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(Continuum Studies in British Philosophy) K. Joanna S. Forstrom - John Locke and Personal Identity - Immortality and Bodily Resurrection in 17th-Century Philosophy - Continuum (2010) PDF
(Continuum Studies in British Philosophy) K. Joanna S. Forstrom - John Locke and Personal Identity - Immortality and Bodily Resurrection in 17th-Century Philosophy - Continuum (2010) PDF
K. Joanna S. Forstrom
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Acknowledgements vi
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 John Locke and the Problem of Personal Identity:
The Principium Individuationis, Personal Immortality,
and Bodily Resurrection 6
Chapter 2 On Separation and Immortality: Descartes and
the Nature of the Soul 29
Chapter 3 On Materialism and Immortality: Or Hobbes’ Rejection
of the Natural Argument for the Immortality of the Soul 54
Chapter 4 Henry More and John Locke on the Dangers of Materialism:
Immateriality, Immortality, Immorality, and Identity 76
Chapter 5 Robert Boyle: On Seeds, Cannibalism, and the
Resurrection of the Body 101
Chapter 6 Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity in Its Context:
A Reassessment of Classic Objections 116
Notes 132
Bibliography 147
Index 153
Acknowledgements
Henry More, the Cambridge Platonist, falls in and out of love with
Descartes’ treatment of the soul during his career. He initially finds himself
responding enthusiastically to Descartes’ emphasis on the immateriality
of the soul, as it seems to cohere well with his own Neoplatonism. More’s
initial understanding of the preexistence and immortality of the soul is
explored using passages from his early metaphysical poetry. This poetry
is written in Spenserian allegorical style. But as More’s position matures
and he comes to better understand Descartes’ position, as well as that of
other Cartesians, he rejects Descartes and the Cartesians. More also reads
and responds quite negatively to Thomas Hobbes as he sees materialism
and those theories that might seem materialistic as being particularly threat-
ening to public morality and to his understanding of science. It should be
noted that More is not concerned to endorse a public morality like that of
the Puritans. He rejects predestination while he endorses the preexistence
of the soul. He does so as it allows an account to be given that emphasizes
the goodness and mercy of God. More’s understanding of the immortality
of the soul is discussed in detail in Chapter 4. His understanding of God’s
presence in the world is influential on Newton and others. And his use, or
what others might call misuse of science and experimental observations,
is also influential on other thinkers, such as Robert Boyle. His influence
on Locke is discussed as well as is Locke’s response.
Robert Boyle, Locke’s friend and senior colleague, is quite influential
on Locke. Boyle rejects More and Hobbes, entering into public criticism
of both. Of those focused on in this study, Boyle is the one who most
publicly identifies with science and theology. As a “Christian virtuoso” he
works to reconcile science and faith where such reconciliation is possible
and desirable. He rejects a reading of scripture that puts revelation in con-
tinual conflict with science. But he also rejects an understanding of science
that puts scripture in continual conflict with theology and revelation.
Boyle works to articulate an understanding of the relationship such that
science could illuminate scripture to support the believer. His analysis of
the resurrection of the body, discussed in detail in Chapter 5, shows how
Boyle uses scientific observation, biblical interpretation, and philosophy
to show the possibility of the resurrection of the body. He, like Descartes
in Chapter 2, does not presume to give an account of how such mysteries
must happen. Rather, he wants to show how it is possible for such to
occur. In this way science and philosophy are an aid to the believer as
well as a tool to use against the atheist who seeks to undermine society.
This perspective is quite influential on Locke, as is seen at the conclusion
of that chapter.
Introduction 5
All four thinkers are part of the context in which Locke writes. The
discussions of immortality and bodily resurrection in each are such that
it leads Locke to react to their position. Each thought to replace the
Aristotelianism of the schools with something more suitable for the emerg-
ing science and perhaps as well for the emerging understanding of religion
and its role in society. Locke too sees his work in philosophy as supporting
the new science. And so we see in Locke a move from philosophy as
handmaiden of theology to perhaps that of handmaiden of science. And
when we see Locke’s work at the intersection of theology and science, we
see that the transition was not an easy one. While today it seems to many
that the disciplines are separate and should remain so, this was not the case
when Locke wrote. Locke does not reject wholesale the work of previous
thinkers. Rather he wants to go beyond an analysis of “substance” and the
metaphysics of substance. He wants to give an analysis of identity and of
persons consistent in his understanding of human understanding in the
face of divine revelation and in support of public morality.
Understanding the context of his writing about personal identity allows
Locke’s theory to be reexamined. As we see in the final chapter, Locke’s
theory has resources with which to answer critics such as Thomas Reid
and Joseph Butler. Reid’s famous problem of the forgetful soldier is used
to highlight a potential concern with Locke’s account. And it shows as
well some of the more interesting problems that Locke could be seen as
taking a position on. For if the problem of personal identity is about what
happens at death, there are problems with understanding what happens to
the individual who has forgotten and then remembers but repudiates an
action done long ago. Forgiveness and mercy as well as scapegoating is part
of the Christian tradition, as Locke would have well been aware and his
account might also serve to help us understand these themes too.
If the problem of personal identity is characterized just as the problem of
a person’s identity over time, it is still an interesting problem. Yet Locke
thought that problem to be not that hard to solve. Rather he wants to
resolve the problem of the person’s identity over time where there might be
a period of unconsciousness or death. How to do this is the real problem.
He is not concerned to present an analysis where the person at birth needs
to be the same as the person after death. After all, people do change. And
because they change it is relevant to ask what survives the change. It need
not be the same substance or material. Rather it is the self that accepts
ultimate responsibility for the actions that were done. And Locke’s focus
on providing an account that coheres with his understanding of scripture
and science is at the core of his work on personal identity.
Chapter 1
The problem of personal identity was not the reason why John Locke wrote
his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, although it may be the reason
that many today are introduced to his work and to the classic problem of
personal identity. This chapter begins with an inquiry into some of the main
reasons Locke includes a section on personal identity in the second and
subsequent editions of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (hereafter,
Essay). The suggestion made by William Molyneux and the passages he cites
in correspondence with Locke is a logical place to begin. And as we examine
Molyneux’s suggestion, it becomes clear that what he was asking for and
what Locke provides in response is more than a treatment of a particular
problem. Rather, it is an engagement with ongoing fundamental concerns
about philosophy and theology in light of the new science.
will impact as well on the answers that can be given to account for the indi-
viduation of cats—particularly in philosophers who work for a coherent
and consistent theory in regards to things above and below reason.
The conjunction of two of these theological concerns leads to particu-
larly interesting difficulties. Personal immortality, part of the inheritance
from Greek philosophy, and bodily resurrection, with its origins in Scripture
and Jewish tradition are an uneasy synthesis.6 The resurrection of the dead
is promised in Scripture, particularly in the Epistles of Paul. For traditions
like those of the Protestants of the seventeenth century that place great
value on the revealed truths of Scripture, this doctrine is especially signifi-
cant. And Locke is clearly a member of this tradition, even if he is not
orthodox in his beliefs, as we shall see.
With bodily resurrection there are at least three areas of concern. The
first is to give an account of how an individual who experiences bodily death
can be resurrected with the same body given that bodies decay and can
even become different bodies (e.g., cannibalism or being consumed by
fish or wild animals). Second, an account of how an individual living at
the time of the Second Coming will be changed “in the twinkling of an
eye”7 into a state suitable to receive judgment is needed. The third concern
is to give an acceptable account of what happens to an individual in the
intermediate state between death and resurrection as the body is usually
decaying. In these accounts, diachronic identity of the body as well as of
the individual receiving justice is the issue. Questions raised by Sadducee
opponents of Paul about the resurrection of the body are the reason that
Paul discusses it explicitly in his Epistles. It is largely in response to questions
about the nature of bodily resurrection and the interpretation of Paul’s
writings that work on identity and individuation of material objects is
done in the Middle Ages. And Locke continues this tradition, as seen in the
next section.
On the other hand, personal immortality with its emphasis on the soul,
while not in complete opposition to bodily resurrection, is not clearly in
harmony with the emphasis on the body either. The early church fathers
draw mostly on Platonic or Aristotelian philosophy, both of which provide
an account of the immortality of the soul (or could be interpreted as doing
so), and castigate those Greek philosophers that could not or did not offer
an appropriate account.8 The standard argument of these church fathers
centers immortality in an account of the nature of the soul and generally
discounts the soul’s dubious relation to the body. The nature of the soul
in life is of great concern to these theologians as it indicates the type of
life the soul has upon separation from the body. For example, an afterlife
Locke and the Problem of Personal Identity 9
Ages asunder? Nay, Whether the Cock too, which had the same Soul,
were not the same with both of them?12
Given that different individuals and groups have answered these three
questions in different ways, as is evident, for example in the followers of
Pythagoras who explicitly endorse transmigration of the soul or metempsy-
chosis, there is no innate idea of diachronic identity that everyone agrees
on. If the idea of identity is innate then Locke thinks everyone would
share the same idea. But it is clear that we do not. Notice as well that the
questions that Locke raises to demonstrate the differences in the ideas
of identity are not “bare, empty speculations,” although even if they were,
they would still show that there is a problem with understanding identity as
innate. Locke thinks that these questions are significant. As he says:
He, that shall, with a little Attention, reflect on the Resurrection, and
consider, that divine Justice shall bring to Judgment, at the last Day, the
very same persons, to be happy or miserable in the other, who did well
or ill in this Life, will find it, perhaps, not easie to resolve with himself,
what makes the same Man, or wherein Identity consists: And will not
be forward to think he, and every one, even Children themselves, have
naturally a clear Idea of it.13
The concerns Locke raises about diachronic identity connect with the
discussions of the Resurrection and final Judgment. All three questions
raise problems for accounts placing either personal or human identity in
an immaterial soul. Given that a man is soul and body, if the body is changed,
or resurrected as a new body, is the resurrected individual the same man
who lived? If two individuals have the same soul (albeit at different times)
are they the same man? Is an animal with the same soul that a human previ-
ously had the same man? Would these individuals be the same person as
the person who did the action and thus deserve the happiness or misery
that follows judgment? These questions are undeveloped, and Locke’s
answers to them are not clear here. But these cases and others like them
are used and developed in his discussion of personal identity in the second
edition. Here Locke is using the puzzling questions for the purpose of
showing that different people have different ideas of identity and to high-
light the importance of the idea of identity over time to our commitments
to immortality and resurrection.
The second place Molyneux cites is in Book II, chapter 1, pp. 11–12 where
Locke raises a problem for the Cartesian doctrine that the soul always
Locke and the Problem of Personal Identity 11
thinks, and the implications of this for the individual’s concern with future
happiness. Locke grants that the soul of an individual who is awake is “never
without thought,” but questions if this is the case for a sleeping person:
Or if it be possible, that the Soul can, whilst the Body is sleeping, have its
Thinking, Enjoyments, and Concerns, its Pleasure or Pain apart, which
the Man is not conscious of, nor partakes in, It is certain, that Socrates
asleep, and Socrates awake, is not the same person; but his Soul when
he sleeps, and Socrates the Man consisting of Body and Soul when he is
waking, are two Persons: Since waking Socrates, has no Knowledge of, or
concernment for that Happiness, or Misery of his Soul, which it enjoys
alone by it self whilst he sleeps, without perceiving any thing of it, no
more than he has for the Happiness, or Misery of a Man in the Indies,
whom he knows not. For if we take wholly away all consciousness of
our Actions and Sensations, especially of Pleasure and Pain, and the
concernment that accompanies it, it will be hard to know wherein to
place personal Identity.14
Locke continues in this vein and raises the problem of Castor and Pollux,
who share one soul but do not share perceptions. Locke claims that as
a result of not sharing perceptions they do not share the concern with
pleasure or pain of the other, or with the happiness or misery of the soul.
Thus, Castor and Pollux are different persons. Neither Castor nor Pollux
is concerned with the soul in itself, rather each is concerned with the plea-
sure and pain that he alone will perceive in due course. As a result, Locke
concludes that it is difficult to know wherein to place personal identity
if the soul is not conscious.
Locke does consider a possible response on behalf of the Cartesians
to his problem of sleep and lack of consciousness in the first edition.
This response is that when we are sleeping we are thinking but do not
remember our thoughts upon later reflection. Locke does not think this
to be adequate.
This passage shows an awareness of not only the Cartesian doctrine, but
also other views, such as Epicureanism and Hobbesian materialism, about
the nature of thinking and how it may rely on the soul and body. Locke
suggests that the Cartesians are not offering an account of the soul that
is “more noble” than that offered by the materialists or others working
on the same problem. As he points out, if thinking continues but the indi-
vidual does not have access to memories of that time so as to learn from
experience, then what is the point of the thinking? Locke is highlighting a
problem for Descartes and others not only about the nature of thinking
while asleep, but also about the state of the soul after bodily death. The
focus on or concern with memory is one which will come to signify Locke’s
own work on the soul. And this criticism of the Cartesians and others mark
in part the move from a metaphysical response/analysis of the problem to
one that is characterized as an epistemological one.
Two things stand out about the first edition passages cited by Molyneux.
First, they reveal what it is about the problem of the principium individua-
tionis that Molyneux thought Locke to have already touched on: the con-
cerns about identity in bodily resurrection and personal immortality.
Second, they reveal that Locke is aware of and engaged with other
philosophical movements concerned with these issues. Both of these are
further developed in Locke’s work on personal identity.
Thus when Molyneux requests that Locke address the Scholastic problem
of the principium individuationis, and points to two passages where Locke
already discusses identity, he is asking him to develop his position on
controversial issues that touch on the theologically and philosophically
charged topics of the Resurrection and immortality. And in so doing to
enter into a discussion with other non-Aristotelian philosophers who were
undertaking the challenge of dealing with these complicated issues with
mixed success. It is against this backdrop of the principium individuationis
in part that Locke’s analysis of identity can be placed.
The above passages are not the only ones indicative of Locke’s views
on personal identity and immortality prior to the writing of chapter 27 for
the second edition. In a journal entry made in 1682 after reading the
Cambridge Platonist John Smith’s Select Discourses16 and Ralph Cudworth’s
Locke and the Problem of Personal Identity 13
True Intellectual System of the Universe,17 Locke makes some of the same obser-
vations about immortality. There he draws much more pointed conclusions
about the issue of bodily resurrection and personal immortality and the use
of the nature of the soul. He begins by characterizing the usual argument
given for the natural immorality of the soul:
The usuall physicall proofe (as I may soe call it) of the immortality of the
soule is this, Matter cannot thinke ergo the soule is immateriall, noe thing
can naturally destroy an immateriall thing ergo the soule is naturally
immortall.18
Locke goes on to consider why the natural proof for the immortality of
the soul fails to provide the state of sensibility he thinks necessary for our
concern with Heaven and Hell. He uses the example of the experience of
a sound sleep.
If they say as some doe that the soule dureing a sound quiet sleep
perceives and thinkes but remembers it not, one may with as much cer-
tainty and evidence say that the beds post thinkes and perceives to all
the while but remembers it not for I aske whether dureing this profound
sleepe the soule has any sense of happynesse or misery, and if the soule
should continue in that state to eternity (with all that sense about it
whereof it hath no consciousnesse noe memory) whether there could
be any such destinct states of heaven or hell as we suppose to belong to
soules after this life, and for which only we are concerned for and inquisi-
tive after its immortality and to this I leave every man to answer to his
owne self, viz if he should continue to eternity in the same sound sleepe
he has sometimes been in whether he would be ever a jot more happy or
miserable dureing that eternity then the bedstead he lay on. Since then
Experience of what we finde dayly in sleepe and frequently in swounings
and Apoplexys &c. puts it past doubt that the soule may subsist in a state
14 John Locke and Personal Identity
Identity of persons lies not in having the same numericall body made
up of the same particles, nor if the minde consists of corporeal spirits in
their being the same, but in the memory and knolwedg of ones past self
and actions continued on under the consciousnesse of being the same
person wherby every man ownes himself.22
Locke and the Problem of Personal Identity 15
In this short entry, Locke presents a sketch of the theory that will be found in
his mature work. He rejects an analysis of personal identity that locates it
in the numerical sameness of the body. And his rejection is, as Michael
Ayers suggests, in the context of the discussion about bodily resurrection
taking place at this time.23 This early account fits with Locke’s mature
account of bodily resurrection, as will be discussed in the next section.
Before examining Locke’s philosophical work on personal identity and
its relation to the principium individuationis and the debates about the
nature of the soul, I consider explicitly Locke’s treatment of the theological
problems of immortality and resurrection.
After St. Paul (who had taught them another doctrine) had left Corinth
some among them denyed the Resurrection of the dead. This he confutes
by Christs resurrection, which the number of witnesses yet remaining that
had seen him put past question besides the constant inculcateing of it
by all the Apostles every where. From the resurrection of Christ thus
established he infers the resurrection of the dead, Shews the order they
shall rise in and what Sort of bodys they shall have.25
16 John Locke and Personal Identity
In his paraphrase of the relevant part of the chapter, Locke indicates what
he takes the resurrection of the dead to be and the bodies that the dead
shall have.
In his notes on verse 35, “But some man will say, How are the dead
raised up? And with what body do they come?” Locke claims that Paul is
concerned with two questions in his response:
1 How comes it to pass that dead men are raised to life again would it
not be better they should live on; why doe they die to live again? 2 With
what bodys shall they return to life? To both these he distinctly answers
viz that those who are raised to an heavenly state shall have other bodys;
and next that it is fit that men should die, death being noe improper
way to attaining other bodys This he shews there is soe plain and common
an instance of in the sowing of all seeds that he thinks it a foolish thing to
make a difficulty of it: and then proceeds to declare that as they shall have
other so they shall have better bodys than they had before viz spiritual
and incorruptible.27
Locke interprets the passages of this chapter as showing the order of the
Resurrection. The Resurrection begins with Christ’s resurrection. Christ is
seen as the “first fruits.” The “first fruit” of a sacrifice is that part of an offer-
ing which sanctifies what follows, as Locke notes.28 After the resurrection of
Christ, the people of Christ’s church at the Second Coming are resurrected.
Locke and the Problem of Personal Identity 17
passages.31 Locke places the chapter after his treatment of other relations
such as time and place and cause and effect. He uses the same strategy to
explain the relation of identity as he does with other relations, that is, he
focuses on the simple ideas that give rise to the idea of the relation of iden-
tity. But the focus of the chapter is not a thorough exploration of the origin
of our idea of identity rather it is a sustained treatment of consciousness as
making the identity of a person over time and of the principium individua-
tionis. After introducing the relation of identity, Locke uses it to segue into
a discussion of the principium individuationis. He begins the chapter:
Another occasion the mind often takes of comparing, is the very Being
of things, when, considering anything as existing at a determined time
and place, we compare it with itself existing at another time, and thereon
form the Ideas of Identity and Diversity.32
He says that identity consists in this, that “when the Ideas it is attributed
to vary not at all from what they were that moment, wherin we consider
their former existence, and to which we compare the present.”33 “Identity”
is the result of a comparison in the mind of an idea of a thing that exists at
a particular time and place, that is, my cat Electra sitting on a chair in my
study at 4 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, with the idea of a thing that exists at
a different time in a particular time and place, that is, say my cat Electra
sitting on a chair in my study at 4:15 p.m. Tuesday afternoon. I compare the
“very being of things,” which I take in this case to mean that I compare
“Electra the cat” with “Electra the cat.” If the two ideas of “Electra the cat”
do not vary in a significant way, then Electra at 4:15 is said to be the same
cat as Electra at 4:00. According to Locke, because we cannot conceive it
as possible that two things of the same kind exist in the same place at the
same time, we conclude that “whatever exists any where at any time, excludes
all of the same kind, and is there it self alone”. As Locke points out, this
implies that a thing cannot have two beginnings of existence or two things
share one beginning.
Locke discusses the ideas of the three sorts of substances we have: God,
finite intelligences, and bodies. And then how the identity of each sort is
determined. Because God is without beginning, eternal, unalterable, and
everywhere, there can be no doubt as to His identity (at any time). Finite
spirits (such as souls or angels) each have a determinate time and place
of beginning to exist, and the relation to that time and place will always
determine to each of them its identity as long as it exists. Locke seems to be
making a claim not about how we determine identity epistemically, but
Locke and the Problem of Personal Identity 19
In like manner, if two or more Atoms be joined together into the same
mass, every one of those atoms will be the same, by the Foregoing Rule:
And whilst they exist united together, the Mass, consisting of the same
Atoms, must be the same Mass, or the same Body, let the parts be ever so
differently jumbled. But if one of these Atoms be taken away, or one new
one added, it is no longer the same Mass or the same Body.37
Thus a statue made of clay that is smashed and remade into a differently
shaped statue remains the same mass of matter as long as no additional
atoms of clay are added or any taken away. When we compare the idea of
the statue qua mass of matter at t1 with the idea of the statue qua mass of
matter at t2, it is the same mass of matter as long as the same particles exist
united together. Considered qua mass of matter, a tree then is not the same
tree when an acorn and when a mature oak for atoms of matter have been
added to it. However, it is still the same tree qua a living thing.
