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Of Mr. Locke's Account of Our Personal Identity*

THOMAS REID

IN A LONG CHAPTER UPON Identity and Diversity, Mr. Locke has made many ingenious and just obser- vations, and some which I think cannot be defended. I shall only take notice of the account he gives of our own personal identity. His doctrine upon this subject has been cen sured by Bishop Buder, in a short essay subjoined to his Analogy, with whose sentin1ents I perfectly agree.

Identity, as was observed, supposes tl1e continued existence of the being of w hjch it· is affirmed, and therefore can be applied only to things which have a continued existence. While any being continues to exist, it is the same being; but two beings wruch have a different begjnnjng or a different ending of their existence cannot possibly be the same. To this, I thlnk, Mr. Locke agrees.

He observes, ver y justly, that, to know what is meant by the same person, we must consider what the word person stands for; and he defines a person to be an intelligent being, endowed witl1 reason and with consciousness, which last he thinks inseparable from tl10ught.

From this definition of a person, it must neces- sarily follow, that, while the intelligent being con- tinues to exist and to be intelligent, it must be the same p erson. To say that the intelligent being is the person, and yet that the person ceases to exist while the intelligent being continues, o r that the p erson continues while the intelligent being ceases to exist, is to my apprehensio n a manifest contra- ruction.

One would think that the definition of a person should perfectly ascertain th e nature of personal ide ntity, or wherein it consists, though it might still be a question how we come to know and be assured of our personal identity.

Mr. Locke tells us, however, "that personal iden- tity, that is, the sameness of a rational being, con- sists in consciousness alone, and , as far as this conscio usness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought, so fa r reaches the identity of iliat person. So d1at whatever has ilie consciousness of present and past actio ns is d1e same person to whom t hey belong."

•From T1J0111ns Reid, Essays o n rh c Intellectual Powers of M an, Essny III, Cbnpter 6. First published in 1785.

Thomas Reid: Of Mr. Locke)s Accotmt of Our Personal Identity 347

This doctrine has some strange consequences, which the author was aware of. Such as, that if the same consciousness ·can be transferred from one intelligent being to another, which he thinks we cannot show to be impossible, then two or twenty intelligent beings may be the same person. And if the intelligent being may lose the consciousness of the . actions done by him, which surely is possible, then he is not person that did those actions; so that one intelligent being may be two or twenty different per- sons, if he shall so often lose t:l}e consciousness of his former actions.

There is another consequence of this doctrine, which follows no less necessarily, though Mr. Locke probably did not see it. It is, that a man be) and at the same time not be, the person that did a particu- lar action.

Suppose a brave officer to have been flogged when a boy at school for robbing an orchard, to have taken a standard from the enemy in his first campaign, and to have been made a general in advanced life; suppose, also, which must be admit- ted to be possible, that, when he took the standard, he was conscious of his having been flogged at school, and that, when made a general, he was conscious of his taking the standard, but had absolutely lost the consciousness of his flogging.

These things being supposed, it follows, from Mr. Locke's doctrine, that he who was flogged at school is the same person who took the standard, and that he who took the standard is the same person who was made a general. Whence it follows, if there be any truth in logic, that the general is the same person with him who was flogged at school. But the general's consciousness does not reach so far back as his flogging; therefore, according to Mr. Locke's doctrine, he is not the person who was flogged. Therefore the general is, and at the same time is not, the same person with him who was flogged at school.

Leaving the consequences of this doctrine to those who have leisure to trace ~hem, we may observe, with regard to the doctrine itself:

First, that Mr. Locke attributes to consciousness the conviction we have of our past actions, as if a man may now be conscious of what he did twenty years ago. It is impossible to understand the meaning

of this, unless by consciousness be meant memory, the only faculty by which we have an immediate knowledge of our past actions.

Sometimes, in popular discourse, a man says he is conscious that he did such a thing, meaning that he distinctly remembers that he did it. It is unnec- essary, in common discourse, to fix accurately the limits between consciousness and memory. This was formerly shown to be the case with regard to sense and memory: and therefore distinct remembrance is sometimes called sense, sometimes consciousness, without any inconvenience.

But this ought to be avoided in philosophy, oth- erwise we confound the different powers of the mind, and astribe to one what really belongs to another. If a man can be conscious of what he did twenty years or twenty minutes ago, there is no use for memory, nor ought we allow that there is any such faculty. The faculties of consciousness and memory arc chiefly distinguished by this, that the first is an immediate knowledge of the present, the second an immediate knowledge of the past.

