other proofs can supply it. But there is some difficulty if contradiction occurs between those diverse appearances. Con sciousness may be silent as in forgetfulness; but if it should alter very clearly things which were contrary to the other appearances, we should be embarrassed in the decision and as it were suspended sometimes between two possibilities, that of the error of our memory and that of some deception in external appearances.]
§ 11. Ph. [You will say] that the members of the body of every man are a part of himself [and that thus, the body being in a perpetual flux, the man cannot remain the same].
Th. [I should rather prefer to say that the I and the He are without parts, because it is said, and with reason, that the same substance, or the same physical ego, is really preserved. But we cannot say, speaking according to the exact truth of tilings, that the same whole is preserved when a part is lost. Xow whatever has corporeal parts cannot fail to lose some of them at every moment.]
§ 13. Ph. The consciousness which one has of his past 248 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. n actions cannot be transferred from one thinking substance to another [and it would be certain that the same substance abides, because we feel ourselves the same], if this conscious ness were a single and indeed an individual act [i.e. if the act of reflecting were the same as the act upon which you reflect in perceiving it]. But as it is only an actual representation of a past act it remains to be shown how it is impossible for what has never really been to be represented to the mind as truly having been.
Tli. [Memory after an interval may deceive; we have ex perienced it often, and there are means of conceiving a natural cause of this error. But present or immediate memory, or the memory of what passed immediately before, i.e. the conscious ness or reflection which accompanies internal action, cannot naturally deceive; otherwise we should not be certain indeed that we think of this or that thing, for this statement is made internally only of the action already past, and not in connection with the action itself. Kow if these internal, immediate experiences are not certain, there will be no truth of fact of which we can be assured. And I have already said that there may be intelligible reasons for the error which ex poses itself in perceptions mediate and external, but in those immediately internal we cannot find any unless by recurring to the omnipotence of God.]
§ 14. Ph. As for the question whether the same immaterial substance remaining there may be two distinct persons, see upon what it is based. It is this: If the same immaterial being can be deprived of all consciousness (sentiment) of its past existence, and lose it wholly, without the power of ever recov ering it, so that beginning, so to speak, a new account from a new period, it has a consciousness (conscience) which cannot extend beyond this new state. All those who believe in the pre-existence1 of souls are evidently of this mind. I have seen 1 I.e. existence before this earthly life. The doctrine was set forth with more or less fulness by the Pythagoreans, Plato, Philo, Origen, and more recently, among others, by Lessing, Erziehuny des Menschengeschlechtes, § 94 sq.; Kant, Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, Bk. I., 4; Julius Miiller, Die <-hrist. Lehre von der Siinde, Bk. IV., chap. 4, Vol. 2, pp. 480 nq., Breslau, 1844, and English translation of the same, 2d ed., from the Hth German ed., Halle, 18f><>, Vol. 2, pp. 357 sq., Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 18(i8. The doctrine has been used chiefly to explain the origin of CH. xxvn] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 249 a man who was persuaded that his soul had been the soul of Socrates; and I can assure you that in the post he filled and which was not one of little importance he passed for a very rational man, and he appeared by his works which have seen the light to lack neither intelligence nor learning. Now souls being l indifferent to any portion of matter whatever this may be, as far as we can know it by their nature, this supposition (of the same soul passing into different bodies) involves no apparent absurdity. But he who now has no conscious ness of that which Nestor or Socrates ever did or thought, does he or can he conceive himself the same person as Nestor or Socrates? Can he take part in the actions of these two ancient Greeks? Can he attribute them to himself or think them his own actions rather than those of some other man who has already existed? He is no more the same person with one of them than if the soul now present in him had been created when it began to animate the body which it now possesses. This would no more contribute to make him the same person as Nestor, than if some of the particles of matter which once formed part of Nestor were now a part of this man. For the same immaterial substance without the same consciousness no more makes the same person to be united to such or such a body than the same particles of matter, united to a body without a common consciousness, can make the same person.
Tli. [An immaterial being or a spirit cannot be stripped of all perception of its past existence. There remain for it some impressions of all that has formerly happened to it, and it even has some presentiments of all that will happen to it; but these feelings are most often too small to be capable of being distinguished and perceived, although they may perhaps sometime be developed. This continuation and bond of perevil or sin; but it is an explanation which does not explain, its assumed solu tion being merely an evasion of the real difficulty by pushing the problem back unsolved into past time. Cf. O. Prleiclerer, Rclir/ionsphilosophie auf r/esch. Grundlar/e, Vol. 2, p. 382, 2d ed., Berlin: G. Reimer, 1884; English translation, Vol. 4, p. 29, London: Williams & Norgate, 1888. For a critique of the theory as held by Julius Miiller, <•/. I. A. Dorner, System d. christlichen Glaubennlehrc, § 77, 3; § 82, 2, Berlin: Wm. Hertz, 1881; English translation, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1882. — TR.