Trees and other living creatures’ identities depend not on the continued
existence of the same particles, but on something else. Identity is applied
not to the masses of matter but to the organization of a common life. Locke
considers how masses of matter and living creatures are different. He says:
The principium individuationis of plants and parts of plants is that they exist
united in a continued organization fit to convey life to all parts of the plant.
What constitutes an individual oak tree is that it exists in a particular way as
an oak tree. It is the continuation of the individual life that makes the oak
tree the same. Consider this case: I plant a sprouting acorn in the yard at
time t1. Many years later, at time t2 I compare my idea of an oak tree in the
yard with the idea of the acorn I planted at t1. At time t2, I say that the oak
tree is the same as the sprouting acorn. What I compare is the beginning of
existence as an oak tree with the continued existence as an oak tree. Part of
my idea of an oak tree is that it is a living entity and grows through stages.
Notice how this differs from this example: I cut down the oak tree at
t3 and five years later turn the stump of the tree into a very interesting
coffee table/conversation piece. When asked about it, I reply, speaking
loosely as a non-philosopher, that it is the oak tree I planted as an acorn
as a child. I am not claiming here that it is the same tree (as a table is not
the same thing as a tree), rather I am claiming that the wood is the same.
I compare my idea of the trunk of the tree (with a very distinctive knot) with
the idea of the coffee table (with a very distinctive knot on one leg). The
sameness is in the material and not in the continued living organization of
the wood. What I count as being a tree does not include coffee tables.
The treatment of plants is similar to the treatment of the identity of
animals. As Locke explains:
The Case is not so much different in Brutes but that any one may hence
see what makes an Animal and continues it the same. Something we have
like this in Machines, and may serve to illustrate it. For example, what is
a Watch? ’Tis plain ‘tis nothing but a fit Organization, or Construction of
Parts, to a certain end, which, when a sufficient force is added to it, it is
capable to attain. If we would suppose this Machine one continued Body,
22 John Locke and Personal Identity
human and personal identity that turns on the difference between the ideas
“man” and “person.” I stress the forensic character of person and the
connection that this has with Locke’s discussion of the afterlife, and I note
where Locke explicitly makes this connection.
Before entering into a discussion of personal identity, Locke discusses
human identity. He points to problems not unlike those he uses in the first
edition to show the problem with “identity” taken as an innate idea. For
example, the problem of metempsychosis is raised to show that the identity
of man cannot be placed in something that does not involve the sameness
of an organized body, as animal identity does. From this problem, Locke
concludes that human identity is not determined by unity of substance:
Tis not therefore Unity of Substance that comprehends all sorts of Identity
or will determine it in every Case: But to conceive, and judge of it aright,
we must consider what Idea the Word it is applied to stands for: It being
one thing to be the same Substance, another the same Man, and a third
the same Person, if Person, Man, and Substance, are three Names standing
for three different Ideas; for such as is the Idea belonging to that Name,
such must be the Identity: which if it had been a little more carefully
attended to, would possibly have prevented a great deal of that Confu-
sion, which often occurs about this Matter, with no small seeming Diffi-
culties; especially concerning Personal Identity, which therefore we shall
in the next place a little consider.40
of man includes the idea of more than a rational soul. Locke takes the
principium individuationis for an individual human to be similar to that of
an animal, the participation in the same continued life vitally united to the
same organized body. One important difference may well be that humans
have a “higher” life than do animals. This is traditionally thought of as the
rational soul which organizes not the body, but rather the mind.
Locke says that a person is a thinking intelligent Being, that has reason
and reflection, and can consider it self as it self, the same thinking thing
in different times and places; which it does only by that consciousness,
which is inseparable from thinking, and as it seems to me essential to it:
It being impossible for anyone to perceive, without perceiving, that he
does perceive. When we see, hear, smell, taste, feel, meditate, or will any
thing, we know that we do so. Thus it is always to our present Sensations
and Perceptions: And by this every one is himself that which he calls self:
It not being considered in this case, whether the same self be continued
in the same, or divers Substances. For since consciousness always accom-
panies thinking, and ‘tis that, that makes everyone to be, what he calls
self; and thereby distinguishes himself from all other thinking things, in
this alone consists personal Identity, i.e. the sameness of a rational Being:
And as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past
Action or Thought, so far reaches the Identity of that Person; it is the
same self now as it was then; and ‘tis by the same self with this present one
that now reflects on it, that the Action was done.41
This is a very rich passage, and one that is often cited in the Locke litera-
ture. The principium individuationis of a person is that by which an individual
person is distinguished from all other persons. The principium individua-
tionis for all things is existence as a kind of thing. For persons, this existence
is exemplified by consciousness. In short, the existence of a person is the
existence of a consciousness, and the continued existence of that person
is the continued existence of that consciousness. It follows that personal
identity, or the identity of the self, is determined by and constituted by
consciousness (and not substance, material or immaterial). When I ask
myself “Am I the same person as I was yesterday?” the answer comes from
a comparison of my idea of self now at t2 with my idea of self yesterday
at t1. If I am the same person today as yesterday, then I am the same person
who did the actions of yesterday and so am responsible for those actions
today. This is an important point for Locke, and it is developed in the
final chapter.
Locke and the Problem of Personal Identity 25
by the extension of consciousness, it matters not what body the person has
for judgment as long as the consciousness can be extended back to include
the actions that that person did. As Locke says:
And thus we may be able, without any difficulty, to conceive the same
Person at the Resurrection, though in a Body not exactly in make or parts
the same which he had here, the same consciousness going along with
the Soul that inhabits it.43
This passage is immediately followed by the prince and the cobbler thought
experiment. This thought experiment illustrates that human identity is not
determined by the same thing as personal identity. Locke claims that the
prince and the cobbler would be the same men (because human identity is
about body and continued life and not rational soul), but different persons
after the switch of souls. Of interest is that if the account holds, it is consis-
tent with the resurrection of someone else’s body (or a completely new
body) with my soul and consciousness attached to it, being the same person
as me. It is also consistent with the human body being resurrected, but the
person being transformed.
The problems Locke locates with the various competing suggestions
about person and man and their respective identities relate to just punish-
ment and reward. This is because “person” is a forensic term. To justify
punishment and reward, one needs to be the same person who did the
action.
The punishment with which Locke is concerned is not limited to tempo-
ral justice. Rather, Locke is, I suggest, concerned with offering an account
of person which explains divine justice and the afterlife. This suggestion
comes partly as a natural result of the interest Locke himself shows in the
chapter with the problem of resurrection and divine judgment as con-
trasted with human judgment. This is shown clearly in Locke’s discussion
of the accountability of the drunken man or sleepwalker. As he says:
But is not a Man Drunk and Sober the same Person, why else is he
punish’d for the Fact he commits when Drunk, though he be never
afterwards conscious of it? Just as much the same Person, as a Man that
walks, and does other things in his sleep, is the same Person, and is
answerable for any mischief he shall do in it. Humane Laws punish both
with a Justice suitable to their way of Knowledge: Because in these cases,
they cannot distinguish certainly what is real, what counterfeit; and so the
Locke and the Problem of Personal Identity 27
This passage again shows Locke’s concern with explaining how an indivi-
dual will be responsible for his or her actions here on earth after death.
Consciousness is the focus, and the appropriation of past actions to itself.
If an action is appropriated then the punishment or reward is merited. If
the action is not appropriated, then the punishment is not merited.
Thus Locke does do what Molyneux suggests he do: He discusses the
problem of the principium individuationis of the scholastics by developing
an analysis of identity that is in accord with his understanding of bodily
resurrection and personal identity. Locke is directly considering personal
identity as it relates to certain aspects of the classic problem of the princi-
pium individuationis. Locke also seems concerned to clear up “that confu-
sion” over the issue of personal identity and in doing so to show how
rightly to view this problem.
I turn now to a deeper examination of Locke’s rejection of other philo-
sophical treatments of the problem of personal immortality. As I argue
in the next four chapters, Locke was aware of other philosophers who
addressed the problem of the philosophical underpinning of personal
immortality in their work. Why look at others? The plan that Molyneux
suggests draws upon the philosophical tradition. Others besides Locke
were trying to replace the scholasticism of Oxford, and of the schools in
general, and in doing so were responding to the same problem. For example,
Rene Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, and Henry More, among others, discuss
in some detail the immortality of the soul. Each discusses immortality and
substance in ways that are influential on each other and on Robert Boyle
and Locke. I consider the arguments of each and their influence on Locke
in the next four chapters. In the final chapter, I return to offer a specific
analysis of Locke’s work on personal identity. There I argue that Locke’s
theory once juxtaposed to these other theories has resources with which
to respond to the classic objections made to his theory.
Chapter 2
At first it may seem odd to see Rene Descartes as relevant to John Locke
on the issue of personal identity, as Descartes is generally interpreted as
not having been particularly concerned with those issues that seem to make
up the standard characterization of Locke’s concern in his discussion
of personal identity, that is, the definition of person, the individuation of
consciousness, the role or memory, and the criterion of identity.1 However,
when modifying the standard account of Locke on personal identity into
the problematic of personal immortality and bodily resurrection (as was
done in the previous chapter), altered as well is what is relevant to a discus-
sion of Descartes and his influence on Locke. The question is not how
well Descartes deals explicitly with the issues of twentieth-century personal
identity currently studied in the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and
metaphysics, but the extent to which he addresses individuation, intellec-
tual soul, personal immortality, and bodily resurrection (among other
issues) within his philosophical and Catholic framework. And as seen in
the first part of this chapter, Descartes does develop a consistent position
that is both interesting and influential on Locke and the philosophers
of his time.
Descartes’ analysis is framed in the first part of this chapter in relation to
the Fifth Lateran Council, particularly the decree that was issued in the
Eighth session. The three arguments for the immortality of the soul sum-
marized by Descartes in the Synopsis to his Meditations on First Philosophy
are developed with the centrality of Descartes’ understanding of substance
to each emphasized. His depiction of the rational soul and the reaction
others had to it, including a very brief discussion of the debate about the
souls of animals is at the end of the discourse. Highlighted is Descartes’
theory of memory and the role that it plays in his account of the afterlife (or
lack thereof for animals) for two reasons. First it can be seen as a developed
response to the Council’s concerns about the Aristotelian heresies and
30 John Locke and Personal Identity
I have always thought that two topics—namely God and the soul—are
prime examples of subjects where demonstrative proofs ought to be given
with the aid of philosophy rather than theology. For us who are believers,
it is enough to accept on faith that the human soul does not die with
the body, and that God exists; but in the case of unbelievers, it seems
that there is no religion, and practically no moral virtue, that they can
be persuaded to adopt until these two truths are proved to them by natu-
ral reason. And since in this life the rewards offered to vice are often
greater than the rewards of virtue, few people would prefer what is right
to what is expedient if they did not fear God or have the expectation of
an after-life.6
Descartes claims that in the Meditations he has demonstrated that the soul
does not die with the body. Note that this is a claim weaker than a demon-
stration of the personal immortality of the soul, but is still one that is of
potential interest to theologians. And it is a stronger claim than that of a
demonstration of the possible personal identity of the soul. So if it is suc-
cessful, it might convince some unbelievers (at least those whose disbelief
is based on the impossibility of personal identity). As Descartes points out
in correspondence, what is needed to make the stronger assertion of actual
personal immortality is the belief that God does not annihilate the soul
On Separation and Immortality 33
after the death of the body, although He could do so.7 The passage also
shows an awareness of some of what is at stake in the discussion of personal
immortality: personal and public morality. By showing that the soul need
not die with the body, Descartes implies that individuals should behave
virtuously.8 That public chaos and immorality follows the rejection of per-
sonal immortality is a concern to many during this time, as is more clearly
discussed in relation to Henry More in Chapter 4. And it makes clear that
faith is enough to convince the believer—and that his work is to demon-
strate for the unbeliever the possibility. It is also possible that if he had
made the stronger claim of certainty in so doing he would alienate some of
the theologians who worked in this area and thus undermine his project.
Later in the letter Descartes focuses explicitly on the nature of the soul
and its perishability:
And as for the soul, many have believed that it is not easy to understand
its nature, and some have even dared to say that human reasoning would
convince us that it perishes with the body, and that faith alone can teach
us the contrary. Nevertheless, as the Lateran council, held under Leo X,
Session 8, condemns these persons, and expressly orders Christian phi-
losophers to refute their arguments and to employ all their intellectual
abilities to make the truth known, I have decided to make the attempt in
this work.
Descartes here explicitly ties the Meditations to the negative and positive
projects established by the Lateran Council. This indicates an apparent
compliance with and submission to the consular tradition, which might
well have been amenable to the theologians at the Sorbonne and elsewhere.
Given Descartes’ express interest in the Lateran Council, it is justifiable to
characterize Descartes’ discussion of personal immortality in the Medita-
tions as a response to the Lateran Council.
On December 19, 1513, during the eighth session of the Fifth Lateran
Council, the papal bull Apostolici Regiminis was published. The portion
relevant to Descartes’ project begins:
Since in our days (which we endure with sorrow) the sower of cockle, the
ancient enemy of the human race, has dared to scatter and multiply in
the Lord’s field some extremely pernicious errors, which have always
been rejected by the faithful, especially on the nature of the rational soul,
with the claim that it is mortal, or only one among all human beings,
34 John Locke and Personal Identity
playing the philosopher without due care, assert that this proposition is
true at least according to philosophy.9
Note that the errors with which the council is concerned are about the
nature of the rational soul. At the time the council was promulgating the
above, one prominent understanding of the human soul was that it is
“divided” into three souls: the intellective (or rational), the sensitive, and
the vegetative.10 This division and the status of the faculties (such as those
of imagination and memory) are contentious issues, and there is much
disagreement about how these faculties and the soul are to be understood
particularly in regard to the theological doctrine of immortality. The
neoplatonists and the Aristotelians are not in agreement about the issues.
But the neoplatonists have the upper hand during the council session, as
is reflected in the errors condemned and the formulation of the orthodox
position. The errors mentioned above in the decree are those of two related
schools of Aristotelian interpretation: the Latin Averroists and Alexandrian
mortalists.
The origin of the problems about immortality, the nature of the mind
and perception, can be credited to Aristotle’s discussion of the active and
passive intellect in De Anima 3.5:
the Catholic Church, although perhaps not to other Christians (as we shall
see in our discussion of Hobbes).
The third error mentioned in the Council decree, the doctrine of double
truth, is associated with the Averroists. Somewhat oversimplified, this doctrine
is that there are two kinds of truth, theological and philosophical. Some-
thing may be true in theology but false in philosophy and vice versa. For the
Averroists, the two things are not actually in conflict, as they are different
types of truths. Each type of truth depends on the listener, and not every-
one should have access to all truths. This doctrine as related to a policy
of philosophical exclusiveness has a history of being problematic (at least
since the time of William of Ockham) in the eyes of the church.15
The council does more than identify the errors above. They outline steps
to be taken in response and state the correct doctrine. The decree thus
continues:
For the soul not only truly exists of itself and essentially as the form of
the human body, as is said in the canon of our predecessor of happy
memory, pope Clement V, promulgated in the general council of Vienne,
but it is also immortal; and further, for the enormous number of bodies
into which it is infused individually, it can and ought to be and is
multiplied.16
And since truth cannot contradict truth, we define that every statement
contrary to the enlightened truth of the faith is totally false and we strictly
forbid teaching otherwise to be permitted. We decree that all those who
cling to erroneous statements of this kind, thus sowing heresies which
are wholly condemned, should be avoided in every way and punished as
detestable and odious heretics and infidels who are undermining the
catholic faith. Moreover we strictly enjoin on each and every philosopher
who teaches publicly in the universities or elsewhere, that when they
explain or address to their audiences the principles or conclusions of
philosophers, where they are known to deviate from the true faith—as
in the assertion of the soul’s mortality or of there being only one soul or
of the eternity of the world and other topics of this kind—they are obliged
to devote their every effort to clarify for their listeners the truth of the
Christian religion, to teach it by convincing arguments, so far as this is
possible, and to apply themselves to the full extent of the energies to
refuting and disposing of the philosophers’ opposing arguments, since
all the solutions are available.19
In the Second Meditation, the mind uses its own freedom and supposes
the non-existence of all the things about whose existence it can have
even the slightest doubt; and in so doing the mind notices that it is impos-
sible that it should not itself exist during this time. This exercise is also
of the greatest benefit, since it enables the mind to distinguish without
difficulty what belongs to itself, i.e. to an intellectual nature, from what
belongs to the body. But since some people may perhaps expect argu-
ments for the immortality of the soul in this section, I think they should
be warned here and now that I have tried not to put down anything
which I could not precisely demonstrate. Hence the only order which
I could follow was that normally employed by geometers, namely to set
On Separation and Immortality 39
Now the first and most important prerequisite for knowledge of the
immortality of the soul is for us to form a concept of the soul which is as
clear as possible and is also quite distinct from every concept of body;
and that is just what has been done in this section. A further requirement
is that we should know that everything that we clearly and distinctly
understand is true in a way which corresponds exactly to our under-
standing of it; but it was not possible to prove this before the Fourth
Meditation. In addition we need to have a distinct concept of corporeal
nature, and this is developed partly in the Second Meditation itself, and
partly in the Fifth and Sixth Meditations. The inference to be drawn from
these results is that all the things that we clearly and distinctly conceive
of as different substances (as we do in the case of mind and body) are
in fact substances which are really distinct one from the other; and this
conclusion is drawn in the Sixth Meditation.23
1. We have a clear and distinct concept of the soul distinct from every
concept of the body.
2. We know that everything we clearly and distinctly understand is true in
a way that corresponds exactly to our understanding of it.
3. We have a distinct concept of corporeal nature distinct from every
concept of the soul.
4. All things we clearly and distinctly conceive of as different substances
are in fact substances that are really distinct from one another.
5. We clearly and distinctly conceive of the soul and the corporeal bodies
as different substances.
40 John Locke and Personal Identity
6. Thus, the mind and the body are in fact substances that are really distinct
from one another.
7. Thus we can know with certainty that the mind and body are really
distinct from one another.
This argument is among the major arguments of the Meditations, and among
the most controversial. The argument culminates in the Sixth Meditation
and depends for its soundness on the most controversial aspects of the
Meditations: the essence of the mind as known clearly and distinctly, the
essence of the body, the definition of substance, and the reliance on God’s
concurrence. Because of this, it is not surprising that the argument is gener-
ally thought not to be a sound proof as one or more of the premises is
considered to be quite problematic.24 Even in Descartes’ day, objections
were drawn to the argument as a whole, and to specific aspects of the
argument, as is evident in the Objections and Replies section of the
Meditations.
And yet, the argument for real distinction does indicate how Descartes’
metaphysics can be used to demonstrate the conclusion that the soul need
not die with the body, which is the conclusion Descartes consistently
claims to argue for in the Meditations. Even if the argument does not
work given our modern appraisals, it is productive to see how he thought
it to work. Descartes tries to establish that the mind and body are distinct
substances. Because a substance, according to his definition, does not
depend on anything else for its continued existence, if mind and body are
indeed separate substances, the mind does not depend on the body for its
continued existence before or after death. So if you accept his system,
as was his goal in writing and publishing the Meditations, then it can be
plausibly used to support the Catholic Church’s doctrine. And perhaps by
other Christian churches too in support of their eschatologies.
Descartes summarizes in the Synopsis a second argument for the conclu-
sion that the mind and body are separate substances and thus that the mind
can continue to exist even after the body is dead:
From this argument follows the possibility of the survival of the rational
soul upon the death of the body. The argument recapitulated in the Synop-
sis is found in the Sixth Meditation. It follows there a discussion of dropsy.
Dropsy is a disease where what the mind thinks the body craves (water) is
actually what will cause the body to die. It is a clear example of the mind
and the body being at odds about the health of the united entity. Because
the natures of mind and body are so different, it is not surprising that we
err occasionally about the interaction between the two. And indeed it is
perhaps surprising that given the quantity of interactions that we do not
err more frequently.
The argument is based on the same strategy as the real distinction
argument. Because we can conceive the natures of the mind and body as
different, it follows that they really are distinct. The first premise that the
mind or rational soul is not composed of parts is in keeping with the senti-
ments of the Catholic church at this time. Given that the soul is simple, or
not composed of parts, it follows that it is incorruptible and thus is able
to survive the death of the body.27 Descartes’ version of the argument rests
upon the second premise that the mind can always conceive of a piece of
corporeal matter as divisible. This is a somewhat contentious assertion
among philosophers and scientists and is a premise with which Locke
disagrees, as we will see in the next section.
Descartes offers a third analysis of immortality. He closes his summary on
the topic by proffering a sketch of what a complete proof for immortality
would look like. He does not think that he needs to offer such a proof in the
42 John Locke and Personal Identity
Meditations, as he is but trying to show that the “decay of the body does
not imply the destruction of the mind” and thus to give individuals “the
hope of an afterlife.” To give a complete proof would require the physics
themselves, rather than just the foundations:
This is required for two reasons. First, we need to know that absolutely
all substances, or things which must be created by God in order to exist,
are by their nature incorruptible and cannot ever cease to exist unless
they are reduced to nothingness by God’s denying his concurrence to
them. Secondly, we need to recognize that body, taken in the general
sense, is a substance, so that it too never perishes. But the human body, in
so far as it differs from other bodies, is simply made up of a certain con-
figuration of limbs and other accidents of this sort; whereas the human
mind is not made up of any accidents in this way, but is pure substance.
