Part 13 (1/2)

They not only have no character in common, but it is inconceivable that they should have any On the assumption, that the attributes of the tholly different, it appeared to be a necessary consequence that the hypothetical causes of these attributes--their respective substances--must be totally different Notably, in the matter of divisibility, since that which has no extension cannot be divisible, it seemed that the _chose pensante_, the soul, must be an indivisible entity

Later philosophers, accepting this notion of the soul, were naturally much perplexed to understand how, ifin coes ofhow awhich had no di the problem of how to hit a nominative case with a stick Hence, the successors of Descartes either found theed, with the Occasionalists, to call in the aid of the Deity, as supposed to be a sort of go-between betwixt matter and spirit; or they had recourse, with Leibnitz, to the doctrine of pre-established harmony, which denied any influence of the body on the soul, or _vice versa_, and coulated to keep time with one another, that the one struck when ever the other pointed to the hour; or, with Berkeley, they abolished the ”substance” of h they failed to see that the sauments equally justified the abolition of soul as another superfluity, and the reduction of the universe to a series of events or phenomena; or, finally, with Spinoza, to whom Berkeley makes a perilously close approach, they asserted the existence of only one substance, with two chief attributes, the one, thought, and the other, extension

There remained only one possible position, which, had it been taken up earlier, ht have saved an immensity of trouble; and that was to affir about the ”substance”

either of the thinking thing, or of the extended thing And Hume's sound common sense led him to defend this thesis, which Locke had already foreshadoith respect to the question of the substance of the soul

Hume enunciates two opinions The first is that the question itself is unintelligible, and therefore cannot receive any answer; the second is that the popular doctrine respecting the i substance is a ”true atheism, and will serve to justify all those sentiments for which Spinoza is so universally infamous”

In support of the first opinion, Hume points out that it is i to the word ”substance” when employed for the hypothetical substratum of soul and matter For if we define substance as that which uish the soul from perceptions It is perfectly easy to conceive that states of consciousness are self-subsistent And, if the substance of the soul is defined as that in which perceptions inhere, what is meant by the inherence? Is such inherence conceivable? If conceivable, what evidence is there of it? And what is the use of a substratu we know to the contrary, are capable of existing by the the soul has a substance, hoe know that it is different frorounds, ain, if it be said that our personal identity requires the assumption of a substance which remains the sae, the question arises what is meant by personal identity?

”For my part,” says Hume, ”when I enter most intimately into what I call _myself_, I always stumble on soht or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure I never can catch _myself_ at any ti but the perception When my perceptions are re am I insensible of _myself_, and may be truly said not to exist

And were all my perceptions removed by death, and I could neither think, nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate, after the dissolution of my body, I should be entirely annihilated, nor do I conceive what is further requisite to make me a perfect nonentity If any one, upon serious and unprejudiced reflection, thinks he has a different notion of _hier with hiht as well as I, and that we are essentially different in this particular Hesih I a aside some metaphysicians of this kind, I may venture to affir but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed one another with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively le in an infinite variety of postures and situations

There is properly no _simplicity_ in it at one time, nor _identity_ in different, whatever natural propension we ine that simplicity and identity The comparison of the theatre must not mislead us They are the successive perceptions only that constitute the mind; nor have we the most distant notion of the place where these scenes are represented, or of the reat a propension to ascribe an identity to these successive perceptions, and to suppose ourselves possessed of an invariable and uninterrupted existence through the whole course of our lives? In order to answer this question, we ards our thought and iards our passions, or the concern we take in ourselves The first is our present subject; and to explain it perfectly we must take the matter pretty deep, and account for that identity which we attribute to plants and aniy betwixt it and the identity of a self or person”--(I pp 321, 322)

Perfect identity is exhibited by an object which rehout a certain time; perfect diversity is seen in two or more objects which are separated by intervals of space and periods of time

But, in both these cases, there is no sharp line of demarcation between identity and diversity, and it is impossible to say when an object ceases to be one and becomes two

When a sea-ane which it is said to be one animal partially divided; but, after a while, it becoether, and the limit between these conditions is purely arbitrary So in y, a crystal of a definite chemical composition may have its substance replaced, particle by particle, by another chemical compound When does it lose its priain, a plant or an animal, in the course of its existence, fro or seed to the end of life, remains the same neither in form, nor in structure, nor in the matter of which it is co, and yet we say that it is always one and the same individual And if, in this case, we attribute identity without supposing an indivisible i to underlie and condition that identity, why should we need the supposition in the case of that succession of changeful phenomena we call the mind?

