Achilles of Rationalist Arguments

THE ACHILLES
OF RATIONALIST ARGUMENTS
ARCHIVES INTERNATIONALES D'HISTOIRE DES IDEES
INTERNATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS
Series Minor
13
BEN LAZARE MIJUSKOVIC
THE ACHILLES
THE SIMPLICITY, UNITY, AND IDENTITY OF THOUGHT AND

SOUL FROM THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS TO KANT:
A STUDY IN THE HISTORY OF AN ARGUMENT
Directors: P. Dibon (Paris) and R. Popkin (St. Louis Univ.)

EdItorial Board: J. Aubin (Paris); J. Collin-s (St. Louis Univ.); P. Costabe\ (Paris);
A. Crombie (Oxford); I. Dambska (Cracow); H. de la Fontaine-Verwey (Amsterdam);
H. Gadamer (Heidelberg); H. Gouhier (Paris); T. Gregory (Rome); T. E. Jessop
(Hull); P.O. Kristeller (Columbia Univ.); Elisabeth Labrousse (Paris); A. Lossky (Los
Angeles); S. Lindroth (Upsala); J. Orcibal (Paris); I.S. Revaht (Paris); J. Roger
(Paris); H. Rowen (Rutgers Univ., N.Y.); Ch.B. Schmitt (Warburg Inst., London);
G. Sebba (Emory Univ., Atlanta); R. Shackleton (Oxford); J. Tans (Groningen);
G. Tonelli (Binghamton, N.Y.).
THE ACHILLES
THE SIMPLICITY, UNITY, AND IDENTITY OF THOUGHT AND

SOUL FROM THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS TO KANT:
A STUDY IN THE HISTORY OF AN ARGUMENT
by
BEN LAZARE MIJUSKOVIC
MARTINUS NIJHOFF /THE HAGUE/1974

«:> 1974 by Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to
reproduce this book or parts thereof In any form
ISBN·13: 978·90·247·1597·8 e·ISBN·13: 978·94·0 I0·2037-4

001: 10.1007/978·94·010·2037-4
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements VII
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION TOTHEARGUMENT AND ITS HISTORY

PRIOR TO THE 17TH AND 18TH CENTURIES
CHAPTER II. THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL IN THE 17TH AND

18TH CENTURIES 19
CHAPTER III. THE UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE 17TH AND
18TH CENTURIES 58
CHAPTER IV. PERSONAL IDENTITY IN THE 17TH AND 18TH
CENTURIES 93
CHAPTER V. THE SIMPLICITY ARGUMENT AND ITS POSSIBLE
ROLE IN THE HISTORY OF IDEALISM 119
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is my pleasant duty to acknowledge the considerable debt lowe

to the scholars who have helped me through the several stages of
revision of the manuscript. The book was originally written as a
dissertation under the direction of Professor Richard H. Popkin,
presently of Washington University in St. Louis. It is to him that
lowe by far the most, both for his intellectual guidance and for his
sympathetic encouragement. I also wish to thank Professor David
Norton of McGill University and Professor Rudolph Makkreel of
Emory University, who have aided me from the beginning of this
study until its completion.
In addition, I should like to gratefully acknowledge my debt to
Professor Paul Dibon for his many valuable suggestions, which afforded
me a final opportunity to further improve the study.
The staff of the following libraries assisted me in securing the
materials for my research: The William Andrews Clark Memorial
Library in Los Angeles, the Henry E. Huntington Library in Pasadena,
California, and the Newberry Library in Chicago.
Permission has kindly been granted by the editors of the Philosophical
Quarterly for the publication of material on Hume and Kant which
has previously appeared in different form in their journal. In this
connection I especially want to thank Professor Les Holborow who
long ago suggested that I amplify my study into a book. Request
for permission to reprint an earlier version of a paper on Descartes
has been obtained from the editor of the Studi Internazionali di
Filosofia, Professor Augusto Guzzo.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION TO THE ARGUMENT AND ITS