When, therefore, Mr. Locke's notion of personal identity is properly expressed, it is, that personal identity consists in distinct remembrance; for, even in the popular sense, to say that I conscious of a past action means nothing else than that I distinctly remember that I did it.

Secondly, it may be observed, that, in this doc- trine, not only is consciousness confounded with memory, but, which is still more strange, personal identity is confounded with the evidence which we have of our personal identity.

It is very true, that my remembrance that I did such a thing is the e_vidence I have that I am the identical person who did it. And this, I am apt to think, Mr. Locke meant. But to say that my remem- brance that I did such a thing, or my consciousness, makes me the person who did it, is, in my appre- hension, an absurdity too gross to be entertained by any man who attends to the meaning of it; for it is to attribute to memory or consciousness a strange magical power of producing its object, though that object must have existed before the memory or con- sciousness which produced it.

Consciousness is the testimony of one faculty; memory is the testimony of another faculty; and

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to say that the testimony is the cause of the thing te.stified, this surely is absurd , if any thing be , and could n ot have been said by Mr. Locke, if he h.ad not confou nded t he testimony with the thing testified.

When a horse that was stolen is found and claimed by the owner, the only evidence he can have, or that a judge or witnesses can have, that this is d1e ver y identical horse which was his property, is similitude. But would it not be ridiculous from this to infer that the identity of a horse consists in similitude only? The only evidence I have that I am the identical person who did such actions is, that I remem ber distincdy I did d1em; o r, as Mr. Locke expresses it, I am con- scious I did them. To infer from this, that personal identity consists in consciousness, is an argument which, if it had any force, would prove the identity of a stolen horse to consist solely in similitude .

Thirdly, is it n ot strange th at the same ness or identity of a person should consist in a thing which is continually changing, and is not any two minutes the same?

Our consciousness, our memory, and every oper- ation of the mind, are still fl owi ng li ke the water of a river, or like time itself. The conscio usness I have this moment can no more be the sa me conscious- ness I had last moment, than dus moment can be the last moment. Identity can only be affirmed of dungs which have a continued existence. Consciousness, and ever y kin d of tho ught, are transient and momentary, and have no continued existence; an d, therefore, if personal iden tity consisted in con - sciousness, it would certainly follow, d1at no man is the same person any two moments of his life; and as the right and justice of reward and punishment are founded on personal identity, no man could be responsible fo r his actions.

But though I take this to be the unavoidable consequence of Mr. Locke's doctrine concerning personal identity, and d10ugh some persons may have liked the doctrine the better on dus account, I am far from imputing any thing of this kind to Mr. Locke. He was too good a man not to have rejecte d with abhorrence a doctrine which he believed to draw this conseq uence after it.

Fottrthly, t here are man)' expressions used by Mr. Locke, in speaking of personal identity, which to me are altogether unintellig ible, unless we sup- pose d1at he confounded that sameness or identity which we ascribe to an individu al with the identity which, in common discourse, is often ascribed to many individuals of the sam e species.

When we say that pain and pleasure , conscious- ness and memory, arc the same in all men, this sameness can only mean si milarity, o r sameness of kind. That d1e pain of one man can be the same ind ividual pain \vith that of another man is no less impossible, than that one m an should be another man : the pain felt by me yesterday can no more be the pain I fell to-da y, than yesterday can be this da y; and the same thing may be said of every pas- sion and of every operation of the mind. Th e same kind or species of operation may be in different men , or in the san1e man at different times; but it is impossib le that the same individual o peration sh ould be in different men, or in the same man at different tin1es.

When Mr. Locke, therefore, speaks of"the same consciousness being continued thro ugh a succes- sion of differe nt substances"; when he speaks of "repeating the idea of a past action, with the same conscio usness we had of it at d1e first," and of" d1e san1e conscio usness extending to actions past and to come"; these expressions are to me unintelligible, unless he means not the same individual conscious- ness, but a consciousness that is similar, or of the same kind.

If our personal identity consists in consciousness, as th is consciousness cannot be the same individu- ally any two moments, but o nly of the same kind, it would follow, that we are not for any two moments the same individual persons, but the same kind of persons.

As our consciousness sometimes ceases to exist, as in sound sleep, our personal identity must cease with it. Mr. Locke allows, that d1e san1e thing carmot have two beginnings of existence, so that our iden - tity would be irrecoverably gone ever y time we ceased to think, if it was but for a moment.