For even if all the accidents of the mind change, so that it has different
objects of the understanding and different desires and sensations, it does
not on that account become a different mind; whereas a human body
loses its identity merely as a result of a change in the shape of some of its
parts. And it follows from this while the body can very easily perish, the
mind is immortal by its very nature.28
In this passage, Descartes sketches the outlines of a complete proof for the
immortality of the soul. This proof is not to be found in the Meditations, as
the Meditations are about the metaphysical foundations of his physics, and
the proof requires the physics themselves. The discussion of the identity
of bodies versus that of minds in this passage is of particular interest as
Descartes explicitly invokes identity of substance. He claims that strictly
speaking the identity of bodies change when their accidents change, but
that the mind’s identity does not change even though the accidents or
thoughts of the mind do change. This difference in identity conditions
helps him to distinguish, yet again, between the mind and the body.
Descartes’ arguments for immortality did not go unquestioned in the
Objections to the Meditations. For example Mersenne reiterates a point
he had made in correspondence29 and which sparked Descartes’ writing of
the Synopsis:
Seventhly, you say not one word about the immortality of the human
mind. Yet this is something you should have taken special care to prove
and demonstrate, to counter those people, themselves unworthy of
immortality, who utterly deny and even perhaps despise it. What is more,
On Separation and Immortality 43
you do not yet appear to have provided an adequate proof of the fact
that the mind is distinct from every kind of body, as we mentioned under
point one. We now make the additional point that it does not seem
to follow from the fact that the mind is distinct from the body that it
is incorruptible or immortal. What if its nature were limited by the
duration of the life of the body, and God had endowed it with just
so much strength and existence as to ensure that it came to an end with
the death of the body?30
But in the case of the human body, the difference between it and other
bodies consists merely in the arrangement of the limbs and other acci-
dents of this sort; and the final death of the body depends solely on a
division or change of shape. Now we have no convincing evidence or
precedent to suggest that the death or annihilation of a substance like
the mind must result from such a trivial cause as a change in shape, for
this is simply a mode, and what is more not a mode of the mind, but a
44 John Locke and Personal Identity
mode of the body which is really distinct from the mind. Indeed, we do
not even have any convincing evidence or precedent to suggest that
any substance can perish. And this entitles us to conclude that the mind,
in so far as it can be known by natural philosophy, is immortal.33
But if your question concerns the absolute power of God, and you are
asking whether he may have decreed that human souls cease to exist
precisely when the bodies which he joined them to are destroyed, then it
is for God alone to give the answer. And since God himself has revealed
to us that this will not occur, there remains not even the slightest room
for doubt on this point.34
Thus the true status of the soul depends on God, and as he has revealed
to humans that he does not destroy the souls, we can conclude that the
soul is immortal. This dependence on God not destroying the mind after
death is consistent with Descartes’ definition of substance as able to exist
without dependence on any other substance except God. Also, the sub-
mission to revelation as playing a key role in the discussion of immortality
is in keeping with the rejection of the doctrine of double truth and so
can be seen as part of the project of submitting his work to be used by the
Schools.
As Rodis-Lewis points out in her biography of Descartes, all three
arguments for the immortality of the soul are quite carefully nuanced.35
Descartes is carefully trying to claim that his method can contribute to
a philosophical discussion of immortality but that within this discussion
remains a place for traditional theology. Some commentators on Descartes,
such as Prendergast, are unsure exactly why Descartes argued in the Medita-
tions as he did on this subject.36 As I suggested earlier, it is possibly because
of the goal of adoption of his work by the Sorbonne (and other schools)
that leads Descartes to treat this issue in particular rather carefully. The
goal constrained what was politic for him to say. He needed to show a
clear place for revelation in his scheme to satisfy the theologians and at
the same time to show respect for and conformity with Catholic tradition
and eschatology. He thus wrote in the Synopsis to emphasize his conformity,
and to deemphasize the potentially problematic parts of the Meditations to
the theologians.
On Separation and Immortality 45
Descartes throughout his life. For example, in the journal entry made on
February 20, 1682 excerpted in part in Chapter 1, Locke considers the issue
of immortality. He is quite clearly aware of and responding to issues sur-
rounding Descartes and his position on the immortality of the soul and the
controversy it raised in regard to animals. Available to Locke during the
time when he was writing and rewriting the Essay are a number of works
centering on philosophy and theology.42 The contents of Locke’s library
include Descartes’ primary works, as well as secondary works on Descartes
and the Cartesians. While it is true that ownership of a book does not
guarantee that the owner is familiar with the contents, it is probably true
that Locke had read at least some of the many books he owned on this
topic, particularly those for which he wrote reviews.
So I take it as uncontroversial to assert on the basis of his private reading,
his travel, and his many acquaintances that Locke is familiar with Descartes’
arguments for immortality of the soul. And further that Locke also would
have been familiar with the common criticisms made of Descartes by com-
peting philosophers, theologians, and scientists, including the Gassendists,
Hobbists, and Cambridge Platonists.
Locke reacts to the Cartesian project in his many works other than in
the Essay Book II, chapter 27. I examine some of Locke’s analyses of
Descartes’ philosophy and focus on criticisms that apply to the arguments
given for the non-mortality of the soul and that seem most significant in
Locke’s treatment of the issues of personal identity.
Four criticisms can be distinguished. First, Locke rejects the Cartesian
project of demonstrating the essential nature of substances using his way of
ideas to do so. In his second criticism, he attacks the arguments that the
nature of the soul (even if it could be known) is that of a thinking thing.
The third criticism is similar to the second, as Locke claims it is possible
that God could “superadd” thinking to a material thing. Fourth, Locke
attacks the view that we can have an idea that matter is infinitely divisible,
or that the essence of matter as infinitely divisible extension.
First, Locke rejects the demonstrability of the essence of thinking sub-
stance. He denies Descartes’ plan of offering a geometric demonstration of
the natures of mind and body. Locke uses his way of ideas and its limitations
to show that what we have knowledge of is not the essence of things. Imma-
terial spirit or soul is for Locke a complex idea. Complex ideas are made up
of simple ideas received from sensation or reflection. Thus all of our knowl-
edge is based on simple ideas. But do simple ideas reveal the essential
nature of the soul? Locke does not think so. If we inquire into the nature
of substance we “fall presently into darkness and obscurity, perplexedness
48 John Locke and Personal Identity
and difficulties.”43 What we have access to is the simple ideas among which
is not an idea of a substance. There is nothing about these simple ideas that
provides knowledge of the essence of a substance, contra Descartes.
Second, Locke takes issue with the specific Cartesian doctrine that the
soul always thinks. Locke takes this doctrine as being committed to the
proposition that if the soul is not thinking, then it is not existing. As
discussed in the first chapter, Locke raises the problem of sleep for this
proposition and contrasts it with the position of the materialists. In a later
section, Locke rejects again the Cartesian idea:
I would be glad also to learn from these Men, who so confidently pro-
nounce, that the humane Soul, or which is all one, that man always thinks,
how they come to know it; nay, how they come to know, that they themselves think,
when they themselves do not perceive it. This, I am afraid, is to be sure, without
proofs; and to know, withought perceiving: ‘Tis, I suspect, a confused
Notion, taken up to serve an Hypothesis; and none of those clear Truths,
that either their own Evidence forces us to admit, or common Experience
makes it impudence to deny.44
This passage reinforces the claim that Locke specifically rejects Descartes’
knowledge claims regarding the essence of the mind. We cannot have
knowledge that the soul is always thinking because of our experience of
sleep. Thus in Locke’s estimation, experience shows that Descartes’ analysis
of the mind is fatally flawed.
Locke’s third criticism of Descartes is that he has not shown that it is
a contradiction that matter could think. As seen in the previous section,
Descartes’ first argument for the immortality of the soul depends on our
understanding that the natures of the mind and body are incompatible as
well as the claim that this incompatibility can be grasped by proper use of
our mental faculties. Central to the support of this is Descartes’ position
that God would not deceive us when we used our mental faculties properly.
This understanding of God is central to Descartes’ method. In contrast,
Locke claims that it is not a contradiction to suggest that matter can think.
He thinks that our limited knowledge of the natures of the mind and the
body does not preclude the possibility that God could add thinking to
a material entity. This superaddition does not pose a contradiction for
Locke.45 Of course, Descartes limits God’s powers in a way that Locke does
not. This is why there is a contradiction for Locke but not for Descartes.
Locke’s claim occasioned much debate in the eighteenth century.46 Locke
On Separation and Immortality 49
I say not this, that I would any way lessen the belief of the soul’s immate-
riality: I am not here speaking of probability, but knowledge; and I think
not only, that it becomes the modesty of philosophy not to pronounce
magisterially, where we want that evidence that can produce knowledge;
but also, that it is of use to us to discern how far our knowledge does
reach; for the state we are at present in, not being that of vision, we must,
in many things, content ourselves with faith and probability; and in the
present question, about the immateriality of the soul, if our faculties
cannot arrive at demonstrative certainty, we need not think it strange. All
the great ends of morality and religion are well enough secured, without
philosophical proofs of the soul’s immateriality; since it is evident, that he
who made us at the beginning to subsist here, sensible intelligent beings,
and for several years continued us in such a state, can and will restore us
to the like state of sensibility in another world, and make us capable there
to receive the retribution he has designed to men, according to their
doings in this life.47
Locke claims not to be casting doubt upon the belief of the immateriality
of the soul, but only about knowledge claims regarding its immateriality.
He seems willing to grant the probability that the soul is immaterial, but he
will not grant knowledge. This conclusion is consistent with his general
epistemological stance, according to which knowledge of the essence of
a thing is not possible. However, even if we do not have knowledge of
the soul’s immateriality Locke thinks that that this does not undermine
morality or religion. Locke appeals to God’s ability to restore individuals
to sensibility and to mete out the punishment as he has promised. He is
explicitly tying the discussions of immateriality to discussions of personal
immortality and public morality.
Locke discusses the two groups who have reached different conclusions
about immateriality and immortality. These two groups, the materialist and
immaterialists, share a concern over the nature of the mind. I show this
more particularly in the next chapter where I discuss Hobbes in more detail.
But it is clear that this is a concern that Locke does not share.
50 John Locke and Personal Identity
The fourth criticism that Locke makes is aimed at Descartes’ second argu-
ment for the immortality of the soul. Locke challenges the claim that the
body can always be conceived of as being divisible. Locke writes:
A pestle and mortar will as soon bring any particle of matter to indivisi-
bility, as the acutest thought of a mathematician; and a surveyor may as
soon with his chain measure out infinite space, as a philosopher by the
quickest flight of mind reach it, or by thinking comprehend it; which is to
have a positive idea of it. He that thinks on a cube of an inch diameter,
has a clear and positive idea of it in his mind, and so can frame one of
1/2, 1/4, 1/8, and so on till he has the idea in his thoughts of some thing
very little: But yet reaches not the idea of that incomprehensible littleness
which division can produce. What remains of smallness, is as far from his
thoughts as when he first began; and therefore he never comes at all to
have a clear and positive idea of that smallness, which is consequent to
infinite divisibility.48
What does this mean in regard to immortality? Locke holds that an indi-
vidual cannot have a clear and distinct idea of a substance as actually
being infinitely divisible. If Descartes’ argument is taken to depend on the
idea of being able clearly and distinctly to conceive of the smallest divided
piece of matter, he then has a problem. And given that Descartes does
make the claim that he can always divide the idea of a body into parts, this
criticism is appropriate. Locke reiterates this criticism:
Locke is clearly rejecting Descartes’ claim that we can always clearly and
distinctly conceive of half a body, no matter how small. If we take seriously
that matter is infinitely divisible, then we reach a problem that after a period
On Separation and Immortality 51
But the question is, “whether if the same substance which thinks, be
changed, it can be the same person; or, remaining the same, it can be
different persons?”
And to this I answer: First, This can be no Question at all to those
who place thought in a purely material animal Constitution, void of an
immaterial Substance. For whether their Supposition be true or no, it is
plain they conceive personal Identity preserved in some thing else than
identity of Substance; as animal identity is preserved in Identity of Life,
and not of Substance. And therefore those who place thinking in an
immaterial Substance only, before they can come to deal with these Men,
must shew why personal Identity cannot be preserved in the change of
immaterial Substances, or variety of particular immaterial Substances, as
well as animal Identity is preserved in the change of material Substances,
or variety of particular Bodies: Unless they will say, it is one immaterial
Spirit that makes the same Life in Brutes, as it is one immaterial Spirit
that makes the same Person in Men; which the Cartesians at least will not
admit, for fear of making Brutes thinking things too.50
This passage reveals a number of key things. First, it shows that Locke is
continuing his assessment of the problems involving materialists and imma-
terialists. He shows how both of them run into difficulty on the issues of the
afterlife. Second, it reveals an awareness of the heated debate surrounding
the nature of animals and the status of animals’ souls. This debate over
the beast machine is one of the reasons Cartesianism is thought to have
failed, for it was widely satirized and greatly contributed to its public disap-
proval.51 The discussion of animal souls is present not only in the Discourse,
but is prominent in his correspondence with Henry More and so will be
discussed in more detail in Chapter 4.
The second place where the Cartesian position is discussed by Locke is
in section 21. Here Locke asks how we can conceive Socrates, who is an
individual man, as two persons. He raises this question after offering the
52 John Locke and Personal Identity
in Descartes, and this is part of the problem that Locke has with Descartes’
theory. The memory criterion is not so much a criterion as an explanation
of what is involved with self-consciousness: identification of the moral self
with the self of previous times. Descartes’ use of intellectual memory and
its role in the rational soul does not satisfy Locke.
In this chapter, I developed Descartes’ arguments for the immortality of
the soul, showing that his arguments are in response to the decree of the
Fifth Lateran Council. He is focused on supporting the proper doctrine
and responding to the Averroists and the Alexandrian mortalists. I deve-
loped three distinct arguments that Descartes uses to establish the non-
mortality of the soul. I then considered how Locke responds to these
arguments. For the most part Locke responds to the major argument
in which Descartes uses the essence of thinking as distinct from extension
as the basis of his analysis of immortality. I also showed how Locke in
general deals with the discussion about the immateriality of the soul. He is
hoping to not become mired in it. But it is clear that by emphasizing the
unknowability of substance, either material or immaterial, Locke has to
say something about the issues involved if he wants to fulfill his own or
Molyneux’s goal of having his philosophy (and the science it supports)
accepted in the schools.
Chapter 3
While John Locke does not wholeheartedly adopt Thomas Hobbes’ hostile
attitude toward immaterial substance and organized religion, it is clear that
he is similar to Hobbes in his discussion of person, identity, and substance.
As we see in this chapter, Locke was influenced by Hobbes in his treatment
of personal identity. This influence is partially seen as a response to the
controversy surrounding Hobbes’ materialism and its implications for
public morality, as will be discussed in the next chapter.
I begin with an overview of Hobbes’ life and works and Locke’s probable
acquaintance with them. The controversy over the nature of thinking that
Hobbes engaged in with Descartes is then discussed in detail as it is in
reaction to Descartes and those who had influenced Descartes that Hobbes
writes. A focus on Hobbes’ mechanistic theory of vision and its implications
for thinking is the focus of the second section.
Thomas Hobbes, when he died at age 91 in 1679, was the most controversial
English philosopher of his time. He engendered controversy for many
reasons: partly as a result of his materialism, including the mechanistic
theory of vision, partly as a result of his political theory and political con-
nections, and partly as a result of his analysis of theological issues and use
of scripture. Given the general outcry about him, we can be quite certain
that Locke was familiar with at least the general tenets of many of Hobbes’
works, if not specific passages.
Hobbes comes relatively late to philosophy.1 After graduating from
Oxford, he is employed as a tutor to the Cavendish family and accompanies
the future Earl of Devonshire for three years on a tour of Europe. He learns
On Materialism and Immortality 55
Italian and meets Galileo. After the death of the Earl, he becomes a tutor to
Gervase Clifton and travels to France and Switzerland. During his stay in
Geneva in 1630, Hobbes reads Euclid’s Elements and is struck by the method
of reasoning employed.2 Upon his return to England, Hobbes reenters
service to the Cavendish family as tutor to the third Earl. By being a
member of this household, he enjoys access to a large library and circle of
learned individuals as well as significant time to work on his own theories.3
During the next decade, Hobbes develops a theory of optics and vision
concurrently with his political philosophy. He publishes The Elements of Law
at the end of the decade and has De Cive in manuscript form. He also travels
to Europe for a third time, and becomes acquainted with Father Mersenne
and Pierre Gassendi. He discusses intellectual issues with them and his
friend Sir Kenelm Digby.4 In 1635, while in Paris, Hobbes writes of an
ambition to be the first person to give “good reasons for ye facultyes &
passions of ye soule, such as may be expressed in playne English”5 if his
friend Robert Payne6 does not do so first. When Hobbes returns to England
he continues his studies in optics and vision, developing a mechanistic
theory of vision and account of light. Digby sends Hobbes a copy of
Descartes’ Discourse soon after it is published in 1637.
In his theory of vision, Hobbes challenges the claim that the mind can be
affected by the motion of objects without itself being a physical object, as
is held by some Scholastics. Hobbes claims that since vision is formally
and really nothing other than motion, it follows that that which sees is
also formally and strictly speaking nothing other than that which is moved;
for nothing other than a body can be moved. This is the core of Hobbes’
analysis of vision and the faculties and passions of the soul. In the next
section, this analysis of vision is developed.
Hobbes explicitly (and apparently sincerely) expresses in his early works
conformity with the Church of England on the issue of immortality.7 He
believes that the truths of religion and the truths of reason are separate, a
view also held by the Averroists, as was discussed in the previous chapter.
This view is also one held by Pierre Gassendi. In contrast with the Roman
Catholic Church, the Church of England holds the immortality of the soul
to be a matter of faith. And it seems that their position is partly a backlash
to the fifth Lateran Council’s decrees on the subject.8
In 1640, Hobbes flees to France for political reasons. While there he
writes the third set of objections to Descartes’ Meditations. De Cive is pub-
lished in 1642 by Sorbiere with letters from Gassendi and Mersenne at its
head. Hobbes writes (but does not publish) a critique of Thomas White’s De
Mundo, debates and writes on free will and necessity with Bishop Bramhill,
56 John Locke and Personal Identity
goals. Noel Malcolm conjectures that one of the reasons why Hobbes
was never invited to join the Royal Society is that too many of the members
were secret Hobbists and afraid of being exposed as such.13 Given that
Locke was a member of the society, and a sometime member of its Council,
G. A. J. Rogers suggests that perhaps Locke was against Hobbes joining
because their views were too similar, and thus he too might be exposed to
potential criticism.14 Hobbes’ philosophy was clearly publicly despised by a
number of influential people, yet read by many.
It is precisely because of Hobbes’ notoriety that we can be certain the
Locke was familiar with at least the basic tenets of his philosophy if not
many of its details. Even though Locke does not refer explicitly to Hobbes
positively in his published work, this is not evidence that he did not read
him or others who cite him. As Rogers argues, given the nature of Hobbes’
reception in England, it is not unusual that positive references to Hobbes
do not abound in the works of the seventeenth century.15 To be associated
with Hobbes and labeled a “Hobbist” was to be vilified as an atheist and
lecher. The evidence that we have that anyone read Hobbes and was posi-
tively influenced by him comes from circumstantial evidence, rather than
from direct quotes or positive paraphrases.
In the case of Locke, there is enough evidence to indicate that Locke,
although he does not publicly acknowledge it, is clearly familiar with
Hobbes at least in his political works, although it is unclear precisely
which works Locke read.16 For example, Locke apparently loaned his copy
of Leviathan to Tyrell for seventeen years. It was returned in 1691. During
this time Locke may have purchased another copy or had ready access to
one. The one primary work of Hobbes that we can be certain Locke read
carefully is Hobbes’ set of Objections to Descartes’ Meditations. Locke also
may have had access to the published correspondence between the two. It
also seems likely that Locke was familiar with De Corpore, as Molyneux refers
in passing to the work in correspondence.17
Perhaps most important is that Locke would also have been quite familiar
with Hobbes second-hand. Because of the great reaction Hobbes provokes,
his work is often discussed in print and from the pulpit. In the decades
following the publication of Leviathan, at least one hundred anti-Hobbes
works are written,18 and a number of these are owned by Locke. In these
works extensive criticism is made of Hobbes, and a common practice is to
excerpt or summarize portions of the relevant passages and then comment
on them as Henry More does in the Immortality of the Soul. Thus, by second-
hand means, Locke would have been acquainted with the most explosive of
Hobbes’ doctrines, his materialism, and its implications for public morality.
58 John Locke and Personal Identity
I turn now to Hobbes’ treatment of the nature of the soul and his early
ambition to explain it in plain English. We see in his treatment a rejection
of Descartes’ arguments for the immortality of the soul. In the third section
Hobbes’ rejection of the Catholic or Catholic-like understandings of the
immortality of the body is discussed.
entities, and oppose the idea that with sensory perception representation
requires likeness.