HISTORY PRIOR TO THE 17TH AND 18TH CENTURIES
In the history of ideas, there is an argument that has been used

repeatedly, which has had a major influence in shaping philosophic
discussions. The form of the argument is fairly straightforward: The
essential nature of the soul consists in its power of thinking; thought,
being immaterial, is unextended, i.e., simple (having no parts); and
what is simple is (a) indestructible; (b) a unity; and (c) an identity.
I wish to 'trace' the prevalence and influence of this argument, which
I call the simplicity argument, in the 17th and 18th centuries - from
the Cambridge Platonists to Kant - a time when it becomes crucial
in questions concerning: (1) the immortality of the soul; (2) the
"transcendental" condition necessary for the unity of consciousness
(or the rationalist principle that the soul must be an immaterial
unity in order for consciousness to exist); (3) the necessary and
sufficient condition for the establishment of personal and moral
identity; and (4) its possible use as a sometimes hidden or unconscious
"premise," but sometimes explicit "principle," of certain idealist
epistemological and metaphysical trends. It is not a premise in the
ordinary sense, of course, because it is itself an argument, an inference,
a proof, a demonstration, a mediate process of thought, which proceeds
from a definite premise to various conclusions.
By "trace" (above) I mean that I intend to deal with a representative
number of authors, usually in a chronological order, but also in terms
of their developing points, in order to show the vital role of the
argument. Thus, for instance, at times I abandon the simple temporal
mode of exposition in deference to, say, the interests of a continuity
in the discussion; or in face of what I consider to be a "living"
dialogue between thinkers who are not historically contemporary.
Although I generally attempt to treat an author's view according to
the date of publication of his work, I naturally take the death of
a writer as the tether of his convictions whenever a work appears
posthumously. The main reason for this convenient manner of temporal
2 INTRODUCTION TO THE ARGUMENT AND ITS HISTORY
exposition is that obviously it is always the case that the historically

