Ph. In order further to touch some other relations, I remark that there are terms employed to designate time which are ordinarily regarded as signifying only positive ideas, which are nevertheless relative, as young, old, etc., for they involve a relation to the ordinary duration of the "substance to which you attribute them. Thus a man is called young at the age of twenty years, and very young at the age of seven years. But we call a horse old at twenty years, and a dog at seven. But we do not say that the sun and the stars, a ruby or a diamond, is young or old, because we do not know the ordinary periods of their duration. § 5. The same is true regarding place or extension, as when a thing is said to be high or low, great or small. Thus a horse which will be large according to the idea of a Welshman, appears very small to a Fleming; each thinks of the horses which are raised in his country.
Th. [These remarks are very good. It is true we some times swerve a little from this sense, as when we say that a thing is old when comparing it not with those of its kind, but with other kinds. For example, we say that the world or the sun is very old. Some one asked Galileo if he believed that the sun was eternal. He replied: eterno nb ma ben antico — eternal, no, but very ancient.
238 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [UK. u CHAPTER XXVII WHAT IDEXTITY OR DIVERSITY IS § 1. Ph. A relative idea of the greatest importance is that of identity or diversity. We never find and we cannot conceive it possible that two things of the same kind exist in the same time in the same place. Therefore when we ask whether a thing is the same or not, the question always relates to a thing which at such a time exists in such a place; whence it follows that a thing cannot have two beginnings of existence, nor two things one beginning only in relation to the time and the place.
Tli. [It is always necessary that besides the difference of time and place there be an internal principle of distinction, and, though there are many things of the same kind, it is never theless true that none of them are ever perfectly alike: thus although time and place (i.e. external relation) serve us in distinguishing things which we do not easily distinguish by themselves, the things do not cease to be distinguishable in themselves. The essence (le precis) of identity and diversity consists, then, not in time and place, although it is true that the diversity of things is accompanied by that of time or of place, because they bring with them different impressions of the thing; not to say that it is rather by the things that one place or one time must be distinguished from another, for in themselves they are perfectly alike, but they are not, there fore, substances or complete realities. The mode of distin guishing which you seem to propose here, as unique in things of the same kind, is based upon the supposition that penetra tion is not conformable to nature. This supposition is reason able, but experience indeed makes it evident that it is not closely applied here, when the question concerns distinction. We see, for example, two shadows or rays of light which in terpenetrate, and we might invent for ourselves an imaginary world wherein bodies would act in the same way. But we do not cease to distinguish one ray from another by the very rate of their passage even when they cross each other.]
CH. xxvu] OX HUMAN UNPERSTAXDIXG 239 § 3. Ph. What is called the principle of individuation (prin- cipiutn individuatioms') in the schools, where they torment themselves so much to know what it is,^o4isiats^j.n._ejvistence itself which determines each being to a particular time and place incommunicable to two beings of the same kind.
Tli. The principle of individuation l reappears in individuals in the principle of distinction of which I just spoke. If two individuals were perfectly alike and equal and (in a word) indistinguishable in themselves, there would be no principle of individuation; and I even venture to assert that there would be no individual distinction or different individuals under this condition. This is why the notion of atoms is chimerical, and arises only from the incomplete conceptions of men. For if there were atoms, i.e. bodies perfectly hard and perfectly unalterable or incapable of internal change and capable of differing among themselves only in size and shape, it is plain that in the possibility of their being of the same shape and size they would then be indistinguishable in them selves, and could be distinguished only by means of external denominations without an internal basis, which is contrary to the highest principles of reason. But the truth is that every body is alterable, and indeed actually changes so that it differs in itself from every other. I remember that a distinguished princess,2 who is of a pre-eminently excellent mind, said one 1 Leibnitz discussed this principle in his disputation for the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy, entitled, Disputatio metaphysica de principio indi- vidui, which in his sixteenth year he publicly defended at Leipzig, March.30, 1()G3; cf. Guhrauer, Leibniz. Leben, 1, 27 sq. This piece is found in Gerhardt, 4, 15-2(5, where the title-page gives the date of the public defence, May 30, 1(56'3; Erdmann, 1-5; it has also been edited, with an extended critical intro duction, from a copy found in the Library at Hannover by Dr. G. E. Guhrauer, and published at Berlin in 1837. J. H. von Kirchmann has published a German translation with elaborate and extensive notes in his Philos. Kibliothek, Bd. 81, Die klein. philos. wicht, Schriften G. W. Leibniz; Bd. 82, Erliiuterunyen. For a recent discussion of the principle of individuality, cf. R. Eucken, The Fundamental Concepts of Mod. Philos. Thought, pp. 231-248. New York, 2 Sophie Charlotte, KV58-1705, the first Queen of Prussia, the friend and in a certain sense the pupil of Leibnitz in philosophy. The Tltc<>di<-ee originated in his philosophical conversations with her. Cf. Gerhardt, (i,:>!>; Erdmann, 474 b. Leibnitz's correspondence with her is found in O. Klopp, Die Werke von Leibniz, Vol. 10, Hannover, 1877; the letters of philosophical importance in Gerhardt, 3, 343 sq.; 6, 488 sq.; 7, 544; the letter in G. 0, 4!H) sq. is translated in Duncan, Philos. Works of Leibnitz, 149 sq. Cf. also Kuuo Fischer, Gesch. d. n. Philos., Vol. 2, p. 261 sq., 3d ed., 1889. — TR.