There are significant dissimilarities in the two theories. Descartes rejects
Hobbes’ idea that all action is local motion and understands by light not an
actual motion, but only an inclination to motion.24 Descartes’ theory of
vision is the closest thing to an explanation of the interaction between the
mind and body that is found in his published works. In Hobbes, a similar
use is employed although with a different twist. Hobbes uses his theory
of vision to account for the appearance of the world. Our knowledge of
the world is complete without the positing of an immaterial substance or
intellect. This ability to explain the phenomena without positing an imma-
terial substance leads to Hobbes’ materialism. In Hobbes’ view, if there are
problems with the interaction between mind and body, they are eliminated
by eliminating the mind. He is thus quite content to do just this.
In his set of Objections to Descartes’ Meditations, Hobbes objects to Descartes’
conclusion that the mind is an immaterial substance. Hobbes concen-
trates on the Second Meditation. He essentially questions Descartes’ claim
that the mind is immaterial given the arguments presented in the second
Meditation. He says:
Descartes provides much support for the first premise, and it is taken to be
uncontroversial by him. The second premise is more controversial. How is
that knowledge of the proposition “I am thinking” depends on our inability
to separate thought from the matter that is thinking? And how does this
lead to the conclusion that the mind is material? Hobbes’ supporting
argument for this premise is:
We do not have an idea of the soul: we infer its existence within the
human body which gives it the animal motion by means of which it has
sensations and moves.28
62 John Locke and Personal Identity
As for the further point that we do not have an idea of the soul, but ratio-
nally infer its existence, this amounts to saying that although there is no
image of the soul depicted in the corporeal imagination, we nevertheless
do have what I call an idea of it.29
Hobbes thus claims that humans cannot have an idea of substance because
it is not something that we can perceive. We perceive only accidents.
Hobbes rejects the idea of substance by using reasoning based on our
perceptual limitations.
For Hobbes, “idea” is directly related to the corporeal imagination. In
Descartes however:
I have frequently pointed out that I use the term “idea” to apply to what
is established by reasoning as well as anything else that is perceived in
any manner whatsoever.31
Moreover, when M. Descartes says that the ideas of God and of our souls
are innate in us, I should like to know if the souls of people who are in
a deep, dreamless sleep are thinking. If they are not, they do not have
any ideas at the time. It follows that no idea is innate; for what is innate
is always present.33
Lastly, when we say that an idea is innate in us, we do not mean that
it is always there before us. This would mean that no idea was innate. We
simply mean that we have within ourselves the faculty of summoning
up the idea.34
soul seems to encourage a greater fear of what happens after this life than
during it, thus undermining the absolute power of the sovereign.
The problems that he sees with an immortal soul are many. Some are
theologically motivated, others politically. He clearly sees the abuses the
church has made of the doctrine. To resolve these problems, Hobbes’
strategy is to show that “soul” or “spirit” is not an immaterial substance
and thus is not immortal. He treats “soul,” “spirit,” and “immaterial sub-
stance” in different contexts. For example, Hobbes looks at how “spirit” is
used in three different contexts: scientific,38 ordinary,39 and the uses in the
bible.40 He suggests in all three contexts that “spirit” is not an immaterial
substance.
For scientists, like Hobbes, “spirit” is a body that cannot be sensed because
it is too fine to stimulate a sense organ. But because every body is material
and occupies space, spirits are material and occupy space even though
they are imperceptible.41 “Spirits” are thus part of the material universe.
In a letter to Descartes, Hobbes alleges that Descartes’ “subtle matter”42 is
like this notion of spirit, a charge Descartes vigorously denies.43
In ordinary understanding, “spirit” is not thought of as a body. Individu-
als, according to Hobbes, mistakenly think of bodies as only those things
that can be felt to resist a force or to hinder their clear sight of a “farther
prospect.”44 This means that wind is taken usually to be a spirit and not
what it really is, the movement of a body, air. Ordinary people also use the
word “spirit” to refer to the causes of phenomena that mystify them, such as
dreams and hallucinations representing bodies that are not there. Hobbes
explains dreams and hallucinations to be the result of tumult in the brain.
The third use of “spirit” is in the Bible. Hobbes explains specific passages
in such a way as to avoid the need for immaterial substances. For example,
angels are not immaterial substances. The angel who wrestles Jacob is a
material being, not an immaterial one. Hobbes interprets biblical passages
such that spirits need not be immaterial. Even God is not incorporeal.45
Indeed a very interesting aspect of Leviathan is Hobbes’ intense and explicit
focus on scripture.
Hobbes also dismisses incorporeal substances in Leviathan as nonsense.
Hobbes argues:
The Word Body, in the most general acceptation, signifieth that which
filleth, or occupieth some certain room, or imagined place; and depen-
deth not on the imagination, but is a real part of that we call the universe.
For the universe, being the aggregate of all bodies, there is no real part
therof that is not also body; nor anything properly a body, that is not also
66 John Locke and Personal Identity
part of (that aggregate of all bodies) the universe. The same also, because
bodies are subject to change (that is to say, to variety of appearance to the
sense of living creatures) is called substance (that is to say, subject to vari-
ous accidents) as: sometimes to be moved, sometimes to stand still; and
to seem to our senses sometimes hot, sometimes cold, sometimes of one
colour, smell, taste, or sound, sometimes of another. And this diversity of
seeming, (produced by the diversity of the operation of bodies, on the
organs of our sense) we attribute to alterations of the bodies that operate,
and call them accidents of those bodies. And according to this accepta-
tion of the word, substance, and body, signify the same thing; and therefore
substance incorporeall are words, which when they are joined together,
destroy one another, as if a man should say, an incorporeal body.46
Body does not depend on imagination, but is part of the universe. Every-
thing in the universe is body. Substances change, that is, they present a
variety of appearances to living creatures. It is the alterations of bodies
that produce in us different appearances. So substance and bodies are
the same thing. And just as the notion of an incorporeal body is a contra-
diction, so too is the notion of an incorporeal substance. Thus there are
no incorporeal substances.
One part of this argument is especially important. Bodies are subject to
change, but change is defined as a variety of appearances to the senses of
living creatures. Thus they key assertion in the proof is that incorporeal
substances cannot interact with the senses (given his account of percep-
tion), thus it follows that there are no incorporeal substances that we can
speak of.
This argument is one Henry More is particularly concerned to show
incorrect, as will be discussed in Chapter 4. For now, the point is that
Hobbes returns to his theory of perception to argue that we do not have
ideas of incorporeal substances. And he rejects incorporeal substances,
among other reasons, as part of his rejection of the immortality of the soul.
Hobbes looks explicitly at the immortality of the soul and the resurrec-
tion of the body. He adopts a view known as mortalism, which is sometimes
called soul-sleeping. Mortalism is the view that what happens at bodily
death is nothing in terms of the soul. The soul “sleeps,” that is, it is basically
unconscious (and thus cannot be affected by prayers or the intercession
of saints) until the Day of Judgment when the body is resurrected. There is
no natural immortality of the soul that preserves it in a conscious state
between death and the resurrection.
On Materialism and Immortality 67
The comparison between that eternal life which Adam lost, and our
Saviour by his victory over death hath recovered; holdeth also in this, that
as Adam lost eternal life by his sin, and yet lived after it for a time, so
the faithful Christian hath recovered eternal life by Christ’s passion,
though he die a natural death, and remain dead for a time (namely till
the resurrection). For as death is reckoned from the condemnation of
Adam, not from the execution; so life is reckoned from the absolution,
not from the resurrection of them that are elected in Christ.48
A second passage from Part IV, The Kingdom of Darkness, highlights how
Hobbes thinks that Scripture supports not the immortality of the soul, but
rather the resurrection of the body which has slept or been dead since the
death of the body. As he says:
All which doctrine is founded only on some of the obscurer places of the
New Testament (which nevertheless, the whole scope of the Scripture
considered, are clear enough in a different sense) and unnecessary to
the Christian Faith. For supposing that when a man dies, there remaineth
nothing of him but his carcass; cannot God that raised inanimated dust
and clay into a living creature by his word, as easily raise a dead carcass
to life again, and continue him alive for ever, or make him die again, by
another word?49
This doctrine that the soul is as present in the smallest part of the body as
in the whole is interesting. It is a passage as well that More responds to in
his discussion of Hobbes, and an idea that Robert Boyle uses in his own
analysis of bodily resurrection.
The most detailed studies of Hobbes on the specific issue of mortalism
are those made by David Johnston, who begins his article with the state-
ment: “To his contemporaries, Hobbes’ denial that the soul is an incorpo-
real substance that survives the death of the body was one of the most salient
and controversial features of his argument in Leviathan.”51 He cites Luke
Fawn, Alexander Ross, and Seth Ward as focusing on this issue and he
relates it to Hobbes’ political theory. He argues that in Leviathan Hobbes
adopts a new strategy towards theology because of the awareness of a need
to devalue the life after death to support his politics.
Johnston argues that Hobbes’ mortalism does not flow directly from his
metaphysical materialism, although it is consistent with it. He points out
that in the early chapters of The Elements of Law, in manuscript prior to 1640,
Hobbes argues that belief in “the immortality of the soul” is entailed by
belief “that Jesus is the Christ.” The belief “that Jesus is the Christ” is the
one article of Christian faith Hobbes consistently maintains throughout
his life as necessary for salvation. In De Cive, Hobbes includes that “an inte-
gral part of Christ’s mission was to teach all point of faith . . ., among which
Hobbes includes the doctrine ‘animam esse immortalem,’ that that the
soul is immortal.”52
As Johnston says:
he had come to realize that this view was entailed by his philosophical
materialism. Hobbes consistently invoked the medieval doctrine of
the separation of faith from knowledge to insulate his acceptance of
the soul’s immortality from all the questions dealt with in his natural
philosophy. . . Hobbes himself did not regard mortalism as a logical
consequence of his materialism. He accepted the orthodox doctrine
of the soul’s immortality as a truth of faith because he could see no
reason not to do so.53
A Person, is he, whose words or actions are considered, either as his own, or as
representing the words or actions of another man, or of any other thing to whom
they are attributed, whether truly or by fiction.
When they are considered as his own, then is he called a natural person:
and when they are considered as representing the words and actions of
an other, then is he a feigned or artificial person.54
Two bodies are said to differ from one another, when something may
be said of one of them, which cannot be said of the other at the same
time.56
But the same body may at different times be compared with itself. And
from hence springs a great controversy among philosophers about the
beginning of individuation, namely, in what sense it may be conceived that
a body is at one time the same, at another time not the same it was
formerly. For example, whether a man grown old be the same man he was
whilst he was young, or another man; or whether a city be in different
ages the same, or another city.57
The problem Hobbes is here concerned with is how a body can change
from being one thing to another. While he calls it the beginning of indi-
viduation, it is clear that he is dealing with individuation over time. The
problem is of determining what remains constant so that an entity retains
its identity over time. Hobbes considers different ways of solving the
problem:
Some place individuity in the unity of matter; others, in the unity of form;
and one says it consists in the unity of the aggregate of all the accidents
together. For matter, it is pleaded that a lump of wax, whether it be spheri-
cal or cubical, is the same wax, because the same matter. For form, that
when a man is grown from an infant to be an old man, though his matter
be changed, yet he is still the same numerical man; for that identity, which
cannot be attributed to the matter, ought probably to be ascribed to the
form. For the aggregate of accidents, no instance can be made; but because,
when any new accident is generated, a new name is commonly imposed
on the thing, therefore he, that assigned this cause of individuity, thought
the thing itself was also become another thing.58
On Materialism and Immortality 71
According to the second opinion, two bodies existing both at once, would
be one and the same numerical body. For if, for example, that ship of
Theseus, concerning the difference wherof made by continual repara-
tion in taking out the old planks and putting in new, the sophisters of
Athens were wont to dispute, were, after all the planks were changed,
the same numerical ship it was at the beginning; and if some man had
kept the old planks as they were taken out, and by putting them after-
wards together in the same order, had again made a ship of them,
this, without doubt, had also been the same numerical ship with that
which was at the beginning; and so there would have been two ships
numerically the same, which is absurd.
If the same thing is determined by form, then the ship of Theseus problem
arises. There could be two ships numerically the same, which is absurd.
Hobbes considers the third opinion as equally problematic:
But, according to the third opinion, nothing would be the same it was; so
that a man standing would not be the same he was sitting; nor the water,
72 John Locke and Personal Identity
which is in the vessel, the same with that which is poured out of it.
Wherefore the beginning of individuation is not always to be taken either
from matter alone, or from form alone.59
Hobbes’ point seems clear. Whatever you take a thing to be will determine
what its identity depends on. For example, if we look at a thing as matter,
then it is individually the same as long as the matter is the same.
We do not know whether Locke ever read De Corpore, but Molyneux
certainly did, for he refers to it in his Correspondence with Locke. And
so, it may not be that much of a surprise that Locke in his treatment of
identity is responding to some of the same opinions or theories taught in
the schools. And indeed that he may be using similar examples to illustrate
his theory.
In this section, I showed how Hobbes views the mortality of the soul.
He thinks that the soul is not naturally immortal. He supports this not
only with his science, but also with an inquiry into the relevant passages
in Scripture. I also gave Hobbes explicit statements about identity. I turn
now to Locke and how he responds to Hobbes.
On Materialism and Immortality 73
So that if any one will examine himself concerning his Notion of pure
Substance in general, he will find he has no other Idea of it at all, but
only a Supposition of he knows not what support of such Qualities,
which are capable of producing simple Ideas in us; which Qualities
are commonly called Accidents . . . The Idea then we have, to which we
give the general name Substance, being nothing but the supposed, but
unknown support of those Qualities we find existing, which we imagine
cannot subsist, sine re substante, without some thing to support them,
we call that Support Substantia; which, according to the true import of
the Word, is in plain English, standing under or upholding.62
74 John Locke and Personal Identity
Our knowledge is based on our perceptions for Locke. And these percep-
tions are never of substances. So we do not have an idea of substance.
Like Hobbes, Locke rejects that we perceive substance.
A second point of similarity between the two is the treatment of “person”
as a moral agent. I argued in the first chapter that Locke’s understanding
of “person” is as a moral agent, an individual who stands responsible for
actions performed. These actions are primarily those he or she will be
accountable for in the afterlife. Thus, Locke is looking for a criterion he
can use to establish personal identity in this theological context. But he is
also concerned to understand “person” in a forensic context, as his concern
about the drunkard shows. Hobbes’ definition of person in De Corpore and
Leviathan discussed above is also meant to account for resurrection, and for
responsibility under the law.
A third point of comparison is in the treatment of the principium indivi-
duationis. Hobbes makes the same move that Locke does. That is, Hobbes
asserts a version of “such is the name such is the identity.” Thus, the princi-
pium individuationis of a man is different than that of an attribute like hair
color. It is interesting to note Locke’s assertion in chapter 27: “for such as
is the idea belonging to that name, such must be the identity.”63 Locke’s
key insight is that “such is the idea, such is the identity.” What I took this
to mean in the first chapter is that we are to look at the sort of thing it is
and compare it with other ideas of the same kind. If we look at a body, we
look at the matter that makes it up. We do not look at its form unless we
are looking to compare two forms. This is similar to Hobbes’ treatment.
There are differences and Locke’s treatment is much more developed, but
the insight is there in Hobbes too.
There are then points of similarity between the two thinkers. However,
when it comes to personal identity, Locke does not accept the materialist
position. In section twelve Locke asks:
But the Question is, whether if the same Substance, which thinks, be
changed, it can be the same Person, or remaining the same, it can be
different Persons.
And to this I answer, First, This can be no Question at all to those
who place thought in a purely material animal Constitution, void of an
immaterial Substance. For, whether their Supposition be true or no, it is
plain they conceive personal Identity preserved in something else than
Identity of Substance; as animal Identity is preserved in Identity of Life,
and not of Substance.64
On Materialism and Immortality 75
In this passage the soul is portrayed as a beam or ray of God. It is the same
soul when it is called in as when it began “shining.” God has given free
will and movement to the dependent rays. If a soul lives a good life, then
upon the death of the body the soul is drawn back to God. If a soul lives
an evil life, however, then it is drenched in Lethe’s lake, that is, is made to
forget. It cannot feel Heavens power.21 As the poem continues, it is appar-
ent that Hell for More involves the loss of memory. Not only is there a loss
of the memory of the actions done by the body but also of innate ideas
and thus loss of all knowledge. In contrast, Heaven is the joining again
with God and the attainment of higher knowledge. In typical Neoplatonic
fashion, More sees the initial descent of the soul into the body as clouding
and confusing the mind and death as releasing it and enabling it to attain
again a higher knowledge if it has earned it. But Hell is more than a loss of
memory and knowledge; it also is a place of torment. And the torment is
perhaps made worse because one cannot remember the actions that were
done to merit it.
The ray imagery highlights More’s account of the individuality of each
person and each animal. Each ray or soul is created as an individual. Each
80 John Locke and Personal Identity
soul retains a unique status throughout its life and into the afterlife. It is
also indivisible, or as he terms it “indiscerpible.” That the soul is indivisible
plays a large role in his interpretation of science, and of the essence of
thinking. It also is why he thought so highly of Descartes’ work initially.
That the soul preexists has the effect of saving God’s goodness. A pro-
blem that More (among others) clearly sees is that some individuals are
born into bodies that do not have the capacity or circumstances necessary
to earn salvation. God thus seems to have unfairly given some individuals a
better chance than others at salvation. More thinks that this is accounted
for because given the soul’s preexistent state, the soul has done something
that merits the body into which it is born. This absolves God of apparent
unfairness or malevolence. It also allows Hell to be a place of torment
even with no memories. As we do not have memories of our preexistence,
we may not understand why we will not be saved. But God’s goodness does
not require us to understand this.
More is committed to the argument that hope of the afterlife is essen-
tial to both religion and public morality. As he states in the Preface to the
Reader before the second part of the song, Psychathanasia, or the Immortality
of the Soul:
More offers reasons for the immortality of the soul on rational grounds
drawn from his understanding of Platonism. He hopes that those who
already believe in the immortality of the soul will find enjoyment in his
reasoning,23 and that perhaps those who are not already persuaded will
be persuaded of the immortality of the soul. This hope emphasizes his
rejection of the Puritan commitment to revelation alone as sufficient
for belief in theological truths. But more importantly, it also clearly indi-
cates that More sees himself as a participant in a public debate about nature
of the soul and its implications for immortality and public morality. He is
trying to convince those who disbelieve by using reason and not Scripture.
One way that More argues for the immortality of the soul is to focus on
the separability of the soul from the body. More claims that if the mind is
“taken up in some higher contemplation,”24 then God could destroy the
body without the soul being affected. This opens up an analysis of personal
immortality that is independent of an account of bodily resurrection or the
More and Locke on the Dangers of Materialism 81
25
Self-moving substance, that be th’ definition
Of souls, that long to them in generall:
This well expresseth that common condition
Of every vitall centre creaturall.
For why? both what hight form spermaticall
Hath here a share, as also that we term
Soul sensitive, I’ll call’t form bestiall,
82 John Locke and Personal Identity
26
All these substances self-movable:
And that we call virtue magneticall
(That what’s defin’d be irreprovable)
I comprehend it is in the life plantall:
Mongst trees ther’s found life Sympatheticall;
Though trees have not animadversive sense.
Therefore the soul’s Autokineticall
Alone. What ere’s in this defining sense,
Is soul, what ere’s not soul is driven far from hence.
27
But that each soul’s Autokineticall,
Is easily shown by sifting all degrees
Of souls . . .27
In the neo platonic hierarchy of souls, the rational soul is higher than the
soul of plants and animals. More is clearly committed to the great chain of
being.28 As a vitalist, he believes everything that moves has a soul ultimately
responsible for its movement. Each soul has self-movement. Each soul also
has different faculties that it can use. For example, trees do not have an
animadversive sense or imagination. The commitment to vitalism and its
implications for his rejection of materialism is discussed later in this chapter.
Another theme in the Philosophical Poems is More’s attempt to confute
the doctrine of the sleep of the soul, which he does in the third part of the
Platonic Song of the Soul, Antipsychopannychia. In the preface to this poem,
he characterizes part of the problem:
If all motion is the result of one soul informing all bodies, then when a
human dies, there is no continuation of the individual thinker or move-
ment, as was discussed previously. The individual is sometimes said to
sleep or to be nothing at all. More thinks this position is very dangerous.
As he puts this point in his poetry:
3
Desire, fear, love, joy, sorrow, pleasure, pain,
Sense, phancy, wit, forecasting providence,
Delight in God, and what with sleepy brain
Might sute, slight dreams, all banish’d farre from hence.
nor pricking nor applauding conscience
Can wake the soul from this dull Lethargies
That twixt this sleepy state small difference
You’ll find and that men call Mortality.
Plain death’s as good as such a Psychopannychie.30
After death if the soul sleeps so deeply that it cannot be pricked by con-
science then it is as good as dead. More thinks mortalists are led to this
because of the belief that all senses depend on the body. When a human
body becomes a corpse, the senses would “dry up” and thus the soul would
be as good as dead.