non-contemporary, precedent author influenced a later thinker but
never vice versa. However, in the 17th and 18th centuries, when the
thinkers I treat are quite close contemporaries and their various
writings overlap and criss-cross each others' works, difficulties of
dating and determining relevant influences become overwhelming.
For example, I take up the case of a 17th century Cambridge
Platonist, John Smith; but it immediately becomes apparent that it
is uncertain exactly when he wrote, whether it was before or after
Descartes, and whether or not he was aware of Hobbes. Did he
borrow from or follow Descartes; did he react to Hobbes? Since I
have no definite corroborative evidence that Smith's treatise on
immortality was composed with knowledge of Descartes's Meditations,
I discuss Smith before the great Frenchman simply because of Smith's
clearer recognition of the proof, although both men use the argument.
But then I return to the temporal outline and pretty much "argue"
that Smith anticipated his Cambridge colleagues, Henry More and
Ralph Cudworth, by depending on the fact that his works were
published before theirs, although they were both his seniors by a
matter of a few years. And, of course, I am aware of the problems
involved in "arguing" in this fashion. However, any different approach
would be even more arbitrary in such cases, given the present paucity
of factual information concerning the period.
By "trace" I also mean that I indicate the argument's development;
its revolutionary turns; and, most important of all, I discuss four
distinct uses of it. In this regard it is important to note that the
simplicity argument, although distinguishable into a quartet of separable
purposes, nevertheless essentially remains what A. O. Lovejoy desig-
nated a "unit-idea."! In other words, the idea itself, or more properly
in this case the argument itself, remains the same. It does not change,
although to be sure there are minor refinements and technical deve-
lopments. And if it did substantially undergo major transformations,
it could not be traced. Thus, to borrow an example from Lovejoy
(pp. 4-5), it would be practically impossible to outline a developing
"idea" like the concept of God in Western philosophy, since it would
be extremely difficult to preserve its unity in light of the drastic
changes that the conception of the Deity undergoes in Occidental
thought. The Unmoved Mover of Aristotle has almost nothing in
common with the God of the Sermon on the Mount. This is, of course,
not to deny that one may undertake to delineate the concept in a
historical fashion, but then the "concept" is no longer a "unit-idea";
for it is no longer the same idea which is being pursued but merely
1 The Great Cham of Being (New York: Harper Torchbook, 1965), Chap. I.
INTRODUCTION TO THE ARGUMENT AND ITS HISTORY 3
the same term. Unlike the concept of God, however, the simplicity
argument maintains a stable integration in the philosophic thought
of the West.
My purpose then, is to show there is a conceptual continuity of
related problems, which stem from the basic form of the argument
from simplicity, and that this argument has enjoyed, in the history
of ideas, a "life of its own." I am also convinced that one must
appreciate the influence of the argument in order to achieve an
adequate understanding of the 17th and 18th centuries. In support
of my claim, however, I do not think it is necessary to prove direct
lines of influence (although I constantly try to suggest them). Thus,
for example, Richard Aaron warns that it "is ... very dangerous to
argue that since there are parallel passages in two writers belonging
to the same epoch the one must have influenced the other directly."2
For the resemblances between two authors might be explained by
the fact that both men had the same cultural background, used the
same methods, started from the same data, and faced the same
problems. There is a real point in Aaron's warning, but my case does
not rest on arguing points of immediate contact. ·Thus to show that
the links in the chain of continuity I am constructing are weak,
or my historical evidence slender, would not invalidate my claim,
which is that the argument from simplicity is vitally important in
the history of philosophy - and not which writer may have happened
to influence whom. For my purposes, it is sufficient to indicate
the general influence of the argument; and indeed, it is my aim to
show that the simplicity argument was diffusely but pervasively present
in the intellectual atmosphere of the 17th and 18th centuries, and that
it maintained, in the age, a status as impersonal as philosophic
language itself. I myself believe that there is a continuity in the
authors I deal with and I repeatedly try to establish connections
among them; and, I think, it will be difficult in reading passages
from the diverse authors, who are quoted in this work, not to be
convinced that there is an immediate influence; but that at least is
not crucial to my main contention. In certain cases the influence
seems more obvious than in others, as for example, when an author
cites a previous work. But, to give a less evident case, one can,
convincingly argue that since both Ficino and Leibniz translated
the Phaedo, there is a likelihood of the influence of certain Platonic
principles in their case. In other instances, however, the alleged contact
depends on more tenuous circumstantial relations. An important
complication, in ascertaining influences in the 17th and 18th centuries,
lies in the fact that it was not a common literary practice to cite
2 Richard I. Aaron, John Locke (Oxford, 1965), p. 25.
sources 3 (except for the Renaissance-oriented Cambridge Platonists),