240 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. n day while walking in her garden that she did not believe there were two leaves perfectly alike. A gentleman of dis tinction, who was walking with her, thought he would easily find some. But although he searched long, he was convinced by his eyes that he could always note the difference. We see by these considerations, hitherto neglected, how far we have wandered in philosophy from the most natural notions, and how far we have departed from the great principles of true metaphysic.]
§ 4. Ph. That which constitutes the unity (identity) of one and the same plant is the possession of such an organization of parts in a single body, as participates in a common life which endures while the plant subsists, although the parts change.
Th. [The organization or configuration without an existing principle of life, which I call a monad, would not suffice to cause the continuance of idem numero or the same individual; for the configuration can abide specifically without abiding l individually. When a horseshoe is changed into copper in a mineral spring of Hungary, the same figure in kind remains, but not the same as ah individual; for the iron is dissolved, and the copper, with which the water is impregnated, is pre cipitated and insensibly takes its place. Now figure is an accident which does not pass from one subject to another (de subjecto in subjection). So we must say that bodies as well organized as others do not remain the same in appearance, and, speaking strictly, not at all. It is almost like a river which always changes its water, or like the ship of Theseus which the Athenians were always repairing.2 'But as regards 1 Erdmann and Jacques omit " specifiquement, sans demeurer," the reading of Gerhardt. — Tu.
2 Cf. Plato, Phsedo. 58 A; Xenophon, Memorabilia, 4, 8, 2. The sacred ship, sent yearly to Delos by the Athenians in consequence of a vow made to Apollo l>y Theseus when on his way to Crete with the seven youths and seven maidens, the annual tribute of the Athenians to the Minotaur, that if rescued he would send annually to Delos a ship with gifts and sacrifices as a thank- offering for their deliverance, was repaired piece by piece as necessary, so that in form and appearance it remained the same old ship in which Theseus himself sailed, while its substance continually changed. The vessel served the philosophers as an instance in discussions concerning identity and what constitutes it, and as an illustration of a numerical substance continuously the same, though constantly changing by the decay and rejection of old and the growth and acquisition of new parts, as in the case of the living body.
CH. XXVIl] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING substances, which are in themselves a true and real substantial unity, to which may belong actions properly called vital, and as regards substantial beings, quce uno spiritu continental', in the Avords of an ancient jurisconsult,1 i.e. which a certain indivisible spirit animates, you are right in saying that they remain perfectly the same individual through this soul or this spirit which constitutes the ego in thinking beings.]
§ 5. Ph. The case is not very different in animals and in plants.
Th. [If vegetables and animals have no soul, their identity is only apparent; but if they have, individual identity is in truth strictly speaking there, although their organized bodies do not preserve it.]
§ 6. Ph. This also shows wherein the identity of the same man consists, viz. in the fact alone that he enjoys the same life, continued by particles of matter which are in a perpetual flux, but which in this succession are vitally united with the same organized body.
Th. [That may be understood in my sense. In fact, the organized body is not the same from one moment to another; it is only equivalent. And if it were not related to the soul, there would no longer be the same life or vital union. Thusr this identity would be only apparent.]