More disputes this:
15
But if we grant, which in my former song
I plainly prov’d, that the souls energie
Pends not on this base corpse, but that self-strong
She by her self can work, then when we fly
The bodies commerce, no man can deny
But that there is no interruption
of life; where will puts on, there doth she hie
or if she’s carried by coaction.
That force yet she observes by press adversion.31
25
The faculties we deem corporeall,
and bound unto this earthy insturment
84 John Locke and Personal Identity
In the subsequent stanzas, More develops the claim that the faculties are
“ypent” or penned in this life. The “phansie,” or imagination, depends on
the body and thus is constrained by the body, the ears hear sounds, the
nostrils “snuff perfumed wind.” The “phansie” is constrained by the body
in a way that the will and intellect are not. This difference accounts for
why the will and intellect are immortal. As More concludes at the end of the
first canto:
38
Wherefore I think we safely may conclude
That Will and Intellect do not rely
Upon the body, sith they are indew’d
With such apparent contrariety
Of qualities to sense and phantasie,
Which plainly on the body do depend:
So that departed souls may phantasms free
Fu’l well exert, when they have made an end
Of this vain life, nor need to Lethe Lake descend.33
Because the will and intellect do not depend on the body, they survive the
death of the body. The River Lethe in Greek mythology is the river in the
underworld where the soul is immersed, loses its memory, and thus can be
reborn. Lethe Lake is related to this and that by the last verses More means
that the soul need not lose its memory after the death of the body which is
a response to the Averroists and other Aristotelians who claim differently.
In the second canto, More shows that the soul does not need a body
to function. He summarizes the canto:
This strategy shows that like Descartes, More is concerned with showing
that certain Aristotelian interpretations are mistaken about the soul. As
discussed in chapter two, the Averroist concern is that because the indivi-
dual memory is lost, the individual soul is lost in the unity of the souls.
Thus, if it can be shown that memory does not decay, individual mortality
need not result. This relates closely to the previous poem in which More
argues for the non-mortalistic nature of the soul.
More takes the doctrine of the unity of the souls to be mistaken for a
number of reasons. I briefly discuss two reasons and then develop two more
reasons in detail. One reason that he takes the doctrine of the unity of souls
or of one universal soul to be mistaken is that the unity would suffer from
the compresence of opposites. It would feel both happy and sad at the same
time.34 This is impossible, and thus the notion of a unity of souls must be
mistaken. A second reason is that he thinks that if there were but one soul
animating all humans, for example, then we would all share the same
knowledge and skills. As this is clearly not the case, it must mean that there
is more than one soul.35 More thus appeals to our experience to show that
the Aristotelian interpretation, as he understands it, is flawed.
A third reason is that a soul is indivisible. As he says:
14
But contradiction, can that have place
In any soul? Plato affirms Idees;
But Aristotle with his pugnacious race
As idle figments stifly them denies.
One soul in both doth thus Philosophise;
Concludes at once contradictoriously
86 John Locke and Personal Identity
More then refers back to Psychathanasia, where he argues for the indivisi-
bility of the soul. The origin of the souls is as individuals created by God,
and this individuality is present both before being united to the body
and after the dissolution of the corporeal body. The unity of souls is also
refuted by memory, as is indicated by the title. More thus returns to a
discussion of memory. He says:
31
This faculty is very intimate
And near the Centre, very large and free,
Extends it self to whatsoever that
The soul Peracts. There is no subtilty
of Intellect, of Will, nor Phantasie.
No Sense, nor uncouth strange impression
From damned Night, or the blest Deity,
But of all these she hath retention,
And at their fresh approach their former shapes can won.
32
This memoirie the very bond of life
You may well deem. If it were cut away
Our being truly then you might contrive
Into a point of time. The former day
Were nought at all to us: when once we lay
Ourselves to sleep, we should not know at morn
That e’re we were before; nor could we say
A whit of sense: so soon as off we turn
One word, that’s quite forgot. Coherence thus is torn.
33
Now sith it is of such necessitie,
And is the bundle of the souls duration,
The watchman of the soul, lest she should flie
Or steal from her own self, a sure fixation
And Centrall depth it hath, and free dilation,
That it takes notice of each energie
More and Locke on the Dangers of Materialism 87
34
But if dispersed lifes collection,
Which is our memory, safely survive
(Which well it may, sith it depends not on
The Mundane spirit) what can fitly drive
It into action? In heaven she doth live
so full of one great light, she hath no time
to such low triles, as past fights, to dive,
such as she gathered up in earthly slime:
foreknowledge of herself is lost in light divine.37
The above stanzas suggest that memory is not (wholly) dependent on the
corporeal body. It is thus accessible to us after death. But there is a problem
about the content of memory. More thinks that the soul could have memo-
ries of “past fights” but that the soul will not have time or inclination to
think about them after death. More’s account of memory is somewhat
better articulated in his treatment of Descartes in The Immortality of the Soul,
as I discuss below.
More concludes the final poem:
40
Thus have I stoutly rescued the soul
From centrall death or pure mortalitie,
And from the listless flouds of Lethe dull,
and from the swallow of drad Unitie.
And from an all-consuming Deitie.
What now remains, but since we are so sure
of endlesse life, that to true pietie
We bend our minds, and make our conscience pure,
Lest living Night in bitter darknesse us immure.38
we are convinced of the immortality of the soul, we should live in true piety.
The conclusion also highlights one last aspect of the poems, that of the role
of conscience in the afterlife.
What is it about the afterlife that we should fear? Each individual will
be judged by his or her conscience. Conscience will prick the individuals
who have been evil because their soul will not be able to escape the body
completely. In contrast, individuals who have lived a good life will have
access to the higher knowledge that was not available when one was trapped
in a body.
More came to realize that poetry is not the most effective medium for
dealing with the challenges of mechanical philosophy and the science of
his day. In later works he develops his reactions to mechanical philosophy
and clarifies his positions on the above issues in prose. I turn now to his
mature treatment of these issues in his appraisal of Descartes and Hobbes.
I begin with More’s correspondence with Descartes, and continue with
his discussion of Descartes in other works. As Alan Gabbey points out, all
of More’s mature criticisms of Descartes are found in nascent state in the
correspondence.39 In his correspondence with Clerselier about publishing
the correspondence between Descartes and himself, it is apparent that
More thinks highly of Descartes, especially because Descartes’ philosophy
can be of use to theologians. He thinks that Descartes has shown that it is
not possible that the human soul is mortal. As we saw earlier, this is some-
thing that More affirms as fundamental to religion and morality. But More
is also clear that he does not endorse all aspects of Descartes’ work.
More had already read the Principles of Philosophy, Dioptrics, Meteors, and
the Meditations when he initiated the correspondence with Descartes. He is
full of glowing praise for Descartes. But he has reservations and questions,
some of which bear on the issue of the immortality of the soul. For exam-
ple, More wants to know more about the status of animals, brutes, and
angels. He inquires for more details about the interactions between the
mind and body, asking “How is that the immaterial and the material inter-
act?” And More presses Descartes on his identification of the attributes
of individual substances and their essences.40
Descartes responds to some of these concerns by suggesting that he will
explain them in the Passions of the Soul. When More is not convinced by the
explanations he finds there, he writes his own analysis of these issues in the
Immortality of the Soul.
More is well known for his concern with Descartes’ treatment of animals.
He asks, if animals do not have souls, but are only matter, then how do
they move? For More matter is inert and cannot move itself. Only souls
More and Locke on the Dangers of Materialism 89
can move. Yet animals quite clearly move themselves. More thus resists
Descartes’ mechanistic treatment of the vegetative and sensitive souls.
Instead, all souls are immaterial and indivisible. More’s commitment to
the great chain of being shows here as he claims that were the lower souls
material the great chain of being would be disrupted.
More sees Descartes as a fellow journeyman along the anti-Aristotelian
anti-atheist road and embraces him as such. However, he does not accept
Descartes’ philosophy wholeheartedly. Although More may have been influ-
ential in the introduction of Descartes’ work to England,41 he himself was
never a Cartesian. More’s enthusiasm for Cartesian philosophy as a support
for theology fades when he realizes that it leads to atheism in hands other
than Descartes’.42 This position is best expressed in his mature prose work,
where he turns explicitly against the Cartesian mechanistic philosophy
because of its atheistic tendencies.
More’s prose works, such as The Immortality of the Soul, are much easier to
follow than his poetry. The arguments are better developed and are situ-
ated in the contemporary scene in opposition to Hobbes, Descartes, and
Spinoza, among others. More traces the impetus of the work to his reading
Descartes’ Passions of the Soul while in Luxemburg.43 In the Passions,
Descartes discusses the interaction between the mind and the body more
technically than he does in the Meditations. It is to some of these remarks
or lines of thought that More reacts as they do not adequately respond to
his previous concerns.
As with his Philosophical Poems, in The Immortality of the Soul much of the
clarification of More’s position comes about as a result of arguing against
competing positions. Although he does formulate a positive position, there
are many more pages devoted to attempting to demolish the opponent. His
primary opponent in Immortality is Thomas Hobbes. A secondary opponent
is the Puritans. A tertiary opponent is Descartes and the Cartesians.
In the Preface to the work, More considers some of the objections that
might be raised to his position. He begins by explaining the title and taking
on two types of potential critics: those who think the soul to be mortal (like
Hobbes), and those who think that the soul’s immortality is grounded not
in the natural life of reason but in revelation. To the first, he claims that on
the basis of the rational grounds he sets down, he makes the stronger case.
To the second, he points out that he is offering “as clear a Proof as Natural
Reason can afford us44.”45 The work is intended “to handle the matter
only within the bounds of Natural Light, unassisted and unguided by any
miraculous Revelation46.”47 He does not intend for his work to replace faith,
but to augment it. He is, as is characteristic of the Cambridge Platonists,
90 John Locke and Personal Identity
sure that faith and reason should not be inconsistent and that reason has
a place in theology, contra those who rely on revelation alone, such as the
Puritans.
More’s strategy as laid out in the Preface is to use one of Hobbes’ own
premises against him. More intends to show that Hobbes’ argument leads
to the conclusion that there actually are immaterial substances in the world,
contra Hobbes and his supporters.48 He will do this by focusing on alleged
problems with Hobbes’ account of perception. In the Preface, More names
Aristotle’s disciple, Pomponatius, as someone who denies the order of
things, including demons and angels. Pomponazzi, as he is more usually
known, was an Alexandrian mortalist. More claims that it is because of a
lack of belief in the incorporeal vehicles for angels, demons, and soul, that
there is a perceived gap in the order of nature, and thus support for the
Psychopannychites or mortalists. More is thus returning to an objection
and the familiar territory he considered in the Poems. As in his poetry, More
refutes the heretical position by appealing to his account of memory. “For
there is necessarily comprehended in Memory a sense or perception that
we have had a perception or sense afore of the thing which we conceive
ourselves to remember.”49 What makes a memory “mine” is that I perceive
that I have had this perception before. More also returns to a strategy used
in the Poems when he points out that individuals do not feel each others’
perceptions, as one would expect if we shared but one soul. In short, More
claims that the Aristotelians do not save the phenomena.
The most important aspect of the work is that More in his relatively
unscientific understanding of how things work argues that an immaterial
soul is needed to explain perception. He draws on Descartes for support of
this position, but argues against Descartes in other areas. More links his
analysis of immortality to the faculties of the souls, as he had in his early
poetry. He will use as well empirical reasons to support his position. More
thinks that Cartesian philosophy is a wonderful account of some things in
the world, but that its deficits reveal the need for immaterial spirits of the
sort denied by Descartes, and thus prove God.50
More rejects the mechanical solutions/accounts of memory and imagina-
tion that Descartes had put forward because he does not think that the
aperture of the brain is sufficient to represent the Object for it could not
represent the colors of the object, but only the figure of it.51 Further
he rejects the apparent materialization of memory that Descartes seems
committed to. As he says:
Besides, a man may bring a hundred Objects, and expose them to our
view at the same distance, the Eye keeping exactly in the same posture,
More and Locke on the Dangers of Materialism 91
insomuch that it shall be necessary for these images to take up the very
same place of the Brain, and yet there shall be a distinct remembrance
of all these; which is impossible, if there be no Soul in us, but all be mere
Matter. The same may be said of so many Names or Words levell’d if
you will out of a trunk into the Eare kept accurately in the same posture,
so that the Sound shall beat perpetually upon the same parts of the
Organ, yet if there be five hundred of them, there may be a distinct mem-
ory for every one of them; which is a power perfectly beyond the bounds
of mere Matter, for there would be a necessary confusion of all.52
This problem with memory is not unique to More. How memory works,
and whether the physical organ of the brain is large enough to contain all
of our memories is a hot topic in the seventeenth century.53 More thus
draws on contemporary accounts of perception and memory. He thinks
that given the way we experience color and memories, there must be an
immaterial mind.
More thinks he has discovered the nature of the soul, that it is a substance
distinct from the body.54 But the question naturally arises, what about the
souls of brutes? Are their souls too immortal? More refers to the Appendix
to his Antidote Against Atheism, where he summarizes his conclusion there as
“that they are properly no more immortal then the stupid Matter, which
never perishes, and that out of a terrestrial Body they may have no more
sense than it. For all these things are as it pleases the first Creatour of
them.”55 More thus agrees with Descartes that animals are not immortal,
but it is because they will not be able to sense when their soul is separated
from matter and not because they lack souls.
I turn now to More’s treatment of Thomas Hobbes.
More begins a sustained response to Hobbes’ materialism in Book 1,
chapter 3 of the Immortality of the Soul. Hobbes claims in Leviathan that
the notion of “incorporeal substances” is inconsistent and absurd. More
sees this argument as being the root of Hobbes’ and others’ denial of
the immortality of the soul. Thus it is one of the major claims that More
finds necessary to confute in order to establish his position and to save
morality.
More focuses on the argument Hobbes gives in Leviathan, discussed
earlier in Chapter 3 that the soul is material. More defines “Spirit” as a
penetrable substance that is indiscerpible. Bodies are substances that are
inpenetrable and discerpible:
if we divide Substance in generall into these first kindes, viz. Body and Spirit,
and then define Body to be A Substance impenetrable and discerpible.
Whence the contrary kind to this is fitly defined, A Substance penetrable
and indiscerpible.56
2. Now I appeal to any man that can set aside prejudice, and has the free
use of has Faculties, whether every term in the Definition of a Spirit
be not as intelligible and congruous to Reason, as in that of a Body. For
the precise Notion of Substance is the same in both, in which, I conceive,
is comprised Extension and Activity either connate or communicated.
For Matter it self once moved can move other Matter And it is easy to
understand what Penetrable is as Impenetrable, and what Indiscerpible
as Discerpible and Penetrability and Indiscerpibility being as immediate
to Spirit, as Inpenetrability and Discerpibility to Body, there is as much
reason to be given for the Attributes of the one as of the other, by
Axiome 9.57
impetus of the matter breaking through or being stopt every where, with
as certain and determinate necessity as the course of a Torrent after
mighty storms and showers of Rain.58
More thus sees that what he takes to be the problems of materialism flow
from the denial of immaterial substance. His mandate seems clear: show
that materialism is flawed, and thus save religion and morality. More sees
the primary task as establishing the possibility of immaterial substance in
such a way that even the materialist must grant it. He does this in two ways,
by providing a positive argument and by denying their arguments. More
then argues for the actuality of immaterial substances.
First, in his negative approach to materialism, More rejects Hobbes’
argument that “incorporeal body” is a contradiction and nonsensical. To
do this, More presents in Hobbes’ own words Hobbes’ argument that
incorporeal substance is inconsistent. More then systematically responds
to Hobbes. More begins with chapter 34 of Leviathan, discussed in the
previous chapter. More responds to Hobbes’ argument:
We have set down the chiefest passages in the Writings of Mr. Hobbs, that
confident Exploder of Immaterial Substances out of the world. It remains
now that we examine them, and see whether the force of his Arguments
bears any proportion to the firmness of his belief, or rather mis-belief,
concerning these things. To strip therefore the first Excerption of that
long Ambages of words, and to reduce it to a more plain and compendi-
ous forme of reasoning, the force of his Argument lies thus: That seeing
every thing in the Universe is Body (the Universe being nothing else but
an Aggregate of Bodies) Body and Substance are but names of one and
the same thing it being called Body as it fills a place, and Substance as it
is the subject of several Alterations and Accidents. Wherefore Body and
Substance being all one, Incorporeal substance is no better sense then an
Incorporeal Body, which is a contradiction in the very termes. But it is
plain to all the world that this is not to prove, but to suppose what is to be
proved, That the Universe is nothing else but an Aggregate of Bodies:
When he has proved that, we will acknowledge the sequel; till then, he
has proved nothing, and therefore this first argumentation must pass
for nought.59
More thus accuses Hobbes of begging the question in this argument: he has
assumed what is at issue. Hobbes has assumed that the universe is nothing
but an aggregate of bodies. Of course one might wonder if More has not
94 John Locke and Personal Identity
Axiom XX: Motion or Re-action of one part of the Matter against another,
or at least a due continuance thereof, is really one and the same with
Sense and Perception, if there be any Sense or perception in matter.60
Using these two axioms, as well as his preceding system, More points out
that it follows that any matter can have sense: so any matter can have per-
ceptions, including rocks and trees. This is clearly absurd for More. His
strategy is further to show that the materialist position does not account for
our conscious actions. It does not account well for memory and the other
actions most commonly associated with the rational soul in Renaissance
psychology.
More thinks that he has thus overcome Hobbesian materialism because
he has exorcised its main demon, the denial of immaterial substance. Once
the possibility of such substance is admitted, More’s Neoplatonic system is
seen to be superior in accounting for the phenomena of our conscious
experience. But before this conclusion can be drawn, More considers
alternate accounts that allow immaterial substance so that he can argue that
his account of the nature of it will be seen as superior. He considers and
rejects Descartes’ account of immaterial substance because of its problems
with memory and color. Thus More appeals to the phenomena to show
why both Hobbes and Descartes are incorrect in their mechanistic accounts
of perception.
More considers the objection to his position that if souls do subsist
after death, then what is to prevent them from being reborn into bodies?
More responds:
[this] is an option so wild and extravagent, that a wry mouth and a loud
laughter (the Argument that every Fool is able to use) is sufficient to
silence it and dash it out of countenance. . . . No wise man can ever
harbour such a conceit as this, which every Idiot is able to confute by
consulting but with his own Memory. For he is sure, if he had been before,
he could remember something of that life past. Besides the uncon-
ceivableness of the Approach and Entrance of these praeexistent Souls
into the Matter that they are to actuate.62
More thus appeals again to experience to support the view that there is
no transmigration of souls after death. One problem with this is that More
himself believes in the preexistence of souls. It is because of the actions of
a soul prior to being born that a soul merits the circumstances into which it
is born. Is it possible for the soul to remember why it deserves its current
circumstances? This point is potentially quite problematic for More.
In this section, I highlighted More’s analysis of the immortality of the
soul. More focuses on experience in his analysis. He refutes or confutes the
positions of those who deny the immortality of the soul by giving an account
96 John Locke and Personal Identity
Although educated at Oxford, John Locke was familiar with the Cambridge
Platonist movement. One indication is Locke’s possession of many of their
books in his library.63 A second indication is his circle of friends including
Damaris Cudworth (daughter of Ralph Cudworth) and Robert Boyle.
A third is that in the Essay he is particularly motivated to argue against
innate ideas, a position held and argued for by the Platonists.64
Locke was a good friend of Damaris Cudworth, Lady Masham, the daughter
of Ralph Cudworth. Locke corresponded with her65 even when he traveled
on official business and was in exile in Holland. It has been suggested that
he seriously contemplated marriage with her. During the last thirteen years
of his life (which is the time period in which he supervised the second,
third, and fourth editions of the Essay), he lived on the Masham estate,
Oates. He died at Oates in 1704 while Lady Masham read Psalms aloud to
him. Damaris Cudworth was clearly familiar with the Cambridge Platonists’
main works, including Henry More,66 and even gave a few of them to Locke
(including a book by Henry More).67 In the final analysis she herself is
not a Cambridge Platonist.68 She is interested in philosophy and publishes
two treatises that others thought to have been written by Locke. She also
corresponded with Leibniz about both her father’s work and Locke’s
work. Because of Locke’s connection with Damaris Cudworth, we can
be reasonably certain that he was familiar with the Cambridge Platonist
movement in its particulars. He may even have even studied the movement
to discuss some of the issues with her.69 Certainly, Damaris Cudworth dis-
cussed the movement and individuals in the movement with him in their
correspondence.