1 Gerhardt and Jacques read: "les ames estant" ("etant," J.); Erdmaun reads: "tant." — TR.
250 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [UK. n ceptions constitutes in reality the same individual, but the apperceptions (i.e. when past feelings are perceived), prove besides a moral identity and make real identity appear. The pre-existence of souls does not appear to us through our per ceptions, but if it were true, it might sometime make itself known. Thus it is not reasonable that the restitution of memory becomes forever impossible, the insensible percep tions (whose use I have set forth on so many important occa sions) serving here, moreover, to preserve the seeds. The late Henry More, a theologian of the English church, was con vinced of the truth of pre-existence and has written in its defence.1 The late M. Van Helmont, the son, went much farther, as I just said, and believed in the transmigration of souls, but always into bodies of one and the same species, so that according to him the human soul always animated a man. He believed with some Eabbis in the passage of the soul of Adam into the Messiah as into the new Adam. And I do not know but that he thought he had himself been some ancient, altogether clever man that he was elsewhere. Now if this pas sage of souls was true, at least in the possible way that I have explained above (but which does not appear probable), i.e.
that souls, keeping their subtile bodies, pass at once into other coarse bodies, the same individual would always subsist in Nestor, in Socrates, and in any modern, and he could even make his identity known to any one who would penetrate sufficiently into his nature, on account of the impressions or marks which would there remain of all that Nestor or Soc rates have done, and which any genius sufficiently penetrat ing could there read. But if the modern man had no means internal or external of knowing what he had been, it would be as far as the moral is concerned as if he had not been. But it appears that nothing is neglected in the world in relation even to the moral, because God is the monarch thereof whose government is perfect. Souls according to my hypothesis are not indifferent regarding any portion of matter whatever, as it seems to you; on the contrary, they originally express those portions to which they are and ought to be united by nature.
1 Cf. Opera, 1, 750-754, London, 1G79; following the Kabbala, he thinks all souls were created at the same time as the world, 2r 539; and, like Leibnitz, regards them as always united with some kind of matter, 2, 395, 396. — TK.
en. xxvn] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 251 Thus, if they pass into a iiew body coarse or sensible, they would always preserve the expression 1 of all that they had perceived in the old, and it would even be necessary for the new body to manifest it so that the individual continuity will always have its real marks. But whatever our past state may have been, the effect it leaves cannot always be for us apperceioable. The clever author of the Essay on Understand ing, whose views you had espoused, had remarked (Bk. II., chap. 27. On Identity, § 27) that a part of these suppositions or fictions of the passage of souls, assumed as possible, is founded upon the common view of the mind as not only inde pendent of matter but also as indifferent to every sort of mat ter. But I hope that what you have said, sir, on this subject here and there will serve to clear up this doubt and to make better known what is naturally possible. We see thereby how the acts of an ancient might belong to a modern who had the same soul, although he did not perceive them. But if he should come to recognize it, still more would personal identity follow. For the rest a portion of matter passing from one body into another does not constitute the same human indi vidual, nor what is called the ego, but it is the soul which constitutes it.]
§ 16. Ph. It is, however, true that I am as much concerned and as justly responsible for an action done a thousand years since, which is now adjudged as mine by this present con sciousness (self-consciousness2) thereof, as having been done by myself, as I am for what I have just done in the preced ing moment.
Th. [This view of having done something may deceive in distant actions. Men have taken as true by force of repetition what they dreamed, or what they invented; this false view may embarrass, but it cannot make them punishable, unless others agree therewith. On the other hand, you can be respon sible for what you have done, when you have forgotten it, provided the action be verified elsewhere.]
§ 17. Ph. Every one finds every day that while his little 1 Gerhardt and Erdmann read: " 1'expression "; Jacques: "1'impression."
- Gerhardt's reading; Erdmann and Jacques have, as before (p. 245, note 2), " cousciosite ou consciousness." — TR.
252 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. n finger is comprehended under this consciousness, it constitutes as much a, part of himself (oi him) as that which is most so.