Ph. Whoever shall connect the identity of man with any thing else than a well-organized body, in a certain instant, and which thence continues in this vital organization by a succes sion of different particles of matter which are united to it, will have difficulty in making an embryo, a man of years, a fool, and a wise man the same man, unless it follows from this supposition that it is possible for Seth, Ismael, Socrates, Pilate, St. Augustine 2 to be one and the same man,...and this would agree still worse with the notions of those philosophers who recognize transmigration and believe that men's souls can be sent for punishment of their irregularities into the bodies of animals; for I do not believe that any one who was assured that the soul of Heliogabalus existed in a hog would mean that this hog was a man, and the same man as Heliogabalus.
1 Sextns Pomponins, died l.'>8 A.r>. The phrase occurs in the Digest, 41, 3, 30, Vol. 2, p. 522, ed. Th. Mommsen, Berlin: Weidmann, 1870. — Tit.
- Locke lias " St. Austin," 1'fiilos. Works, Vol. 1, p. 4<j.'J (Cohn's ed.). — Tit. li 242 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. n Th. [There is here a question of name and of thing. As for the thing, the identity of one and the same individual sub stance can be maintained only by the conservation of the same soul, for the body is in a continual flux, and the soul does not dwell in certain atoms appropriated to itself, nor in a little incorruptible (indomptable) bone, such as the Luz 1 of the Eabbis. Moreover there is no transmigration by which the soul wholly leaves its body and passes into another. It keeps always, even in death, an organized body, a part of the pre ceding, although what it keeps is always subject to insensible dissipation and to reparation, and indeed to undergoing in a certain time a great change. Thus instead of a transmigra tion of the soul there is a transformation, envelopment, or development, and finally a fluxion of the body of this soul. Van Helmont,2 the son, thought that souls pass from body to body, but always within their kind, so that there will always be the same number of souls of one and the same kind, and consequently the same number of men and of wolves, and that the wolves if diminished or extirpated in England would be proportionally increased elsewhere. Certain meditations pub- 1 The bone which the Jews regarded as incapable of decay, remaining until the last day and forming the nucleus of the resurrection body. Schaarschmidt says: " According to the opinion of the Rabbis, says Ulrich in his note to this place, the body which we are to receive at the resurrection is already at hand in our backbone. This body or bone, Tib (Luz), as it is properly called, they held for this reason to be incorruptible. In the Jalkut chudasch, Fol. 142, title Maschiach, n. 44, the following account is given of it: This bone decays not, and the holy giving God will make it soft with the dew, and out of it will build the body. The reason why this little bone is not to be exposed to cor ruption, they place in the fact that it has not enjoyed the pleasures of this world, as the rest of the members. This doctrine is with them no empty speculation. The old Rabbis of blessed memory have not only seen this bone, but have found it actually so strong and hard that their hammer and rock flew in pieces before this little bone was injured in the least. See Axkdth Rochel in the 4th part," etc. — TR.
2 Fran9ois Mercure van Helmont, 1G18-1098, a particular friend of the Countess of Connaway, in whose Optisctda philosophica, Bk. I., chap. 6, §§ 7, 8, and chap. 7, § 4, London, 1<!90, this view of his is found in detail. On Leibnitz's relations with Van Helmont, cf. Stein, Leibniz and Spinoza, pp. 210 sq., and the references in Stein's notes; also Beilaycn, XV., XVI., op. cit. pp. 329-337. Leibnitz composed for him, at the request of his cousin, the Baroness of Merode, a Latin epitaph; cf. Burckhard, Historia Biblioth. An- r/ustse, II., p. 32(i; also Stein, op. cit. pp. 3H(>-;?.">7. Leibnitz treats of him and his doctrine in his Miscellanies, cf. Otium Ilanoveranum, ed. J. F. Feller, CH. xxvn] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 243 lished in France would also seem to tend in that direction. If transmigration is not taken strictly, i.e. if any one thought that souls dwelling in the same subtile body change only from a coarser body, it would be possible, even to the passage of the same soul into a body of a different kind after the fashion of the Brahmins and Pythagoreans. But all that is possible is not for that reason conformed to the order of things. But the question whether, in case such a transmigration were true, Cain, Ham, and Ismael, supposing, according to the Kabbis, they were the same soul, would deserve to be called the same man, is only one of name; and I have observed that the cele brated author, whose opinions you have maintained, recognizes and explains it very well (in the last paragraph of this chapter). The identity of substance would occur therein, but in case there were no connection of memory between the different persons, as the same soul would make, there would not be sufficient moral identity to say that it would be one and the same person. And if God willed that the human