In particular, Locke and Cudworth had long discussions about John
Smith’s Select Discourses.70 Locke seems to be looking for something that
he does not find in Smith on the subject of immortality.71 After reading
Smith’s works Locke wrote the journal entry in February 1682 that explicitly
links immortality to identity and substance discussed in Chapter 1. John
Worthington, in the preface to Select Discourses, recommends to readers
who want a more detailed discussion of immortality to read Henry More.72
More and Locke on the Dangers of Materialism 97
All the great Ends of Morality and Religion are well enough secured,
without philosophical Proofs of the Soul’s Immateriality; since it is
evident, that he who made us at the beginning to subsist here, sensible
intelligent Beings, and for several years continued us in such a state,
can and will restore us to the like state of Sensibility in another World,
and make us capable there to receive the Retribution he has designed to
men, according to their doings in this life. And therefore ’tis not of such
mighty necessity to determine one way or t’other, as some, over-zealous
for or against the Immateriality of the soul, have been forward to make
the World believe.78 [in bold added after the first edition]
Locke thus thinks that morality and religion do not need a philosophical
proof of the soul’s immateriality. It is not because it is wrong of philosophy
to comment on this theological subject (as some Protestants hold) that
Locke says this. Rather it is because God can restore us to a like sensibility
in another world. And there we will receive our retribution for activities we
do here. That God can and will do so is what grounds morality and religion,
for Locke.
How will this sensibility be restored to us? And what relation does this
belief have to the nature of the soul? The answers to these questions are in
Locke’s discussion of personal identity. I turn now to this discussion to show
that it reflects the controversy about the nature of the soul, and specifically
the issues raised by More.
More and Locke on the Dangers of Materialism 99
All those who hold pre-existence, are evidently of this Mind, since they
allow the Soul to have no remaining consciousness of what it did in that
pre-existent State, either wholly separate from Body, or informing any
other Body; and if they should not, ’tis plain Experience would be against
them. So that personal Identity reaching no farther than consciousness
reaches, a pre-existent Spirit not having continued so many Ages in a
state of Silence, must needs make different Persons. Suppose a Christian
Platonist or Pythagorean, should upon God’s having ended all his Works of
Creation the Seventh Day, think his Soul hath existed ever since; and
should imagine it has revolved in several Humane bodies, as I once met
with one, who was persuaded his had been the Soul of Socrates.79
Locke makes the same qualification that More does, that we do not have
memories of a preexistent state. Yet there is a big difference between
the two. Locke thinks that only if we can appropriate a past action, will
we be responsible for the actions that we did in that state. This is not the
case for More. Here is Locke’s claim:
This passage is critical of More and of others, who have punishment affixed
to an individual who may not remember the actions done to merit it.
Locke’s distinctions between humans, persons, and substances make
good sense when placed against the backdrop of the controversy over
the nature of substance. He repeatedly draws attention to problems that
arise for personal identity if it is sited either in a material substance or
in an immaterial substance. The problems that he points to are many as
I have shown.
100 John Locke and Personal Identity
What Locke draws from this is that personal identity, or the identity of a
responsible moral agent, is not found in substances. Rather, it is found in
consciousness and the appropriation of actions to one’s self. It may not be
immediately apparent, but the objection that Locke makes here cuts directly
to More’s account of the afterlife. If you are punished for activities you
do on earth, then it seems that there should be some memory of them.
Otherwise, as Locke points out, you might as well be created in a state of
pain. This can be seen as a rejection of More’s attempt to exonerate God
for creating individuals who go to Hell, as well as of More’s account of
the afterlife. For More, if you live a bad life, then you sink into Lethe’s lake
where you lose your memories of innate ideas, and are tormented. This is
also a problem for the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory, in that it implies
that what is punished is not the whole person but only the intellectual soul
for there are no memories of personal actions.
Locke seems to accept one move of More’s (and other Platonists), that of
allowing conscience to play a significant role in the afterlife. As Locke says:
“but in the great day, wherein the secrets of all hearts shall be laid open, it
may be reasonable to think, no one shall be made to answer for what he
knows nothing of; but shall receive his doom, his conscience accusing or
excusing him.”81 Individuals will be held accountable for the actions each
did, and the conscience will determine what the doom or payment is—
although how long that consciousness will last may be an issue.
In conclusion, it is not surprising in light of the controversy about the
nature of the soul and the roles that memory, perception, and immortality
each play in it, that Locke’s treatment of personal identity reflects some
of these debates. Locke was clearly familiar with the main arguments
advanced by the participants and saw his work as providing closure and a
new opportunity for the advancement of human knowledge.
Chapter 5
of Euclid’s Geometry lying face open on the table. Struck by the way that
geometrical proofs are constructed, he emulates (when possible and appro-
priate) that model of deductive presentation in his own work. So Boyle’s
inductive method is at its core in disagreement with Hobbes’ method.
In addition, Hobbes thinks the right characterization of the world is one
where a vacuum is impossible. He is a plenist. And so he claims that what
we cannot see or observe we can infer to exist, and we call that matter
“subtle matter.” And without subtle matter Hobbes’ explanation of percep-
tion does not work, as discussed in Chapter 3. Hobbes’ scientific theories
were influential in England and Hobbes rightly sees Boyle’s corpuscularian
as competition for them. And yet, the debate over how best to characterize
the smallest units of matter is not one that Boyle wanted to have.
As a corpuscularian, Boyle is committed to a basic unit of matter. In his
Origin of Forms and Qualities he gives an overview of ten points that charac-
terize this view.3 Boyle begins there by claiming that natural bodies
are extended and impenetrable substances. Ultimately there is only one
kind of stuff that composes the physical world—not four kinds as the
Aristotelians hypothesized. What differentiates a material thing from
other types of matter is motion. When God created the world, motion was
added to undifferentiated matter and thus particles were formed. At the
micro level, where the natural philosophers work, are what Boyle calls
“minima naturalia.” These are the least parts ordinarily created by natural
processes and are quite small. While they are conceptually divisible and
divisible by God, in practice they are not divisible. They thus function much
like atoms and when they cluster together they are much like molecules.
The clusters and minima naturalia are corpuscles and are the foundational
units for a cospuscularian explanation. Once a corpuscle’s “texture,” which
includes its size, shape and motions of the component corpuscles, is known,
we know the intrinsic features of the corpuscle. The qualities that we sense
such as color and heat are not actually found in a body. Rather they are
the result of the body (and its texture) on our perceptions. This analysis
is similar to the primary/secondary distinction developed by Locke. And
it is likely that Boyle’s discussion of the distinction, like Locke’s, owes
something to Galileo’s work.
Boyle’s mechanistic analysis of the world is quite different from that of
the Aristotelians. An example helps to highlight the difference between
the types of explanation. Consider a piece of gold. What makes a piece of
matter a piece of gold according to an Aristotelian is that it has the right
sort of substantial form informing the matter. The piece of gold becomes
a piece of gold when the substantial form is acquired. The piece of gold
Robert Boyle and the Resurrection of the Body 105
ceases to be a piece of gold when the substantial form is lost. But how
the acquisition and loss of the form occurs is very mysterious and obscure.
This mysteriousness is especially problematic for an individual, such as an
alchemist, who hopes to control the change such that lead can be changed
into gold and vice versa. For a corpuscularian mechanist what makes a
piece of gold a piece of gold is its texture. This means that the source of
the observable qualities of the gold is its size, shape, and motion of the
component corpuscles. The gold comes into being when the texture is
right, and ceases to be observed as gold when its texture changes. Now
it may be that we cannot yet observe the texture of the corpuscles. But
conceptually it seems possible that such observations could occur. Further,
it is the sensible qualities of a thing that allow us to sort things into kinds
and these qualities are such that they might be changed. And so potentially
we can manipulate the texture of a body to change it from one observable
kind of thing into another. By changing the motion or other aspects of
the component corpuscles, lead could be transmuted into gold. And so
the alchemist is neither irrational nor unscientific in his or her quest.
In addition to responding to Hobbes, Boyle was moved to protect his
work from the misuse of it by Henry More. Henry More, as we saw in the
previous chapter, is an ardent believer in the existence of all types of
spirit. For More, Boyle’s work on the vacuum demonstrates the existence
of spirits in the world. This he sees as contributing to the great chain of
being and thus demonstrating the immortality of the soul. But, although
Boyle too believes in the existence of spirits he does not think that his work
on the vacuum supported them. And he does not appreciate More using
his work in this way.4 The evidence is clear that More used Boyle’s work
without permission. In his response to More, Boyle tries to keep the dispute
in the natural philosophical realm and does not venture into a discussion
of More’s neoplatonism. This is likely because he saw More as a potential
ally and supporter as both are members of the Royal Society. And both
are working against the Hobbists and atheists to support a theistic inter-
pretation of the world. Boyle rightly sees More as influential within the
circle of scientists who desired that their theology and philosophy support
the emerging science and vice versa.
Boyle sees himself not just as a scientist. He sees and presents himself as
a lay theologian too. In this capacity, he critically engages with scripture.
In his studies and publications, he articulates a way to understand passages
from scripture and to explain them such that faith and reason need not
be in conflict. And while he avoids controversy, as Wojcik has shown,
he also does engage in some religious controversies—particularly that of
106 John Locke and Personal Identity
responds: “Upon which account it is, that tho we do not fully comprehend
what God is, yet knowing by the clear Light of Nature (and if we be
Christians) believing it upon the account of Revelation, that he is a Being
Intelligent and infinitely perfect, we may safely deny against Epicurus,
Vorstius, and Mr. Hobbes, that he is a Corporeal Substance, as also that he is
Mortal, or Corruptible.”6 In the same work, he advises that just because
something is not completely understood, does not mean that it must
believed to be false. Of course, using revelation and the clear light of reason
to respond to Hobbes is perhaps not the most scientific or convincing
response. Another strategy that Boyle and others use to respond to Hobbes
and other materialists was that of trying to demonstrate the existence of
spiritual or supernatural beings.7 This is why More’s work was of interest
to Boyle. And also why Boyle’s work was of interest to More. And indeed
even the alchemists’ work was of interest as it can be seen as supporting the
existence of spirits, as the philosopher’s stone, the holy grail of alchemy,
had among its properties that it could be used to verify the existence
of spirits. Thus the boundary between the things above reason and the
things below was not always as clearly drawn as one might wish. And the
way that observation and scientific experiments are used in support of
such things is not what a modern reader might expect, as will be seen in the
next section.
of the world. The possibility is in contrast to those who argue that the
resurrection of the body is impossible.
Boyle sees the possibility of the resurrection of the body as needing to
be established to counter two concerns. The first concern that leads to
disbelief in the possibility of the resurrection is the observation that when
bodies die they undergo significant decay and even when alive are con-
stantly undergoing change. This means that body parts (both large and
very small) can be scattered and lost. And this leads directly to the second
concern that some parts of the body might well be consumed by animals,
and potentially other humans. When a body part is consumed, it is appar-
ently transmuted into the body of another. The difficulty seems clear: it
seems plausible that a body could be completely consumed and that noth-
ing unique to it would remain. Essentially the first substance would become
a second substance. If then two individuals are to be restored it would be
impossible for them both to be restored with their unique body. The body
would seem to no longer be the first person’s body. It is now completely
the second person’s body. It appears indistinguishable. As Boyle puts it
“or that any footsteps should remain of the Relation it had to the first
Possessor.”13 The difficulty seems obvious for a Christian.
To these concerns Boyle has a number of well-developed responses
that draw on scientific observations. He answers these critics not through
scripture (as it is unlikely that it would convince them) but rather through
the use of reason. His first response is to point out that the human body
can be compared to a statue or other artifact. But unlike a statue, it is made
out of a material that is constantly changing at a level that we cannot see.
The human body is in perpetual transition. As we eat, drink, and excrete
the substance or material of the body is changing. And yet, there are some
parts of the body—the bones—that are of a “stable and lasting Texture.”
As was known then, bones do survive fire and other assaults. From this he
concludes that it is not some determinate amount of matter necessary to
make a human body the same. A very small portion of matter might well
be sufficient if they “are of a stable and lasting texture.”14
His second response is “there is no determinate Bulk or Size that is
necessary to make a human Body pass for the same, and that a very small
portion of Matter will sometimes serve the turn.” He gives the example of
a human embryo in the womb being the same person as a “new born Babe,
A Man at his full stature, and a decrepit Man of perhaps an hundred
years old.” Clearly he was aware of how humans develop. It is the embryo
or seed which grows and incorporates other matter into it which remains
the same. And there may well be that some of the matter is the same from
Robert Boyle and the Resurrection of the Body 111
the beginning. What the embryo or seed does is give form to the matter—
not as the Aristotelians had posited, but rather in that it organizes the
matter in the maintenance of a common life.
Third is the claim that bodies can consist of corpuscles that have been
associated with other bodies. And although they have been associated
with other bodies, have retained their own original nature. This particular
response is reinforced with an interesting example from alchemy, as well
as ones from gastronomy. Boyle observes that Gold can be dissolved in
aqua Regis, a mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acid. This “water of the
king” is capable of dissolving gold, the noble metal. Later the gold can
be reconstituted. Boyle suggests that this can happen because the gold
corpuscles have been but disguised or hidden. In similar fashion Boyle cites
butter which has taken on the taste of the weeds that the cows consumed,
birds that eat fish as a mainstay of their diet and so taste fishy, hogs that
have been fattened with shellfish and so taste of shellfish, and humans
who when they eat prickly pears pass red urine. What these examples, drawn
from the laboratory as well as observation of common experiences, demon-
strate is that a particle or a corpuscle of a body can retain its nature under
various disguises, and under the right circumstances may be stripped of
those disguises. It is not too much of a stretch of the imagination then
for us to think it possible for God to do this at the resurrection.
Boyle believes that all bodies are made up of one common matter. He
invokes the prime matter of the schools. But what makes one piece of
matter separate from another is not a substantial form. Rather it is its
mechanical affectations—its motion, size, position—its “texture.” And if
someone were to watch a particular piece of matter as it changed or was
mingled with other matter, it would be possible for it to be extracted
from what it has become and become what it had previously been.15
Having established that it is possible for a body to go through a number
of significant alterations, but still be the same as (or be revertible to) the
original, Boyle is careful to qualify his claims. He is not suggesting that
this is exactly how God will recreate bodies at the resurrection, only that
it is possible that He do so. Boyle sees that it is possible for God to restore
or reproduce a human body for the resurrection and that this body
could be united with its former soul. And further, that it would then be
possible for God to transform that body into the type of body that Paul
describes in Corinthians. This is like what happens with a candle that has
been blown out, and then relit. As Boyle puts it in the final sentence
“For in the twinkling of an Eye, an opacous, dark, languid, and stinking
smoke loses all its stink, and is changed into a most active penetrant and
112 John Locke and Personal Identity
has misunderstood his position and Boyle’s. And indeed, Stillingfleet seems
to be committed to a rather unusual understanding of the Corinthians
passage whereas the seed reproduces itself as it grows. Locke says:
Locke continues later in the passage by pointing out that St Paul was talking
about the sensible grain. And that because he did not know about micro-
scopes, he would not have known about the “little embryo plant in the
seed.” Locke also is at pains to reinforce that the idea of the same man is
not that he has the same body, something that he had been quite explicit
about in the Essay. As he says:
your lordship says it is as much the same [I crave leave to add body] “as
a man grown up is the same,” (same what, I beseech your lordship?)
“with the embryo in the womb.” For that the body of the embryo in the
womb, and the body of the man grown up, is the same body, I think
no one will say; unless he can persuade himself that a body, that is not
an hundredth part of another, is the same with that other; which I think
no one will do, till, having renounced this dangerous way by ideas of
thinking and reasoning, he has learnt to say that a part and the whole
are the same.19
Locke is thus reinforcing his account which has the identity conditions
depend on the type of thing that is being identified. The same man need
not have the same physical body over his lifetime. The same plant need not
have the same physical body over its lifetime. Rather, the plant will need to
partake in the same organized life. And the human will need to partake in
the same organized life.
It seems plausible then to suggest that Locke, having observed and par-
ticipated in the theological skirmishes of various sorts, when confronted
with this challenge is quite clearly going to give an analysis that does not fall
back into being committed to a particular analysis of matter or substance or
to a particular theological school. He reiterates his position on personal
identity. And indeed we can see that by focusing on personhood, he hopes
Robert Boyle and the Resurrection of the Body 115
to rise above the issues of bodily resurrection. And that in the way that he
does this, he will perhaps contribute to making a philosophical problem
less sectarian so as to help ground the new science, which had been the goal
of the Essay all along.
The response to Stillingfleet highlights that Locke has moved beyond
Boyle. He has moved into the discussion of personal immortality. He has
moved into the discussion of what it takes for an individual to be a moral
agent and to be held responsible as a moral agent at the last Judgment.
And in so doing he neatly sidesteps those concerns which mire theological
debate in discussions of bodies and substance instead of in behavior and
actions. And so Locke sees that by focusing on persons and not bodies
that public morality and private morality is preserved.
Chapter 6
Locke as the progenitor of the modern version of the problem and then
proceed quickly to dismiss his solution as flawed. They see this as clearing
the way for a modern assessment of this problem and a reformulation of
a proper response, sometimes loosely based on Locke’s treatment of the
problem.1 The flaws alleged of Locke are multiple, but by far the three most
common are those that trace to two early critics of Locke, Bishop Joseph
Butler and Thomas Reid.
Locke’s theory of personal identity is usually presented as a psychological
theory. On one such view, personal identity is determined and constituted
by memory. For example, if A remembers doing X, then A is the same
person who did X.2 On a second view, personal identity is said to depend
on the continuity of consciousness. A is the same person as B just if A has
a continuous consciousness with B, with continuity being defined in a
variety of ways.3 There are, of course, other ways of representing Locke’s
theory as a psychological one. But these two seem to be taken as the
standard interpretation of Locke by contemporary philosophers. Three
common objections or criticisms of his theory are based on these two
interpretations.4
The first and most commonly cited objection concerns the role memory
plays in Locke’s theory of personal identity. This objection is credited
to Thomas Reid, who focuses on the problem of fading memories. Brian
Garrett succinctly puts the objection this way:
Memories fade as people get older. Thus the following scenario is quite
common: where “C,” “B,” and “A” name the same person at different
times, C remembers B’s experiences, B remembers A’s experiences, yet C
is too old to remember A’s experiences. But Locke’s theory cannot give a
consistent description of this case. Since C remembers B’s experiences,
and B remembers A’s, it follows, on Locke’s theory, that C is B and the B
is A. Since identity is transitive, it follows that C is A (C is the same person
as A). But since C cannot remember A’s experiences, it follows, on Locke’s
theory, that C is not the same person as A. Hence, on Locke’s theory, C
both is and is not the same person as A.5
In this section, I consider the problem Reid raises for Locke. I begin by
formulating Reid’s problem. I then show how my interpretation of Locke’s
theory responds to it and cases like it, including the formulation by Brian
Garrett above.
The problem Reid raises for Locke is often referred to as the “brave
officer objection.” In Essays on the Intellectual Powers, Reid begins by referring
to Locke’s definition of “person.”8 He then draws a conclusion from this
definition about how a person remains the same over time:
He [Locke] observes, very justly, that to know what is meant by the same
person, we must consider what the word person stands for; and he defines
Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity 119
Person, as I take it, is the name for this self. Wherever a Man finds what
he calls himself, there I think another may say is the same Person. It is a
Forensick Term appropriating Actions and their Merit; and so belongs
only to intelligent Agents capable of a Law, and Happiness and Misery.10
This is clear enough. If you can appropriate to your present self an action
or reconcile to yourself an action, then your present self is rightfully pun-
ished or blamed for that action. If you cannot appropriate to your present
self that action or reconcile to your present self that action, then you are
120 John Locke and Personal Identity
not the person who did that action. Thus, you should not be punished
for the action. The issue is how the appropriation or reconciliation of an
action is accomplished. Locke says:
The contradiction of (6) and (8) shows that there is something wrong
with Locke’s argument. Most people agree that identity is transitive and
thus that the problem is with Locke’s analysis of the identity of the person
in premise (1).
The quandary that Reid raises for Locke is to account for how the general
who is the same man as the soldier and the boy both is and is not the person
who was flogged, given that the soldier has appropriated to himself the
memories of the boy and the general appropriated to himself the memories
122 John Locke and Personal Identity
But yet possibly it will still be objected, 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 con-
scious 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.14
Thus Locke might respond to the brave officer problem by claiming that
Reid, among others, has confused “person” and “man” and their corre-
sponding identities. Reid has misunderstood premise (1) and thus mis-
applies it in premises (5) and (7). While personhood is determined by
memory appropriation, as Locke understands it, all memories of a man are
not appropriated or perhaps even appropriable at any given time while
the man is alive. The identity of a person is fixed at a time to a particular
thinking intelligent being by the appropriation of memories. But this does
not mean that that thinking being is the same person as long as it remains
the same thinking being.
Locke’s analysis of personal identity is not concerned with substance,
but about awareness of past actions. Locke uses the appropriation of
memory to explain why responsibility accrues to a particular individual in
the future, specifically after death. For Locke, an individual is responsible
before God for what he or she can appropriate on the Day of Judgment.
Before that time, the same man or thinking being might be different
persons, that is, a consciousness connected to the same thinking thing in
union with the same organized body might appropriate to itself different
actions from the past.
Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity 123
Are you responsible for your actions of yesterday? Usually, yes. But does
not it happen that people can change in significant ways in short (or long
periods) of time? Are you as an adult responsible for actions done as a
child? Most people would agree not. To highlight this I need but alter
Reid’s example slightly. Suppose the action that the boy did is that of
stealing an apple and he was not caught at that time, and so, never flogged
as punishment. This startling fact comes to light when he becomes general.