In fact, we ascribe identity to an individual plant or animal, simply because there has been no moment of time at which we could observe any division of it into parts separated by ti and not as two; and we suh we know quite well that, strictly speaking, it has not been the same for any two moments

So with the mind Our perceptions flow in even succession; the impressions of the present moment are inextricably mixed up with the memories of yesterday and the expectations of to-morrow, and all are connected by the links of cause and effect

”as the sae its members, but also its laws and constitutions; in like manner the same person may vary his character and disposition, as well as his i his identity Whatever changes he endures, his several parts are still connected by the relation of causation And in this view our identity with regard to the passions serves to corroborate that with regard to the i our distant perceptions influence each other, and by giving us a present concern for our past or future pains or pleasures

”As memory alone acquaints us with the continuance and extent of this succession of perceptions, 'tis to be considered, upon that account chiefly, as the source of personal identity Had we no memory we never should have any notion of causation, nor consequently of that chain of causes and effects which constitute our self or person But having once acquired this notion of causation from the memory, we can extend the same chain of causes, and consequently the identity of our persons, beyond our memory, and can comprehend times, and circuot, but suppose in general to have existed For ho of our past actions are there of which we have any mehts and actions on the first of January, 1715, the eleventh of March, 1719, and the third of August, 1733? Or will he affirot the incidents of those days, that the present self is not the same person with the self of that time, and by that means overturn all the most established notions of personal identity? In this view, therefore, memory does not sous the relation of cause and effect a our different perceptions 'Twill be incumbent on those who affirive a reason e can thus extend our identity beyond our memory

”The whole of this doctrine leads us to a conclusion which is of great importance in the present affair, viz that all the nice and subtle questions concerning personal identity can never possibly be decided, and are to be regarded rather as grammatical than as philosophical difficulties Identity depends on the relations of ideas, and these relations produce identity by means of that easy transition they occasion But as the relations, and the easiness of the transition rees, we have no just standard by which we can decide any dispute concerning the time when they acquire or lose a title to the na the identity of connected objects are ives rise to soinary principle of union, as we have already observed

”What I have said concerning the first origin and uncertainty of our notion of identity, as applied to the human mind may be extended, with little or no variation, to that of _simplicity_ An object, whose different co-existent parts are bound together by a close relation, operates upon the iination after much the same manner as one perfectly sireater stretch of thought in order to its conception From this similarity of operation we attribute a sin a principle of union as the support of this simplicity, and the centre of all the different parts and qualities of the object”--(I pp 331-3)

The final result of Hu comes to this: As we use the name of body for the sum of the phenomena which make up our corporeal existence, so we employ the name of soul for the sum of the phenomena which constitute our mental existence; and we have no more reason, in the latter case, than in the for beyond the phenomena which answers to the name In the case of the soul, as in that of the body, the idea of substance is abut a rigorous application of Berkeley's reasoning concerning matter toarrived at the conclusion that the conception of a soul, as a substantive thing, is a ination; and that, whether it exists or not, we can by no possibility know anything about it, the inquiry as to the durability of the soul may seem superfluous

Nevertheless, there is still a sense in which, even under these conditions, such an inquiry is justifiable Leaving aside the proble the word ”soul” simply as a name for the series of mental phenomena which make up an individual mind; it remains open to us to ask, whether that series commenced with, or before, the series of pheno individual body; and whether it teroes on after the existence of the body has ended And, in both cases, there arises the further question, whether the excess of duration of the mental series over that of the body, is finite or infinite

Hume has discussed some of these questions in the remarkable essay _On the Immortality of the Soul_, which was not published till after his death, and which see to have remained but little known