soul should go into the body of a hog, forgetting the man and performing no rational acts, it would not constitute a man. But if in the body of the animal it had the thoughts of a man, and even of the man whom it animated before the change, like the Golden Ass of Apuleius, one would perhaps have no difficulty in say ing that the same Lucius, who had come into Thessaly to see his friends, lived under the ass's hide, where Photis had put him in spite of herself, and wandered from master to master until the roses he ate restored him to his natural form.1 i Of. Apuleius, Metamorph., Bk. III., Vol. 1, pp. 229 sq.; Bk. XI., pp. 770 sq., edition in 6 vols., paging continuous, A. J. Valpy, London, 1825. The Meta morphoses is in contents very similar to a work entitled, AOUKIO? fj oi/o? (Lucius or Ass), ascribed to Lucian, a contemporary of Apuleius who flourished about 160 A.D., and is most probably an imitation of it. The incidents and adven tures in both are nearly identical, the names only being changed, both writers, however, calling the hero Lucius. In the course of his adventures Lucius became involved in a love-affair with a waiting-woman by the name of Fotis, whose mistress practised the art of magic, and changed at will herself and others into various animals by the use of certain ointments. Lucius, very desirous to learn all about this wonderful art, finally persuaded Fotis, who claimed that she understood her mistress's art, to try it on him. She did so, intending to change him into an owl, into which form her mistress in the sight of them both had just changed herself, but in her haste and confusion using the wrong ointment, she changed him, ''in spite of herself," into an ass. The work of Apuleius is much more extended than that of Lucian, and, in 244 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. n § 9. Ph. I think we can boldly advance the idea that who ever of us saw a creature made and formed like himself, although it had never exhibited more reason than a cat or a parrot, would not cease to call it a man; or if he heard a parrot discoursing rationally and in a philosophical manner would call or think it only a parrot, and would say of the former of these animals that it is an uncultivated man, dull and destitute of reason, and of the latter that it is a parrot full of intelligence and good sense.
Th. [I should be more of the same opinion upon the second point than upon the first, although there is still something to be said thereupon. Few theologians would be venturesome enough to agree at once and absolutely to the baptism, of an animal in human form, but without appearance of reason, if he were taken while young in the woods and some priest of the Roman church should perhaps say conditionally, if you are a man I baptize you; for they would not know whether he is of the human race and whether a rational soul dwells therein, and this might be an ourang-outang, an ape externally very like a man, such as that one whom Tulpius l speaks of as having seen, and that one an account of whose anatomy a learned physician has published. It is certain (I admit) that man can become as stupid as an ourang-outang, but the interior of a rational soul would abide there in spite of the suspension of the exercise of reason as I have explained above; thus it is a point of which we cannot judge by appearances. As for the second case, nothing prevents there being rational animals of a different kind from ourselves, as those inhabitants of the poetic kingdom of the birds in the sun, where a parrot having come from this world after its death, saved the life of a trav eller who had treated him well here below. But if it hap pened, as it happens in the country of the fairies or of Mother spite of its irony, abounds in a mysticism not found in the AUKIO? TJ 5fos. A brief sketcli of Lucian's work may be found in the Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th ed., under the article "Lucius." On Apuleius, and the relation of his work to that of Lucian, cf. Teuffel, Gesch. d. Rom. Lit., § 3G7,,H, 4th ed., Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1882; § 307, 1, 5th ed. by Ludwig Schwabe, Leipzig: Teubner, 18'JO, and from this ed., the English translation in 2 vols., by Geo. C. W. Warr, M.A., Geo. Bell and Sons, London, 1891. — Tu.
1 Nicolas Tulp, 159:>-1<>74, a Dutch physician and magistrate', in Bk. III., chap. 56, of his Observationum medicarum libri tres, Amsterdam, 1541, 8th ed., revised with additions, Loyden, 1752. — TR.
cu. xxvn] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 245 Goose, that a parrot was a transformed daughter of a king and became known, as such while speaking, doubtless her father and mother would caress her as their daughter whom they thought they possessed though concealed under this strange form. I should not oppose myself, however, to him who should say that in the Golden Ass as the self or the individual re mained for the sake of the same immaterial spirit, so Lucius or the person remained for the sake of the apperception of this ego, but that this is no longer a man; as in fact it seems necessary to add something of the figure and constitution of the body to the definition of man, when we say that he is a rational animal; otherwise in my view the genii would also be men.]