The question is asked: Is the general responsible for the actions of the boy
and thus should be punished accordingly?
The answer to the question is a judgment call on the part of those
gathered to determine it. While we can ascertain that the general is a con-
tinuous human with the boy who did indeed steal the apple, most would
think that punishment now would serve little purpose, as it is obvious that
he has already been reformed. Further, it is unclear whether punishing
the general now would have a deterrent effect on his or others stealing
apples in the future or whether retribution is served by holding the general
responsible, but this case might be made by a determined prosecutor.
Holding the general responsible is a matter of debate by the group. How
they decide is based on the facts of the case before them, precedent, and
theories of the role of punishment in society. There is no clearly correct
answer to the problem.
The question that Locke is concerned with is: Will the general be held
responsible for stealing the apple when he is resurrected and judged by
his conscience on the Day of Judgment? Clearly if he cannot appropriate
the action at that time he cannot hold himself responsible for it as the
person who did the action. He might feel a sense of responsibility because
he is the same man who did the action, but it would not be responsibility
because of appropriation of the action. But, if having had “the secrets of the
heart” restored to him, he now has access to the action and, on replaying
it, recognizes his current self as the self who did that action and thus
appropriates and reconciles it to himself, he will indeed be held responsible
for it—although what punishment or doom his conscience would mete
out I am not sure.
Thus, this altered case of the general and the boy highlights the
essential difference between divine and human punishment in Locke
and the role that the distinction between “man” and “person” plays in
this regard.
Having considered Reid’s classic objection to Locke, I turn now to
Butler’s allegations of circularity.
124 John Locke and Personal Identity
Now, when it is asked wherein personal identity consists, the answer should
be the same as if it were asked, wherein consists similitude or equality; that
all attempts to define, would but perplex it. Yet there is no difficulty at all
in ascertaining the idea. For as, upon two triangles being compared or
viewed together, there arises to the mind the idea of similitude; or upon
twice two and four, the idea of equality; so likewise, upon comparing the
consciousness of one’s self, or one’s own existence in any two moments;
there as immediately arises to the mind the idea of personal identity.
And as the two former comparisons not only give the idea of similitude
and equality, but also shows us, that two triangles are like, and twice
two and four are equal; so the latter comparison not only gives us the idea
of personal identity but also shows us the identity of ourselves in those two
moments; the present, suppose, and that immediately past; or the present,
and that a month, a year, or twenty years past. Or in other words, by reflect-
ing upon that which is myself now, and that which was myself twenty
years ago, I discern they are not two, but one and the same self.15
Butler draws from this the conclusion that any attempt to explain or
define personal identity, such as memory appropriation or continuity
of consciousness, will involve the use of personal identity in a problematic
way. Butler thinks instead, according to Perry, that personal identity is
primitive like equality, a point I return to at the end of this section.
One way to see the alleged circularity of Locke’s position is to look at a
case of false memories. These cases point to a contradiction that follows
from Locke’s account. Consider this case:
Lily has recently been charged with murder on the basis of her confession.
Lily claims to remember doing the crime. There is scant circumstantial
evidence to link her to it, but there is some. She is in no way coerced to
confess. But in fact, it is not Lily who did the murder, it is Moe as a video
graphically reveals later.
Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity 125
But that which we call the same consciousness, not being the same indivi-
dual Act, why one intellectual Substance may not have represented to it,
as done by itself, what it never did, and was perhaps done by some other
Agent, why, I say such a representation may not possibly be without reality
of Matter of Fact, as well as several representations in Dreams are, which
yet whilst dreaming we take for true, will be difficult to conclude from
the Nature of things. And that it never is so, will by us, till we have clearer
views of the Nature of thinking Substances, be best resolved into the
Goodness of God, who as far as the Happiness or Misery of any of his
sensible Creatures is concerned in it, will not by a fatal Errour of theirs
transfer from one to another that consciousness which draws Reward or
Punishment with it.16
126 John Locke and Personal Identity
happen. God will not hold one person (Christ) responsible for another
person’s (Moe’s) actions because God will not allow an individual to appro-
priate to himself the actions of another on the Day of Judgment.18
Thus, one way to respond to the reformulated Lily case on Locke’s
behalf is to suggest that God will not allow that to happen on the Day
of Judgment—the day when it really matters what is appropriated by an
individual. Instead on that day, “the secrets of the heart will be laid open.”
No longer will an individual who had false memories like Lily be able to
ascribe these actions to herself. Perhaps one of those secrets will be the
realization that you had deluded yourself into remembering things that you
had not done, and you will then hold yourself responsible for this action.
In the criticism that begins this section, Butler asserts that personal
identity is primitive. The example Butler gives is that when we consider
ourselves today and ourselves twenty years ago we see we are the same.
But this is not a severe criticism of Locke. As discussed in Chapter 1, for
Locke, the identity of x is determined by the comparison of ideas of x. If
the two ideas do not differ (where what it takes to differ depends on what
the idea is an idea of), then they are said to be the same. Identity is a
relation like equality. But this does not mean that we cannot discuss the
ideas that are being compared. This is what Locke does in his discussion
of personal identity where he treats “person” as distinct from “man.” Thus
the charge that identity is a primitive relation is not a telling criticism
against Locke, nor is the charge of circularity.
I turn now to a closely related third criticism of Locke.
The final objection often cited is that Locke’s analysis of personal identity,
resting as it does in continuity of consciousness, gives individuals little
reason to care for the fate of their future selves. Butler claims that Locke’s
account of personal identity “renders the inquiry concerning a future
life of no consequence,” because there is nothing in Locke’s account of
personal identity to explain why I care what happens to me tomorrow.
Locke’s theory, on Butler’s account, runs into difficulties because con-
sciousness is an action, and strictly speaking no two actions are the same.
If what we compare when we inquire into the personhood of ourselves
is the present consciousness with that of a past consciousness, we will
see that consciousnesses are never the same.19 Thus the present person
is never the same as a previous person. If this is the case, then why should
128 John Locke and Personal Identity
Locke uses consciousness to unite distant actions to the present self, just
as the same common life of a tree unites the acorn with the full grown
oak. Consciousness while likely dependent on an immaterial substance
may not be because we do not know the nature of immaterial substance (or
any substance). We do not have access to that which grounds or supports
consciousness. But, we do not need to know the nature of consciousness
to understand the nature of personal responsibility after death.
Thus, Butler asks Locke to supply what he cannot: an analysis of the
nature of thinking and of consciousness. What Locke can supply is an
Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity 129
burn up quickly as my body is not large. Also, why think that a recreated
body will be me? If my mind is a material thing, then how can it be the
same material thing when it is reconstituted—won’t some of my atoms
have gone on and become parts of other people? Also, at what age will my
body be reconstituted? I’m relatively young, and I expect to live another
forty years. When I’m seventy five, I probably won’t remember this action,
and if I’m resurrected at age seventy five I probably won’t remember this
action.” Frank thus is not motivated to avoid doing the action in this life
because of pain that may result from it after his death. This pain seems
far removed from his current concerns.
Henry More would give Frank different advice. He would convince Frank
that he is an immaterial, immortal soul. If Frank persists in his actions he
will end up with a very unpleasant afterlife which is entirely his own fault.
After death, he will molder in his grave and be pricked by his conscience.
He will lose his memory of the intellectual truths and thus be far removed
from God. Thus, when Frank leaves More, he might think something like
this: “So I molder in the grave because my soul doesn’t ascend back to God.
At least I won’t have access to the memories of this action. There will be
pain, but it won’t be ‘me’ that experiences it—it will be my soul. On the
other hand, if I refrain from this action, what is heaven like? Well, there too
I won’t be ‘me,’ so I won’t be concerned about the action I am currently
planning to do. I may have the delight of understanding mathematics and
eternal truths, but this doesn’t seem like much of a reward to me.” Frank
thus may not be motivated by this account to refrain from doing the action.
The persistence of his immaterial soul is not enough to dissuade him.
And Robert Boyle would give different advice too. He would show Frank
that some of his body would survive death. And that so on the Day of
Judgment that body would be recreated so that the soul could be rejoined
to it. And then depending on his merits, and it looks likely that they
would be such that Frank would not gain Heaven, his body would not be
transformed into a new celestial one. Frank should not count on a final
death to spare him from his punishment. He is going to end up tormented
in Hell.
Finally, however John Locke shows Frank that it is not the persistence of
the substance that he should be concerned about. Rather it is the persis-
tence of the self independent of the substance in which it might adhere, be
it material or immaterial. Even if Hobbes is right and Descartes wrong,
there may well be the continuation of the individual self. Further, if revela-
tion is right, then Frank will remember this action that he is contemplating
doing as he is punished for it. He will have a body that can experience
Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity 131
V. Conclusion
Introduction
1
Recent examples of this include works by Jan Wojcik, Robert Boyle and the Limits
of Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), Peter Alexander, Ideas
Qualities and Corpuscles: Locke and Boyle on the External World (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1985), G. A. J. Rogers, “Hobbes Hidden Influence.”
Perspectives on Thomas Hobbes. Ed. G. A. J. Rogers and Alan Ryan (Oxford: Claren-
don Press, 1988), 189–206; “Introduction.” Leviathan: Contemporary Responses to
the Political Theory of Thomas Hobbes (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1995); “Descartes
and the English.” The Light of Nature: Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science
Presented to A.C. Crombie. Ed. J. D. North and J. J. Roche (Dordrecht; Boston:
M. Nijhoff, 1985), 281–302 and Marleen Rozemond, Descartes’s Dualism
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998).
Chapter 1
1
For a discussion of the education offered by Oxford and Cambridge during this
time see John Twigg, The University of Cambridge and the English Revolution, 1625–
1688 (Cambridge: Boydell Press , 1990) and Nicholas Tyacke (ed.) Seventeenth-Century
Oxford (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997). See Kenney W. Henry, “John Locke and
the Oxford Training in Logic and Metaphysics” (Diss., St. Louis University, 1959)
for an explicit account of Locke’s philosophical education at Oxford.
2
Letter 1579, December 22, 1692. John Locke, The Correspondence of John Locke, Ed.
E. S. De Beer (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981, vol. 4), 601.
3
Letter 1592, January 20, 1693, Locke (1981, vol. 4), 623.
4
In letter 1609, March 2, 1693, Locke (1981, vol. 4) 650, Molyneux suggests to
Locke that he insert a new chapter head on Principium Individuationis.
5
See Jorge J. E. Gracia (ed.) Individuation in Scholasticism: The Later Middle Ages and
the Counter-Reformation (1150–1650) (Albany: State University of New York Press,
1994) for a discussion of the many approaches taken to individuation and identity
by the scholastics. In this work as well as his other works on individuation, Gracia
carefully outlines the many related questions falling under the umbrella of the
principium individuationis.
6
For a very useful account of how the two problems and the metaphors associated
with each waxed and waned in the Middle Ages, see Caroline Walker Bynum, The
Resurrection of the Body (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995).
7
1 Cor. 15.52.
Notes 133
8
One reason that Epicurus historically has such a bad reputation is because he
argues against the immortality of the soul. When Pierre Gassendi rehabilitates his
philosophy, this is one aspect that he explicitly considers. For a full account of
how Gassendi does this see Margaret J. Osler, “Baptizing Epicurean Atomism:
Pierre Gassendi on the Immortality of the Soul.” Religion, Science and Worldview:
Essays in Honor of Richard S. Westfall. Ed. Margaret J. Osler and Paul Lawrence
Farber (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 163–83 and Divine Will
and the Mechanical Philosophy: Gassendi and Descartes on Contingency and Necessity in
the Created World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
9
The classic work on Purgatory and its relation to ancient and medieval thought
is that of Jacques Le Goff, Naissance du Purgatoire, trans. Arthur Goldhammer, The
Birth of Purgatory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984).
10
See Philip Almond, Heaven and Hell in Enlightenment England (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994) for an extensive analysis of key enlightenment
thinkers’ handling of these issues.
11
See Norman T. Burns, Christian Mortalism from Tyndale to Milton (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1972) and William M. Spellman, “Between Death
and Judgement: Conflicting Images of the Afterlife in Late Seventeenth-Century
English Eulogies.” Harvard Theological Review. 87 (1994): 49–66.
12
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding in Four Books (London:
Tho. Basset, 1690) Wing Collection 639:21, I.4.4.
13
Ibid.
14
Ibid., II.1.11–12.
15
Ibid., II.1.15.
16
A discussion of Smith’s work is found in John J. De Boer, The Theory of Knowledge
of the Cambridge Platonists (Madras: Methodist Publishing House, 1931).
17
The relation of this passage to Cudworth was pointed out to me by Dr. James
Buickerood.
18
Peter King, The Life and Letters of John Locke, with Extracts from his Journals
and Common-place Books (London: G. Bell, 1884), 128.
19
King, 128.
20
King, 129.
21
Leonora Cohen Rosenfield, From Beast-Machine to Man-Machine; the Theme
of Animal Soul in French Letters from Descartes to La Mettrie. Preface by Paul
Hazard (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940).
22
Kenneth Dewhurst, John Locke (1632–1704) Physician and Philosopher: A Medical
Biography (London: Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 1963), 222–3.
23
Michael Ayers, Locke: Epistemology and Ontology (London and New York:
Routledge, 1993) Part 2, 256.
24
See John Locke, A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul to the Galatians,
1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, Ephesians. Ed. Arthur W. Wainwright (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1987). Wainwright’s introduction, especially pp. 11–18, gives an
overview of the theologians Locke considers in the Paraphrase and the general
style of paraphrases at this time.
25
Ibid., 246.
26
Ibid., 255.
27
Ibid., 251–2, fn 35*.
28
Ibid., 250, fn 20*.
134 Notes
29
Ibid., 679–84.
30
D. P. Walker, The Decline of Hell: Seventeenth-Century Discussions of Eternal
Torment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964) catalogues this change in
the depictions of the nature of Hell during the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries.
31
The most significant addition is Prince Maurice’s account of the parrot at
II.27.8, added in the fourth edition.
32
John Locke (1979) II. 27.1. Hereafter this work will be referred to as Essay,
followed by the book, chapter, and section numbers. This and all passages in
this text are used with the permission of Oxford University Press.
33
Ibid.
34
Essay, II.27.3.
35
Essay, II.27.3. Suarez also advocates the principium individuationis as existence.
36
Essay, II.27.3.
37
Essay, II.27.4.
38
Essay, II.27.5.
39
Essay, II.27.6.
40
Essay, II.27.7.
41
Essay, II.27.9.
42
Essay, II.27.14.
43
Essay, II.27.15.
44
Essay, II.27.22.
45
Molyneux questions Locke about his handling of the drunkard in letter
1685, December 23, 1693 Locke (1989, vol. 4) 767. Locke responds to his
concerns in Letter 1693, January 19, 1694, 785–6. This correspondence between
the two is analyzed by Henry Allison, “Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity:
A Re-examination.” Journal of the History of Ideas 27 (1966): 41–58; Paul Helm,
“Did Locke Capitulate to Molyneux?” Journal of the History of Ideas 42 (1981):
669–71; and Henry Allison and Nicholas Jolley, “Locke’s Pyrrhic Victory.” Journal
of the History of Ideas 42 (1981): 672–4.
46
This is illustrated by a jury decision in Arizona in the late 1990s. Scott Falater
claimed to be sleepwalking when he killed his wife. Despite the testimony of
experts supporting his claim, the jury found him guilty of murder.
47
Essay, II.27.26.
Chapter 2
1
See for example Henry Allison, “Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity: A
Re-examination.” Journal of the History of Ideas 27 (1966): 41–58 and “Locke’s
Theory of Personal Identity.” Locke on Human Understanding. Ed. I. C. Tipton
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), and Antony Flew, “Locke and the
Problem of Personal Identity.” Philosophy 26 (1951): 53–68. Each claims that
Locke gives the first formulation of the problem of personal identity and further
that Locke’s treatment of the problem is flawed.
2
Descartes’ (1991) letter to Mersenne, December 23, 1630 from Descartes, Rene,
The Philosophical Writings of Descartes: The Correspondence, trans. John Cottingham,
Notes 135
Moreover, we condemn with the approval of the same holy council every
doctrine or exposition rashly asserting or expressing doubt that the sub-
stance of the rational or intellectual soul is not vere ac per se the form of the
136 Notes
human body as opposed to the truth of the Catholic faith, at the same time
declaring, in order that the truth may be known to all and the approach to
universal errors precluded, that anyone who shall in the future presume
obstinately to assert, defend, or hold, that the rational or intellectual soul
is not per se et essentialiter the form of the human body, is to be regarded as
a heretic.
18
Schmitt et al., 495.
19
Tanner, 606.
20
Tanner, 606.
21
The origin of the Synopsis and its treatment of immortality is documented
by Thomas Prendergast, “Descartes: Immortality, Human Bodies, and God’s
Absolute Freedom,” Modern Schoolman 62 (1993), 23–5.
22
CSM II, 9.
23
Ibid.
24
Descartes’ dualism is analyzed in great detail in two recent works by Marleen
Rozemond, Descartes’s Dualism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998) and
Gordon Baker and Katherine J. Morris, Descartes’ Dualism (London: Routledge,
1996).
25
CSM II, 9–10.
26
“Substance” is defined as that which does not depend on anything else for
its continued existence (see Principles, I.52). In this definition, Descartes may
be interpreted as maintaining or supporting the distinction between the two to
support that the rational soul does not need to die or cease existing because
the body dies.
27
It may be that this argument is used by Aquinas in his dealing with the Averroists,
and Descartes is trying to curry favor with that party in the Sorbonne as well by
using it himself. For a discussion of Aquinas see Ralph McInerny, Aquinas Against
the Averroists: On There Being Only One Intellect (West Lafeyette: Purdue University
Press, 1993).
28
CSM II, 10.
29
As cited by Descartes in his letter to Mersenne December 24, 1640. CSMK,
p. 163.
30
CSM II, 91.
31
CSMK, 163.
32
CSM II, 108.
33
Ibid., 109.
34
Ibid.
35
Rodis-Lewis.
36
Prendergast, 26.
37
CSMK, 216.
38
See Richard A. Watson, The Breakdown of Cartesian Metaphysics (New Jersey:
Humanities Press International, 1987); Ronald Layman “Transubstantiation: Test
Case for Descartes’s Theory of Space.” Problems of Cartesianism. Ed. Thomas
M. Lennon, John M. Nicholas, and John W. Davis (Kingston: McGill-Queen’s
University Press, 1982) and J. R. Armogathe, Theologia Cartesiana: l’Explication
Physique de l’Eucharistie chez Descartes et Dom Desgabets (La Haye: M. Nijhoff, 1977)
for explication and analyses of Descartes’ views on transubstantiation.
Notes 137
39
See Armogathe for an account of Descartes’ interaction with Mesland.
40
Peter King, The Life and Letters of John Locke, with Extracts from his Journals and
Common-place Books (London: G. Bell, 1884), 64. Notice that this entry indicates
that Descartes fails to accomplish his goal.
41
See W. M. Spellman, John Locke (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, 23) for a fuller
account.
42
John Harrison and Peter Laslett, The Library of John Locke (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1971) list Locke cataloguing under “Descartes”:
Bayle, Francoise. The general systeme of the Cartesian philosophy, London, 1670
Defense of Cartes, 1670
System General of the Cartesian philosophie
Borel, Pierre. Vitae Renati Cartesii summi philosophi compendium, Francofurti,
1670
Hisotriarum et observationum medico physicarum centuriae IV . . . Francofurti,
1670
Cordeliers. Factum pour les Religieuses de Ste Catherine les Provins contre les
Pere Cordeliers (By A. Varet) 1668
Ecclaircissem: Sur le Live de Mons de la Ville (entitles Sentimens de M. Descartes . . .)
Amerstdam, 1684
Forge, Louis de la. Tractatus de mente humana . . . secundum Principia
R. Descartes . . . Amstelodami, 1669
Sergeant, John. Ideae Cartesianae ad Lydium veritatis lapidem expensae.
London, 1698
[Non ultra; or, A letter to a learned Cartesian settling] The Rule of truth & first
principles. 1698
Velthusias, Lambertus De initiis primae philosophiae, juxta fundamenta Cartesii.
Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1662
Disputatio de finito et infinito, in qua defenditur sententia clarissimi Cartesia de
motu, spatio, et corpore. Amstelodami, 1651.
43
Essay, II.23.33.
44
Essay, II.1.18.
45
Essay, IV.3.6.
46
The debate over Locke’s claim about thinking matter is examined in great detail
in Yolton (1983).
47
Essay, IV.3.6.
48
Essay, II.17.18.
49
Essay, II.29.16.
50
Essay, II.27.12.
51
This debate is characterized by Leonora Cohen Rosenfield, From Beast-Machine to
Man-Machine; the Theme of Animal Soul in French Letters from Descartes to La Mettrie.
Preface by Paul Hazard. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940).
Chapter 3
1
For a biography of Hobbes see Noel Malcolm, “A Summary Biography of
Hobbes.” Cambridge Companion to Hobbes. Ed. Tom Sorell (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996) and A. P. Martinich, Thomas Hobbes (London: Macmillan
Press Ltd., 1997).
