and whose powers might be considered as entitling him to exemption, at least, from those gross errors which far weaker understandings are capable of discovering, if even this humble relative privilege had not been too great for man. He contends, that our remembrance of having done a certain action, is not merely to us, the rememberers, the evidence by which we believe that we were the persons who did it, but is the very circumstance that makes us personally to have done it,- -a doctrine, which, if the word person were to be understood in the slightest degree in its common acceptation, would involve, as has been justly said, an absurdity as great as if it had been affirmed, that our belief of the creation of the world actually made it to have been created. If we could suppose Mr Locke to have never thought on the subject of personal identity, till this strange doctrine, and its consequences, were stated to him by another, it may almost be taken for granted, that he would not have failed instantly to discover its absurdity, as a mere verbal paradox; and, yet, after much reflection on the subject, he does not perceive that very absurdity, which he would have discovered, but for reflection. Such is the strange nature of our intellectual constitution. The very functions, that, in their daily and hourly exercise, save us from innumerable errors, sometimes lead us into errors, which, but for them, we might have avoided. The philosopher is like a well armed and practised warrior, who, in his helmet and coat of mail, goes to the combat with surer means of victory, than the ill disciplined and defenceless mob around him, but who may yet sometimes fall where others would have stood, unable to rise and extricate himself, from the incumbrance of that very armour, to which he has owed the conquests of many other fields. What, then, may we conceive to have been the nature of the illusion, which could lead a mind like that of Mr Locke, to admit, after reflection, an absurd paradox, and all its al urd consequences, which, before reflection, he would have rejected? It is to be traced chiefly, I conceive, to a source which is certainly the most abundant source of error in the writings and silent reflections of philosophers, especially of those who are gifted with originality of thought,-the ambiguity of the language they use, when they retain a word with one meaning, which is generally understood in a different sense; the common meaning, in the course of their speculations, often mingling insensibly with their own, and thus producing a sort of confusion, which incapacitates them from perceiving the precise consequences of either. Mr Locke gives his own definition of the word person, as comprised in the very consciousness which he supposes to be all that is essential to personal identity; or at least he speaks of consciousness so vaguely and indefinitely, as to allow this meaning of his definition to be present to his own mind, as often as he thought of personality, "To find," he says, "wherein personal identity consists, we must consider what person stands for; which, I think, is a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and places, which it does only by that consciousness, which is inseparable from thinking." Having once given this definition of a person, there can be no question, that personal identity, in his sense, is wherever consciousness is, and only where consciousness is. But this is true of a person, only as defined by him; and, if strictly analysed, means nothing more, than that consciousness is wherever consciousness is,—a doctrine, on which, certainly, he could not have thought it worth his while to give any very long commentary. It appears more important however, even to himself, and worthy of the long commentary which he has given it, because, in truth, he cannot refrain from still keeping, in his own mind, some obscure impression of the more common meaning of the term, and extending to a person, as thus commonly understood, what is true only of a person, as defined by him. It is as if some whimsical naturalist should give a definition of the word animal, exclusive of every winged creature, and should then think that he was propounding a very notable and subtile paradox, in affirming that no animal is capable of rising for a few minutes above the surface of the earth. It would be a paradox, only inasmuch as it might suggest to those who heard it, a meaning different from that of the definition; and, but for this misconception, which the author of it himself might share, would be so insignificant a truism, as not to deserve even the humblest of all praise, that of amusing absurdity. Essay concerning Human Understanding, B. ii. c. xxvii. sect. 9. When, in such cases as this, we discover that singular inconsistency, which is to be found even in the very excellence of every thing that is human,-the perspicacity which sees, at an immeasurable distance, in the field of inquiry, what no other eye has seen, and which yet, in the very objects which it has grasped, is unable to distinguish what is visible to common eyes, are we to lament the imperfection of our mental constitution, which leaves us liable to such error? Or, as in other instances, in which, from our incapacity of judging rightly, we are tempted at first to regret the present arrangement of things, are we not rather to rejoice that we are so constituted by nature? if man had not been formed to err, in the same manner as he is formed to reason, and to know, that perfect system of faculties, which excluded error, must have rendered his discernment too quick, not to seize instantly innumerable truths, the gradual discovery of which, by the exercise of his present more limited faculties, has been sufficient to give glory and happiness to whole ages of philosophical inquiry. If, indeed, the field had been absolutely boundless, he might still have continued to advance, as at present, though with more gigantic step, and more searching vision, and found no termination to his unlimited career. But the truths which relate to us physically, on this bounded scene of things in which we are placed, numerous as they are, are still in some measure finite, like that scene itself; and the too rapid discoveries, therefore, of a few generations, as to the most important properties of things, would have left little more for the generations which were to follow, than the dull and spiritless task of learning what others had previously learned, or of teaching what themselves had been taught. Philosophy is not the mere passive possession of knowledge; it is, in a much more important respect, the active exercise of acquiring it. We may truly apply to it what Pascal says of the conduct of life in general. "We think," says he," that we are seeking repose, and all which we are seeking is agitation." In like manner, we think that it is truth itself which we seek, when the happiness which we are to feel most strongly, is in the mere search; and all that would be necessary, in many cases, to make the object of it appear indifferent, would be to put it fairly within our grasp. "Our hopes, like towering falcons, aim At objects in an airy height; Is afar off to view the flight." What little value do we set on discoveries that have been long familiar to us, though their own essential value must still continue the same. Even on the whole mass of knowledge, that has been gradually and slowly transmitted to us, we reflect with little interest, unless as it may lead to something yet unknown; and the result of a single new experiment, which bears no proportion to the mass to which it is added, will yet be sufficient to rouse and delight every philosopher in Europe. It is a very shrewd remark of a French writer, in reference to the torpor, which the most zealous inquirer feels, as to every thing which he knows, and his insatiable avidity for every thing which he does not know, that "if Truth were fairly to show herself as she is, all would be ruined; but it is plain, that she knows very well, of how great importance it is, that she should keep herself out of sight." If we were to acquire, by an unhappy foresight, the knowl edge which is not yet ours, it is very evident, that we must soon regard it, in the same manner, as the knowledge which we have already acquired. The charm of novelty, the delights of gratified curiosity, would not be for us. The prey would be at our feet; and it would be vain, therefore, to expect that ardour of soul, which is kindled, amid the hopes and the fears, the tumult and the competition of the chace. "If man were omnipotent, without being God," says Rousseau, "he would be a miserable creature: he would be deprived of the pleasure of desiring; and what privation would be so difficult to be borne !" It may be said, at least with equal truth, that, if man were omniscient, without the other perfections of the Divinity, he would be far less happy than at present. To infinite benevolence, indeed, accompanied with infinite power, a corresponding infinity of knowledge must afford the highest of all imaginable gratifications, by its subservience to those gracious plans of good, which are manifested in the universe, and which, in making known to us the existence of the Supreme Being, have made him known to us, as the object of grateful love and admiration. But if, in other respects, we were to continue as at present,—with our |