§ 9. Ph. The word person carries with it a thinking and intelligent being, capable of reason and reflection, that can consider itself indeed as the same, as one and the same thing which thinks at different times and in different places; which it does only by that consciousness l which it has of its own acts. And this knowledge always accompanies our sensations and our present perceptions [when they are sufficiently dis tinguished, as I have more than once before remarked] and it is by this that each one is to himself what he calls himself. It is not considered in this case whether the same self is con tinued in the same or in different substances. For since consciousness 2 always accompanies thought, and is that which makes each one to be what he calls himself and by which he is distinguished from every other thinking being; it is also in this alone that personal identity consists, or that which makes a rational being always to be the same; and as far as this consciousness can be extended over actions or thoughts already past, so far the identity of this person extends, and the self is at present the same as it was then.
Th. [I am also of this opinion that consciousness or the perception of the ego proves a moral or personal identity. Audit is by this that I distinguish the incessability3 of the soul of an animal from the immortality of the soul of man; 1 The French is " sentiment." — TR.
2 The French text is "la conscience (consciousness ou conscienciosite)," Gerhardt; " consciositc," Erdinnnn and Jacques. — TR.
3 The French is " incessabilite," i.e. continuity or perpetuity. — Tit.
246 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. n both preserve physical and real identity, but as for man, he is conformed to the rules of divine providence so that the soul preserves also identity moral and apparent to ourselves, in order to constitute the same person, capable consequently of feeling chastisements and rewards. It seems that you, sir, hold that this apparent identity could be preserved, if there were no real identity. I should think that that might perhaps be by the absolute power of God, but according to the order of things, identity apparent to the person himself who perceives the same, supposes real identity to every proximate transition, accompanied by reflection or perception of the ego, a perception intimate and immediate naturally incapable of deception. If man could be merely a machine and with that have conscious ness, it would be necessary to be of your opinion, sir; but I hold that this case is not possible at least naturally. Neither would I say that personal identity and even the self do not dwell in us and that I am not this ego which has been in the cradle, under pretext that I no more remember anything of all that I then did. It is sufficient in order to find moral identity by itself that there be a middle bond of consciousness between a state bordering upon or even a little removed from another, although a leap or forgotten interval might be mingled therein. Thus if a disease had caused an interruption of the continuity of the bond of consciousness so that I did not know how I came into the present state, although I remember things more remote, the testimony of others could fill the void in my memory. I could even be punished upon this testimony, if I had just done something bad of deliberate purpose in an inter val that I had forgotten a little after on account of this disease. And if I had just forgotten all past things and1 would be obliged to let myself be taught anew even to my name and even to reading and writing, I could always learn from others my past life in my previous state, as I have kept my rights without its being necessary for me to share them with two persons, and to make me the heir of myself. All this suffices to maintain moral identity, which makes the same person. It is true that if others should conspire to deceive me (as I might indeed be deceived by myself, by some vision, dream, or illness, believing that what I had dreamed had hap- 1 Gerhard t reads: "et"; Erdmann and Jacques: " quo," so that. — TK.
CH. xxvn] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 247 pened to me) the appearance would be false. But there are cases in which we can be morally certain of the truth upon the relation of another, and with God whose social connection with us constitutes the principal point of morality, the error cannot have place. As for the self, it will be well to dis tinguish it from the phenomenon of self and from conscious ness. The self constitutes identity real and physical, and the phenomenon of self, accompanied by truth, joins thereto per sonal identity. Thus not wishing to say that personal iden tity extends no farther than memory, I would say still less that the self or physical identity depends upon it. Real and personal identity is proved with the utmost possible certainty by present and immediate reflection; it is proved sufficiently for ordinary purposes by our memory of the interval or by the conspiring testimony of others. But if God should change in an extraordinary manner real identity, personal identity would remain, provided man preserved the appearances of identity, as well the internal (that is to say, consciousness) as the external, like those which consist in that which appears to others. Thus consciousness is not the sole means for consti tuting personal identity, and the testimony of another or even