as it is in our own day. Perhaps this was primarily due to such
factors as the influence of Montaigne's introspective essays; Descartes's
disdain of his predecessors;4 Shaftesbury's reaction to the literary
style of the Cambridge men;5 and by the fact that these men were not,
in the 17th and 18th centuries - with the exception of Wolff and Kant,
who were university professors - scholars trained to attack an individual
rather than an idea. For it was the idea and its influence that was
important, and not who happened to have held it.
I have undertaken this study because it has not been done before.
This in itself, however, would hardly justify the effort if I were not
also convinced that the argument from simplicity has had a major
influence in Western philosophy, and especially in the 17th and 18th
centuries, when its possible various uses are fully exploited and it
finds its clearest expression in the writings of the time. Consequently,
I have concentrated my study in these centuries. For beside problems
dealing with the immortality of the soul and the unity of consciousness,
two topics which are taken up by philosophers prior to the 17th century,
the argument plays a vital role in questions concerning personal
identity and moral responsibility. And finally, I intend to show that
it probably served as one of the ultimate premises of idealist episte-
mological and ontological theories; and I do not think one can
understand certain aspects of idealism without understanding the
argument and its role. But these last two uses of the argument are
not explicitly developed until the 17th and 18th centuries.
The value of this study, then, is to distinguish and disentangle
separate lines of thought that have heretofore been confounded and
confused - if even recognized. Hence I deal with the various forms
of the argument in separate chapters even though the same author
may present two or more uses of the argument in the same passages.
My justification for separating the argument into distinct uses is,
of course, that I think this can and should be done in order to clarify
the issues involved. The fact that historically some authors have used
the argument for one thesis and not for another, whereas other
3 For support of this contention, see John Passmore, Ralph Cudworth: An Inter-
pretation (Cambridge, 1951), p. 90; N. Kemp Smith, The Philosophy of David Burne
(St. Martin's, 1964), p. 43, 284 n.; and Stuart Hampshire, Spinoza (Penguin, 1965),
p. 179.
4 Descartes' aversion to citation no doubt rests in his contempt for what had
preVIOusly (i.e., before him) passed for knowledge; see Philosophical Works of Descartes,
Haldane and Ross, eds. (Dover, 1955), I, pp. 6, 83-84, 144; hereafter cited as HR.
5 See John Passmore, op. cit., pp. 96-97.
authors have used the demonstration for two or more conclusions
clearly testifies to the separability of its uses.
It is not my intention, therefore, to give an exhaustive survey
in my study of everyone involved in the argument in the 17th and 18th
centuries. Quite the contrary. I am interested rather in showing that
basically the same argument is used for four quite distinct purposes.
The development of the argument itself is, as previously stated,
relatively unimportant and stable as compared to the momentous
changes in its uses that it undergoes. Consequently, the authors with
whom I deal (beside constituting a sample caseload) are chosen for
many and various sorts of reasons. For instance, writers are selected
because they are responsible for initiating or recognizing the value
of the simplicity argument in an age. Thus, for example, Plotinus
elaborately invokes it in the Hellenistic period; Ficino in the Renais-
sance; and John Smith in the Modern. Or, secondly, a writer is
considered significant because he introduces a revolutionary turn to
the argument, he manages to see it in a totally new perspective as,
for example, Plato suggests it in considering proofs for immortality;
Plotinus invokes it in arguing for an epistemological unity of
consciousness; and John Locke places it in the context of his discussion
of criteria for the establishment of personal identity. Thirdly, an
author (it can be plausibly maintained) may be shown to have a
direct influence on a contemporary or future thinker in the sense
that the second philosopher relies for his perspective on the preceding
thinker(s). John Smith's work is a reaction to classic and modern
Epicureanism; Ralph Cudworth attacks Hobbes's materialism; and
David Hume supports Shaftesbury's investigations into the problem
of personal identity. Fourthly, a number of major philosophers are
cited (when in fact other thinkers could have been selected) in order
to show that the simplicity demonstration constitutes a living force in
Western philosophy rather than just the mere fossil of an archaeological
discovery in the history of ideas. Fifthly, two or more philosophers
are discussed and considered important and illuminating because they
are directly involved in controversy, as for example Samuel Clarke
attacks Henry Dodwell and Kant argues against Moses Mendelssohn.
Sixthly, quoted examples are summoned whenever singularly clear
formulations of the argument can be exhibited to have occurred.
Seventhly, instances of deviant forms of the argument are pressed
into service in order to juxtapose unusual conceptual perspectives
against each other (hopefully in a manner similar to Wittgenstein's
"duck-rabbit" device), in an attempt to illuminate the proof from
different angles. Henry More's curious thesis that the immaterial is
nevertheless extended is a case in point. Eighthly, certain philosophers
show both the strengths and weaknesses of the proof - thereby