Th. [I have said (§11) why I would not advance the view that my finger is a part of me; but it is true that it belongs to me and that it constitutes a part of my body.]
Ph. [Those who hold another view will say that] in the event of this little finger being separated from the rest of the body, if this consciousness accompanies the little finger and leaves the rest of the body, it is evident that the little finger would be the person, the same person, and that then the self would have nothing to do with the rest of the body.
Tli. [Nature does not admit these fictions, which are de stroyed by the System of Harmony or the perfect correspon dence of the soul and the body.]
§ 18. Ph. It seems, however, that if the body should con tinue to live and to have its particular consciousness, in which the little finger had no share, and that meanwhile the soul was in the finger, the finger could not own any of the actions of the rest of the body, and we could no longer impute them to it.1 Tli. [The soul also which would be in the finger would not belong to this body. I admit that if God caused conscious nesses to be transferred to other souls, it would be necessary to treat them in accordance with moral notions, as if they were the same; but this would disturb the order of things without reason, and make a divorce between the appercepti- ble and the truth, which is conserved by the insensible percep tions, which would not be reasonable, because the perceptions insensible at present may some day be developed, for there is nothing useless, and eternity gives a large field for changes.]
§ 20. Ph. Human laws do not punish the madman for the acts which the sober 2 man does, nor the sober man for what the madman does, thereby making them two persons. Thus they say: he is beside himself.
Th. [The laws threaten to chastise and promise to recom pense in order to prevent bad and further good acts. Now a madman may be such that the threats and promises do not operate sufficiently upon him, reason no longer being master; 1 Locke reads: " him," Philos. Works, Vol. 1, p. 47f> (Bohn's ed.). — TR.
CH. xxvii] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 253 thus in proportion to his weakness the severity of the pain should cease. On the other hand we wish the criminal to feel the effect of the evil he has done in order that he may fear further to commit crimes, but the madman not being sensitive enough, we are well content to wait a good while in order to execute the sentence which punishes him for what he did when sober. Thus what the laws or the judges do in these instances comes not from the conception of two persons.]
§ 22. Ph. In fact in the party whose opinions I represent to you, this objection is made, that if a man who is drunk and who is afterwards no longer drunk, is not the same person, he should not be punished for what he did while drunk, since he is no longer conscious of his act. But they reply that he is altogether as much the same person as a man who during his sleep walks and does many other things and who is responsi ble for all the evil he has happened to do in that state.
Th. [There is much difference between the acts of a drunken man and those of a true and recognized somnambu list. We punish drunkards because they can avoid drunken ness and can even have some memory of pain while drunk. But it is not so much within the power of somnambulists to abstain from their nocturnal walk and from what they do. But if it were true that by giving them a good flogging we could make them stay in bed, we should be right in doing it, and we should not fail either, although this would be rather a remedy than a punishment. In fact it is said that this remedy has restored -them.]
Ph. Human laws punish both in accord with a justice con formed to the mode in which men understand things, because in these sorts of cases they cannot certainly distinguish what is real from what is counterfeit; thus ignorance is not re ceived as an excuse for what they have done while drunk or asleep. The deed is proved against the one who has done it, and you cannot prove in his case lack of consciousness.
Tli. [The question is not so much about this, as about what must be done when it has been verified, as it may be, that the drunkard or somnambulist were beside themselves. In this case the somnambulist would be considered only as a maniac; but as drunkenness is voluntary, and the disease is not, the one is punished but not the other.]
254 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. n Ph. But in the great and terrible day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be uncovered, it is right to think that no one will have to answer for what is wholly unknown to him and that each one will receive what is due him, his own conscience accusing or excusing l him.
Th. I do not know whether it will be necessary for the memory of man to be exalted at the day of judgment in order for him to remember all he had forgotten, or whether the knowledge of others and above all of the just judge who can not be deceived will not suffice. We might devise a fiction lit tle agreeing with the truth, but nevertheless conceivable, to the effect that a man at the day of judgment believed he had been bad and that the same appeared true to all other created spirits, who would be able to judge of it, without its having been true: could we say that the supreme and just judge, who alone knows the contrary, could condemn this person and judge contrary to his knowledge? ~ Yet it seems that that would follow from the notion you gave of moral personality. You will perhaps say that if God judges contrary to appear ances he will not be sufficiently glorified and will bring pain upon others; biit the reply could be made that he is for him self his unique and supreme law, and that in this case others should consider themselves mistaken.]