2
A plausible account of this experience is given in Thomas Sorell, “Hobbes’s
Objections and Hobbes’s System.” Descartes and His Contemporaries: Meditations,
Objections, and Replies. Ed. Roger Ariew and Marjorie Greene (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1995). He suggests on page 95 that it is Euclid’s method of
presentation which had the greatest impact on Hobbes.
3
For example, the Great Tew Circle might have welcomed him as an occasional
member.
4
Kenelm Digby is sometimes characterized as an Aristotelian mechanist. He
worked with Thomas White. Hobbes debated free will and necessity and the
nature of the soul with White.
5
Thomas Hobbes, Letter 16, August 1935 in The Correspondence of Thomas Hobbes.
Ed. Noel Malcolm (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994a), 29.
6
For an overview of Robert Payne’s life and influence on Hobbes, see Mordechai
Feingold, “A Friend of Hobbes and an Early Translator of Galileo: Robert Payne
of Oxford”. The Light of Nature: Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science presented
to A.C. Crombie, Ed. J. D. North and J. J. Roche (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff
Publishers, 1985).
7
The Church of England’s official stance on the issue of immortality and
the necessity of belief in it varies somewhat during the general upheaval of the
civil war.
8
For example, Luther was outraged by the council. He and other Protestants took
it as evidence of the essential non-belief of Catholics. See John Headley, “Luther
and the Fifth Lateran Council,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 64 (1973): 55–7
for a fuller account of his reaction.
9
For an interesting discussion of why the delay over the publication of De Corpore
see Firithio Brandt, Thomas Hobbes’ Mechanical Conception of Nature, trans. Vaughan
Notes 139
Maxwell and Annie I. Fausboll (Copenhagen: Levin & Munksgaard, 1928) who
suggests that it was because of the publication of Descartes’ Principles that Hobbes
stopped worked on De Corpore in favor of producing a different work.
10
See Thomas Hobbes, “1668 Appendix to Leviathan,” trans and introduction:
George Wright. Interpretation 18.3 (1991): 323–413. Wright offers an analysis of
the Appendix. See also Curley’s edition of Leviathan (Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan.
Ed. Edwin Curley (Chicago: Hackett, 1994b), which includes the Appendix. All
references to Hobbes’ Leviathan are to this edition.
11
See Samuel Mintz, The Hunting of Leviathan (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1962) for an extended examination of the contemporary response to
Hobbes.
12
G. A. J. Rogers, “Hobbes Hidden Influence,” Perspectives on Thomas Hobbes. Ed.
G. A. J. Rogers and Alan Ryan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), pp. 200–3.
13
Noel Malcolm, “Hobbes and the Royal Society,” Perspectives on Thomas Hobbes. Ed.
G. A. J. Rogers and Alan Ryan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988).
14
Rogers (1988), p. 194.
15
Ibid.
16
Parts of Locke’s Two Treatises of Government seem to stand in direct opposition
to Hobbes. Peter Laslett, in his introduction to the edition of the work (Two
Treatise of Government by John Locke. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1988)
disputes this claim and argues that the focus of the text is actually Filmer. He
thinks that Locke did not read Leviathan.
17
John Locke, The Correspondence of John Locke, Ed. E. S. De Beer (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1981), Letter 1622, April 18, 1693, vol. 4, p. 668.
18
Mintz 1962, Appendix. But Mintz’s list is not comprehensive, as is pointed out
by G. A. J. Rogers in his introduction to Leviathan: Contemporary Responses to
the Political Theory of Thomas Hobbes (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1995). Locke
catalogues 21 of the books on Mintz’s list in his library.
19
See Jan Prins, “Hobbes on Light and Vision.” The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes.
Ed. Tom Sorrel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
20
Thomas Hobbes, The Correspondence of Thomas Hobbes. Ed. Noel Malcolm( Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1994), Letter 34, March 1641, p. 108.
21
Richard Tuck, “Hobbes and Descartes” in Rogers and Ryan (1988).
22
See Sorell (1995), p. 85, Sorell, “Descartes, Hobbes, and the Body in Natural
Science.” The Monist 71 (1988): 515–25, and Peter Zagorin, “Hobbes Early
Philosophical Development.” Journal of the History of Ideas. 54.3 (1993):
505–18 for a detailed rebuttal of Tuck’s claims about Hobbes’ concern with
skepticism.
23
Jan Prins summarizes some of the similarities and differences in Hobbes’ and
Descartes’ optical theories.
24
CSM I, 258.
25
CSM I, 122–3.
26
Edwin Curley, “Hobbes versus Descartes.” Descartes and His Contemporaries. Ed.
Roger Ariew and Marjorie Grene (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995),
97–109.
27
Ibid., 99.
140 Notes
28
CSM II, 129.
29
CSM II, 129.
30
CSM II, 130.
31
CSM II, 130.
32
CSM II, 21.
33
CSM II, 132.
34
Ibid.
35
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan. Ed. Edwin Curley (Chicago: Hackett, 1994), 1.5, 7.
36
Hobbes (1994), 46.41, 467.
37
Hobbes (1994), 46.22 (numbering is unusual because the chapter is a Latin
variant included by Curley), 476. See also An Answer to Bishop Bramhill, in Hobbes,
English Works, trans. William Molesworth (London: Bohn, 1839–45, 11 vols),
4:350.
38
Hobbes (1994), 34.2, 261–2.
39
Hobbes (1994), 34.3, 262.
40
Hobbes (1994), 34.4, 263.
41
Hobbes (1994), 34.2, 261–2.
42
Descartes uses “subtle matter” in his Optics to explain what the pores of bodies
are filled with, as there is no vacuum in nature. CSM I, 154 and 163.
43
CSMK 170 and 178.
44
Hobbes (1994), 34.3, 262.
45
Interestingly Hobbes evokes Tertullian to support this point in the Latin edition
of Leviathan, 46.9, 470.
46
Hobbes (1994), 34. 2, pp. 261–2.
47
See Norman T. Burns, Christian Mortalism from Tyndale to Milton (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1972) for details of this.
48
Hobbes (1994), 38.3, 303.
49
Hobbes (1994), 44.15, 419.
50
Hobbes (1994), 46.19, 461.
51
David Johnston, “Hobbes and Mortalism.” History of Political Thought 10.4 (1989):
647.
52
Hobbes (1839), De Cive, XVII: xiii
53
Johnston, 654–5.
54
Hobbes (1994), 16.1-2, 101.
55
A. P. Martinich, The Two Gods of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on Religion and Politics
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 203–8 and Martinich, A Hobbes
Dictionary (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1995), pp. 228–32.
56
Hobbes (1839), De Corpore, Elements of Philosophy, the first section, Concern-
ing Body, vol. 1, p. 132.
57
Ibid.
58
Ibid.
59
Ibid.
60
Ibid.
61
CSM II, 130.
62
Essay, II.23.2.
63
Essay, II.27.8.
64
Essay, II.27.12.
Notes 141
Chapter 4
1
For example, it is now accepted that Newton closely studied More’s Immortality
of the Soul when he was a student and was influenced by his treatment of the
universal spirit.
2
To see this influence, a consideration of the lectures required and the method of
instruction can be appealed to. Although there was a Puritan influence (because
of the revolution) there still remained a heavy scholastic influence during the
time when these men were attending university.
3
For an overview of More’s contributions to the scientific revolution, see Rupert
A. Hall, Henry More and the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1996).
4
For an overview of Cudworth’s life and work see Sarah Hutton, “Introduction.”
A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality with a Treatise of Freewill.
By Ralph Cudworth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) and J. A.
Passmore, Ralph Cudworth, An Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1951) .
5
It is acknowledged that Culverwell had an influence on Locke in Locke’s
understanding and assessment of voluntarism. See W. Von Leydon “Introduc-
tion” Essays Concerning the Laws of Nature By John Locke, trans. W. Von Leydon
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954), 39–43.
6
It was after reading Smith’s Select Discourses that Locke wrote the journal entry
regarding personal immortality and the natural argument for it that was cited
in Chapter 1. In the Select Discourses (xxii, 1660), John Worthington (who
wrote the “To the Reader”), refers the reader who is interested in reading a full
refutation of the Epicureans and their philosophy to read Henry More’s Of the
Immortality of the Soul, An Antidote against Atheism, and the Appendix to the Antidote.
7
This influence of Ficino and the Florentine school is significant, for Pomponazzi
was associated with that school. It is partly against the doctrines of Pomponazzi
which Descartes saw himself reacting, as discussed earlier in Chapter 2.
8
For example, most Cambridge Platonists are also claimed as members of the
“Latitude Men,” a group which advocated toleration of most Protestant sects.
9
See Sterling P. Lamprecht “Innate Ideas in the Cambridge Platonists.” The
Philosophical Review 35.6 (1926), esp. 553–64.
10
More refers to men with a “melancholic temper” in his Preface to the Reader
before the first part of A Platonick Song of the Soul, ed. Alexander Jacob
(Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1998). This is a reference to the Puritans,
who were sometimes said to be “melancholy men.”
11
See Lamprecht (1926) 564.
12
For a complete discussion of the Cambridge Platonist school, see Ernst Cassierer,
Platonic Renaissance in England, trans. James P. Pettegrove (Edinburgh: Nelson,
1953).
13
One reason might be that his early philosophical work is metaphysical poetry
written in Spenserian stanzas.
14
See Passmore for more details.
15
Instead of focusing on More, I could have instead focused on Ralph Cudworth.
I chose not to for the following reasons: (1) More has a better articulated
142 Notes
and richer position which, because it was published earlier, was more widely
influential. (2) More explicitly engages Cartesianism and materialism in influen-
tial ways. He also clearly engages in controversial exchanges with Hobbes,
Descartes, and Boyle.
16
The edition that I am using is the same as that in Locke’s library. This is an
expanded version of the original Platonick Song of the Soul, found in Philosophicall
Poems, second edition (1647). It includes additional poetry and an appendix
that is of interest to this project. The basic texts are not altered from the first
edition because More did not believe in rewriting his poems. A newer edition of
the work is that edited by Alexander Jacob.
17
The title of the poem reveals the main subject of it. “Psychozoia” characterizes
the life of the soul, “Psychanthanasia” the immortality of the soul, “Antipsycho-
pannychia” is against the sleep of the soul after death, and “Antimonopsychia”
is against the one soul.
18
While it is possible that More read Descartes’ Discourses, because they are pub-
lished in 1637, it is unlikely that he did so. It is clear that he did read the
Meditations.
19
For a discussion of More’s relation to Ficino see C. A. Staudenbauer, “Galileo,
Ficino, and Henry More’s Psychathanasia.” Journal of the History of Ideas 29 (1968):
565–78.
20
Poems, Canto II, stanza 22, 22.
21
Ibid., stanza 20, 22.
22
Ibid., Preface to the Reader, H.
23
Ibid., H1–H2.
24
Ibid., H1.
25
Psychathanasia, Book I, Canto 1, stanza 18, 77.
26
Ibid., Canto 2, stanzas 18 and 19, 84–5.
27
Ibid., stanzas 25–7, 86–7.
28
The great chain of being is explored in Arthur Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being
(New York: Harper & Row, 1936).
29
Antipscyhopannychia, Preface to the reader.
30
Antipsychopannychia, Canto 1, stanza 3, 220.
31
Ibid., stanza 15, 221.
32
Ibid., stanza 25, 226.
33
Ibid., stanza 38, 228.
34
Antimonospychia, stanza 16, 289.
35
Ibid., stanza 18, 289.
36
Ibid., stanza 14, 288.
37
Ibid., stanza 34, 293.
38
Ibid., stanza 40, 295.
39
Alan Gabbey, “Philosophia Cartesiana Triumphata.” Problems of Cartesianism.
Ed. Thomas M. Lennon, John M. Nicholas, and John W. Davis (Kingston:
McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1982).
40
For a discussion of More’s exchange with Descartes, see Gabbey (1982).
41
See G. A. J. Rogers, “Descartes and the English.” The Light of Nature: Essays in
the History and Philosophy of Science Presented to A.C. Crombie. Ed. J. D. North and
J. J. Roche (Dordrecht; Boston: M. Nijhoff, 1985).
Notes 143
42
More does not ever question Descartes’ religious commitment.
43
Henry More, The Immortality of the Soul, ed. A. Jacob (Dordrecht: Martinus
Nijhoff Publishers, 1987) Epistle Dedicatory, p. 2. It is thought that More was
in Luxemburg with Lady Conway seeking a treatment for her recurrent and
hideous headaches. Lady Conway is the person to whom An Antidote against
Atheism is dedicated, and the Immortality of the Soul is dedicated to her husband.
It has been conjectured that Conway is actually a coauthor of this work. This
claim is based on the letters exchanged between the two, collected in Conway
et al., The Conway Letters: The Correspondence of Anne, Viscountess Conway, Henry
More, and Their Friends, 1642-1684 , ed. Marjorie Hope Nicolson, rev. edn., ed.
Sarah Hutton (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992). I tend to think she may have
been an impetus for the work, asked questions which clarified parts of it, and
perhaps edited some parts of the text, but probably not so much as to merit
coauthor status.
44
Henry More, The Immortality of the Soul, 5.
45
Henry More, The Immortality of the Soul, 5.
46
Ibid., 6.
47
Ibid., 6.
48
Ibid., 9.
49
Ibid., 15.
50
For a complete analysis of this strategy, see Alan Gabbey, “Henry More and the
Limits of Mechanism.” Henry More (1614–1687) Tercentenary Studies. Ed. Sarah
Hutton (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1990) and “Cudworth, More, and the Mechanical
Analogy.” Philosophy, Science, and Religion in England 1640–1700. Ed. Richard Kroll,
Richard Ashcraft, and Perez Zagorin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1992).
51
More (1987), 110.
52
Ibid.
53
See Brian Sutton, Philosophy and Memory Traces: Descartes to Connectionism (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) for a developed treatment of memory
and its relation to the brain in the seventeenth century.
54
More (1987), 146.
55
Ibid.
56
Ibid., 29–30.
57
Ibid., 30.
58
Ibid., 49.
59
Ibid., 54.
60
Ibid., 78.
61
Ibid., 9.
62
Ibid., 141.
63
Locke catalogues works by Henry More, Ralph Cudworth, Simon Patrick,
John Smith, and Benjamin Whichcote in his library.
64
Descartes and the Cartesian do hold a view about innate ideas, but the attacks
on that doctrine in the Essay are not generally aimed at his theory. Sterling
P. Lamprecht, “Locke’s Attack Upon Innate Ideas.” The Philosophical Review
36.2 (1927), argues that Locke’s attacks are directed at the more naïve version of
the theory found in the Cambridge Platonists’ works in philosophy and theology
144 Notes
and discusses their theory of innate ideas in Lamprecht (1926). See also John
Yolton, Thinking Matter: Materialism in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1983).
65
There are at least 40 letters exchanged between the two. In the exchanges they
frequently discuss philosophical topics. For example, in one of the early letters,
they discussed John Smith’s Selected Discourses.
66
As suggested in Sarah Hutton, “Damaris Cudworth, Lady Masham: Between
Platonism and Enlightenment.” British Journal of the History of Philosophy 1.1
(1993). She argues that Cudworth owned many works by Henry More and read
them to keep herself intellectually alive, citing Cudworth’s correspondence in
support of her argument.
67
One such book was Henry More’s Philosophicall Poems.
68
For a detailed discussion of Masham’s philosophical views, see Patricia
Springborg, “Astell, Masham, and Locke: Religion and Politics.” Women Writers
and the Early Modern British Political Tradition. Ed. Hilda L. Smith (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998).
69
This is at least the conjecture made by Hutton (1993), p. 50, fn 80.
70
In Letter 684, Damaris Cudworth discusses John Smith’s Select Discourses. Locke in
reply sent her a manuscript which he had been working on about the material
in the Discourses. This discussion is referred to again in letter 695. There are
also other references to Platonism, and specifically to More by Cudworth in the
letters. For example, in letter 699, she refers to More’s “Divine Sagacitie.” In
letter 731, she refers to More in a social capacity, regarding attending a fair.
Cudworth, in letter 950, informs Locke of More’s illness and in letter 967, tells
Locke of More’s death.
71
The correspondence which survives is collected in John Locke, The Correspondence
of John Locke, Ed. E. S. De Beer (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981).
72
Smith (1660), Preface, p. xxii.
73
John Harrison and Peter Laslett, The Library of John Locke (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1971) note in the entry is the notation that it is a gift from Damaris
Cudworth.
74
For a discussion of the relationship between Locke and Boyle in the lab, see
Lawrence M. Principe, Aspiring Adept Robert Boyle and his Alchemical Quest
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), esp. 175–8.
75
See John Henry, “Henry More versus Robert Boyle: The Spirit of Nature and the
Nature of Providence.” Henry More (1614–1687) Tercentenary Studies. Ed. Sarah
Hutton and Robert Crocker (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1990) and Stephen Shapin and
Simon Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air Pump (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1985), esp. 207–24.
76
For an account of More’s Spirit of Nature, see Michael Boylan, “Henry More’s
Space and the Spirit of Nature.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 18.4 (1980):
395–405.
77
Essay, IV. 3.6.
78
Ibid.
79
Essay, II.27.14
80
Essay, II.27.26.
81
Essay, II.27.22.
Notes 145
Chapter 5
1
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Ed. Peter Nidditch
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), 7.
2
Boyle’s Scrupulosity is discussed in Michael Hunter, Robert Boyle 1627–1691
Scrupulosity and Science (London: Boydell and Browder, 2000).
3
For a fuller analysis of Boyle, see Lisa Downing “Robert Boyle.” Blackwell Com-
panions to Philosophy: A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy. Ed. Steven Nadler
(London: Wiley Blackwell, 2002).
4
Unpublished manuscripts analyzed by Hunter and Principe support this, as
does Lotte Mulligan, “Right Reason and the Meaning of Metaphor.” Journal of
the History of Ideas 55.2 (1994): 235–57. The controversy between Boyle and
More is discussed in detail by Simon Schaffer and Stephen Shapin, Leviathan and
the Air Pump (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985).
5
See Margaret Cooke, “Divine Artifice and Natural Mechanism: Robert Boyle’s
Mechanical Philosophy of Nature.” S Osiris, 2nd Series, vol. 16, Science in Theistic
Contexts: Cognitive Dimensions (2001) for a fuller explication of Boyle’s position.
6
Robert Boyle, The Works of Robert Boyle. Ed. Michael Hunter and Edward B. Davis
(London: Pickering and Chatto, 1999–2000), vol. 9, 402.
7
Principe, 203
8
Boyle (1999), 300.
9
Ibid.
10
Ibid., 301–2
11
Ibid., 303.
12
Ibid., 304.
13
Ibid.
14
Ibid., 305.
15
Ibid., 308.
16
Ibid., 313.
17
Wainwright, esp. 1–28 in John Locke, A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles
of St. Paul to the Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, Ephesians. Ed. Arthur
W. Wainwright (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987).
18
John Locke, The Works of John Locke. 12th edn. (London: 1823), vol. 4, 319.
19
Ibid., 320.
Chapter 6
1
This is the strategy used by neo-Lockeans in their proposals for dealing with
personal identity. See Anthony Quinton, “The Soul.” The Journal of Philosophy
59.15 (1962): 393–409; H. P. Grice, “Personal Identity.” Mind 50 (1941): 330–50;
and John Perry “Personal Identity, Memory and the Problem of Circularity.”
Personal Identity. Ed. John Perry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975).
2
For example, Brian Garrett, “Personal Identity.” Routledge Encyclopedia of Philoso-
phy. Ed. Edward Craig (London: Routledge, 1998) characterizes and summarizes
Locke’s theory in this way.
146 Notes
3
One person who presents Locke’s theory in this way is David Wiggins, “Locke,
Butler and the Stream of Consciousness: And Men as a Natural Kind.” The Identi-
ties of Persons. Ed. Amelie Oksenberg Rorty (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1976).
4
Roger Scruton, A Short History of Modern Philosophy. 2nd ed. (Routledge: New
York, 1995), 92–3 cites two of these criticisms of Locke’s theory as telling. As does
Garrett.
5
Garrett, 43.
6
Joseph Butler, “Of Personal Identity.” Personal Identity. Ed. John Perry (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1975), 99–100.
7
Ibid., 99 and Reid 216.
8
Thomas Reid, Thomas Reid’s Inquiry and Essays, Essay on the Intellectual Powers of
Man, Essay Three: Of Memory. Ed. Ronald E. Beanblossom and Keith Lehrer
(Chicago: Hackett 1983), 216.
9
Ibid., 216–17.
10
Essay, II.27.26.
11
Essay, II.27.26.
12
Essay,, II.27.10.
13
Reid, 216.
14
Essay, II.27.20.
15
Butler, 99–100.
16
Essay, II.27.13
17
It is well known that there are some individuals who earnestly confess to every
crime they hear of and yet they are usually not taken seriously by the police.
18
Likewise, God’s goodness will not allow an individual to experience eternal
torment. Eventually the mortal body burns up in the fires of Hell.
19
Butler, 95.
20
Essay, II.27.2.
21
Essay, II.27.17.
22
Essay, II.27.10.
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