bringing to light previously hidden implications - by attacking it
(e.g., Locke, Hume, Kant). Ninthly, a philosopher may be included
because he manages to expressly define an important distinction,
as John Norris does in contrasting positive and natural immortality.
Or finally, a thinker is considered eminently seminal, and therefore
important, because he serves in propagating the life of the argument
(e. g., Bayle).
Having thus indicated the problem and mode of approach ret us
begin with an Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance history of the
proof from simplicity.
The argument seems to be first suggested as a proof for immortality
in Plato's Phaedo, 78 b fT., where Socrates describes the soul as
incomposite, invisible, and indissoluble. Whether or not Plato intended
the argument in the sense in which it was later developed, however,
is unclear. 6 F. M. Cornford contends that Plato proves the soul to
be a simple because "As immortal and imperishable, the soul is 'most
like the divine, immortal, intelligible, simple, and indissoluble (because
incomposite); whereas the body is most like the mortal, multiform,
unintelligible, dissoluble (because composite) and perpetually chan-
ging."'7 A. E. Taylor, on the other hand, warns against what he
considers to be the anachronistic consequences in inferring that Plato's
argument proves the soul to be a "simple substance." In doing so,
he interestingly enough, for the purposes of this study, relates his
discussion of the Platonic proof to Kant's exposition of the Second
Paralogism - Of Simplicity.s According to Taylor, Plato's reasoning
adopted in the Phaedo
lies at the bottom of all the familiar arguments of later metaphysicians who
deduce the immortality of the soul from its alleged character as a 'simple
substance,' the 'paralogism' attacked by Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason ....
Socrates' point is not that the soul is a 'simple substance', - he had not so much
6 It is fairly obvious, however, that among the several different arguments for
immortality, which Plato offers in the Phaedo, Republic, and Laws, the one grounded in
the indissoluble nature of the soul is far from being regarded by Plato as his most
persuasive "proof."
7 F. M. Cornford, Plato's Cosmology (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966), p. 63.
Cornford's discussion of Phaedo, 78b occurs as a parenthetical comment on Timaeus,

35a; the two passages have often been related by commentators.
8 In the first editIOn Critique of Pure Reason (1781), the argument appears in
the context of an attempted a priori proof for the unity of consciousness; whereas
in the second edition, it is discussed in connection with Moses Mendelssohn's
argument for immortahty in the latter's Phaedon (1767). Taylor parenthetically remarks
that Kant's knowledge of the demonstration IS derived from the writings of Christian
Wolff and Mendelssohn. The significance of this will gain importance in Chapter II.
the language in which to say such a thing - but that it is, as the Orphic religion
had taught, something divine. Its 'deiformity,' not its indivisibility is what he is
anxious to establish; the indivisibility is a mere consequence. 9
In other words, Taylor is contending that the soul is simple because