§ 23. Ph. Could we suppose either tivo distinct and incom municable consciousnesses acting by turns in the same body, the one constantly during the day, the other by night, or that the same consciousness acts at intervals in two different bodies; I ask if, in the first case, the day and night man, if I may so express myself, would not be two as distinct persons as Socrates and Plato, and in the second case would he not be a single person in two distinct bodies? It matters not that this same consciousness which affects two different bodies, and these consciousnesses which affect the same body at different times, belong the one to the same immaterial substance, and the two others to two distinct immaterial substances, which introduce these different consciousnesses into these bodies, 1 Erdmann and Jacques omit: "ou excuse." — TR.
2 Gerhardt reads: " juger centre ce qu'il sait?" Erdmann and Jacques: "juger contre ce qu'ils font?" i.e. "pass a judgment contrary to what they do."— TR.
CH. xxvu] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 255 since personal identity would equally be determined by the consciousness, whether that consciousness were attached to some individual immaterial substance or not. Further, an immaterial thinking thing may sometimes lose sight of its past consciousness, and recall it anew. Now suppose these intervals of memory and forgetfulness return with every day and night, then you have two persons with the same immate rial spirit. Whence it follows that the self is not determined by the identity or diversity of substance, which it cannot be sure of, but only by the identity of consciousness.
Th. [I admit that if all the appearances were changed and transferred from our spirit to another, or if God made an exchange between two spirits, giving the visible body and the appearances and consciousnesses of the one to the other, per sonal identity, instead of being attached to that of substance, would follow the constant appearances which human morality must have in view; but these appearances would not consist in the consciousnesses alone; and it will be necessary for God to make the exchange not only of the apperceptions or conscious nesses of the individuals in question, but also of the appear ances which present themselves to others regarding these persons, otherwise there would be a contradiction between the consciousnesses of the one and the testimony of the others, which would disturb the moral order of things. But you must also agree with me that the divorce between the insensi ble and sensible world, i.e. between the insensible perceptions which would remain in the same substances, and the appercep tions which would be changed, would be a miracle, as when you suppose that God makes the vacuum; for I have stated above why that is not in agreement with the natural order. Here is another supposition much more suitable: it may be that in another place in the universe or at another time a globe may be found which does not differ sensibly from this earthly globe, in which we live, and that each of the men who inhabit it does not differ sensibly from each of us who corresponds to him. Thus there are at once more than a hundred million pairs of similar persons, i.e. of two persons with the same appear ances and consciousnesses; and God might transfer spirits alone or with their bodies from one globe to the other without their perceiving it; but be they transferred or let alone, what 256 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. n will you say of their person or self according to your authors? Are they two persons or the same? since the consciousness and the internal and external appearance of the men of these globes cannot make the distinction. It is true that God and the spirits capable of seeing the intervals and external rela tions of times and places, and even internal constitutions, insensible to the men of the two globes, could distinguish them; but according to your hypotheses consciousness alone discerning the persons without being obliged to trouble itself with the real identity or diversity of the substance, or even of that which would appear to others, how is it prevented from saying that these two persons who are at the same time in these two similar globes, but separated from each other by an inexpressible distance, are only one and the same person; which is, however, a manifest absurdity. For the rest, speak ing of what may be in the course of nature, the two similar globes and the two similar souls of the two globes would remain so only for a time. For since there is an individual diversity, this difference must consist at least in the insensible constitutions which must be developed in the course of time.]
§ 26. Ph. Suppose a man punished now for what he has done in another life and of which he could cause himself to have absolutely no consciousness; what difference is there between such treatment and that which would be done him in creating him miserable?
Th. [The Platonists, disciples of Origen, some Hebrews and other defenders of the pre-existence of souls believed that the souls of this world were placed in imperfect bodies, in order to suffer for the crimes committed in a preceding world. But it is true, if they neither know nor have ever learned the truth, neither by recall of memory, nor by any traces, nor by the knowledge of another, you cannot call it punishment ac cording to ordinary notions. There is, however, some room for doubt, while speaking of punishments in general, whether it is absolutely necessary that those who suffer should one day learn the reason for their suffering, and whether it would not very often suffice that better informed minds should find therein a motive for glorifying the divine justice. However, it 'is more likely, at least in general, that the sufferers will know the reason of their suffering.]
en. xxvii] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 257 § 29. Ph. [Perhaps in the main you can agree with my author who concludes his chapter on identity by saying: that the question whether the same man abides, is a question of name, according as you understand by man either the rational spirit alone or the body alone of this form which is called human, or finally the spirit united to such a body. In the first case the spirit separated (at least from the coarse body) will be still the man; in the second an ourang-outang, perfectly similar to us, reason excepted, would be a man; and if man were deprived of his rational soul and received a soul of an animal, he would continue the same man. In the third case both must remain.together with the union itself; the same spirit, and the same body in part, or at least equivalent, as far as the sensible corporeal form is concerned. Thus you could continue the same being physically or morally, i.e. the same person without remaining man, in case you consider this figure an essential to man according to this last sense.]
Th. [I admit that in this respect it is a question of name, and in the third sense the same animal is as it were now caterpillar or silk-worm and now butterfly, and some as it were have imagined that the angels of this world were men in a past world. But we have devoted ourselves in this confer ence to discussions more important than those about the meaning of words. I have shown you the source of true physical identity; I have made it appear that morality con tradicts it no more than memory; that they cannot always assign physical identity to the person indeed, whose (iden tity) is at stake, nor to those who are in connection with him; but that nevertheless they never contradict physical identity and never are completely l divorced from it; that there are always some created spirits who know or may know what it is; but that there is room to consider that what is indifferent regarding the persons themselves can be so only for a time.]
1 Erdrnann and Jacques omit: "eutier." — TR.
258 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [UK. 11 CHAPTER XXVIII OF SOME OTHER RELATIONS, AXD ESPECIALLY OF MORAL RELATIONS § 1. Ph. Besides the relations founded upon time, space, and causality, of which we have just been speaking, there are an infinite number of others, some of which I am going to propose for discussion. Every simple idea capable of parts and of degrees, furnishes an occasion for comparing the sub jects in which it is found, for example, the idea of more (or less or equally) white. This relation may be called propor tional.
Th. [There may be, however, excess without proportion; and this is in reference to a magnitude which I call imperfect, as when we say that the angle which the ray makes with the arc of its circle is less than a right angle, for it is impossible that there be a proportion between these two angles, or between one of them and their difference, which is the angle of contingence.]
§ 2. Ph. Another occasion of comparing is furnished by the circumstances of origin which found the relations of father and child, brothers, cousins, countrymen. With us people seldom think of saying this bull is grandfather of such a calf, or these two pigeons are cousins-german; for languages are proportioned to use. But there are countries in which men less curious about their own pedigree than about that of their horses have not only names for each particular horse, but also for their different degrees of relation.
Th. [We can furthermore join the family idea and names to those of relationship. It is true we do not observe under the empire of Charlemagne and for a sufficiently long time before and after family names in Germany, France, and Lom- bardy. It is moreover not long that there have been families (even noble) in the North who had no name, and in which a man would be recognized in his natal place only by calling his name and that of his father, and besides (in case he trans planted himself) by joining to his own the name of the place en. xxvin] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 259 whence he carne. The Arabs and. the Turcomans have also the same custom (I believe), having but few particular family names, and content themselves with naming the father and grandfather, etc., of any one, and they pay the same honor to their valuable horses, which they call by a proper name and the name of the father and even beyond. Thus they spoke of the horses which the Monarch 1 of the Turks sent to the emperor after the peace of Carlovvitz; 2 and the late count of Oldenburg, the last of his branch, whose studs were famous, and who lived a very long time, had genealogical trees of his horses so that he could prove their nobility, and went so far as to have portraits of their ancestors (imag ines majorum) which were so much in demand among the Komans. But to return to men, there are among the Arabs and the Tartars names of tribes, which are like great families, which are much enlarged in the course of time. And these names are taken either from the progenitor as in the time of Moses, or from the place of abode, or from some other circum stance. Mr. Worsley, an observing3 traveller, who is informed of the present state of Arabia Deserta, where he has been for some time, affirms that in all the countries between Egypt and Palestine, and where Moses passed, there are to-day only three tribes, who can bring together five thousand men, and that one of these tribes is called Sali from the progenitor (as I believe) whose tomb posterity honors as that of a saint, casting upon it dust which the Arabs put upon the heads of themselves and their camels. For the rest consanguinity exists when there is a common origin of those whose relation is considered; but we could say there is alliance or affinity between two persons, when they may have consanguinity with one and the same person without there being any for that reason between them selves, which happens through the intervention of marriages. But as it is not customary to say that there is affinity between husband and wife, although their marriage may cause affinity in relation to other persons, it would perhaps be better to say that there is affinity between those who would have con-