it shares in the nature of the divine, which is immaterial, immutable,
and simple. And, Paul Shorey stresses yet a third interpretational
variation. He declares that "Phaedo, 78 BeE, does not affirm that
the soul is absolutely simple and uncompounded, but that [relatively
speaking] the body is more akin to the composite, and the soul to the
simple and unchanging." 1 0
In the Republic and Phaedrus, of course, Plato refers to the tri-partite
nature of the soul and this at once brings up the problem of reconciling
the conception of the simplicity of the soul with its compositeness.
But at least this is certain; according to Plato, in order for the soul
to grasp the essence of immaterial forms, in knowledge, it must
itself share in the attribute of immateriality. However, whether from
this Plato also believed that the soul's simplicity followed is not
clear.
The argument from simplicity gains an important development
in Aristotle's Metaphysics. The divine mind, according to Aristotle,
is characterized by the reflexive character of its thought. The essential
aspect of this reflexivity lies in the total identity of the act of thought
with the object of thought, in the perfect simplicity and unity of
thought with itself.
Since, then, thought and the object of thought are not different in the case
of things that have not matter, the divine thought and its object will be the
same, i.e., the thinking will be one with the object of its thought.
A further question is left - whether the object of the divine thought is
composite; for if it were, thought would change in passing from part to part
of the whole. We answer that everything which has not matter is indivisible -
as human thought, or rather the thought of composite beings, is in a certain
period of time ... , so throughout eternity is the thought which has itself for its
object. 11
9 A. E. Taylor, Plato: The Man and His Work (Meridian, 1960), p. 189.
10 Paul Shorey, The Unity of Plato's Thought (Chicago, 1960), p. 42. See also:
Cicero, De senectute, XX, 78. Cicero takes Plato to mean that the soul is immortal
because it is simple (simplex). But see also: B. A. G. Fuller, History of Greek
Philosophy (Greenwood, 1968), II, p. 330 and G. M. A. Grube, Plato's Thought
(Beacon, 1966), pp. 126-127. Theodor Gomperz, however, maintains that Phaedo
holds the soul to be "an absolute simple substance," The Greek Thinkers (John
Murray, 1969), III, pp. 37-38, 42-43. More recently, R. L. Patterson has contended
that Plato has actually proved the immortality of the soul, through its simplicity,
although he laments that Plato "did not fully appreciate its [the argument's] force,"
Plato on Immortality (Penn. State University Press, 1965), p. 73; see 64fT.
11 Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1075 a.
In the history of philosophy, this passage provides the model for

the conception of selfconsciousness, for what is called the reflexive
character of thought, for, as Aristotle declares, in the divine thought,
"its thinking is a thinking on thinking" (Meta., 1074 b). This follows
from Aristotle's principle that "all things which have no matter are
without qualification essentially unities" (Meta., 1045 b). Thus, as
early as Hellenic philosophy, the essential conceptual bases of the
argument are already found in Plato's suggestion that the soul is
indissoluble and in Aristotle's principle that the immateriality of
thought provides the possibility for a complete identification of the
act of thinking with its object. Such unity in tum serves as the
paradigm of selfconsciousness.
After Aristotle, Plotinus, who Paul Henry believes to have been as
familiar with the treatises of Aristotle as he was with the dialogues
of Plato, draws on the writings of his two great predecessors in his
discussion on the immortality of the soul and the unity of self-
consciousness in the Enneads. 12 Thus, in Plotinus, the simplicity
argument is already explicitly involved in two (and suggests a third)
of the four uses which it later has in the 17th and 18th centuries.
For in Plotinus, the argument is employed in order to prove that:
(1) the soul is immortal; and (2) consciousness is an immaterial unity.
In the last case, Plotinus regards this as a reply to the materialism
of Stoicism and, especially, Epicureanism, 13 which argued that senseless
matter can and does think.
Against the Epicurean thesis that the soul in man is just as mortal
as it is in animals, Plotinus, after having shown that the soul "is not
material," concludes that it must be immortal because:
Every dissoluble entity, that has come to be by way of groupement, must

in the nature of things be broken apart by that very mode which brought it
together; but the soul is one and simplex ... ; and this can be no cause of
dissolution.
But, we will be told, it tends to destruction by having been divided (in the
body) and so becoming fragmentary.
No: the Soul, as we have shown, is not a mass, not a quantity.
May it not change and so come to destruction?
No: the change that destroys annuls the form but leaves the underlying
substances: and that could not happen to anything except a compound.
If it can be destroyed in no such ways it is necessarily indestructible. 14
12 See Paul Henry's Introduction to Plotinus, The Enneads, trans. S. McKenna

(Pantheon, 1969), pp. xlvii-xlviii; see also: William Inge, The Philosophy of Plotinus
(Longmans, 1929), I, P 111.
13 See R. D. Hicks, Stoic and Epicurean (Russell, 1962), p. 60fT.
14 Plotinus, The Enneads, IV, 7, 12; pp. 355-356. See, W. Inge, op. cit., II,
pp. 20-22. Concerning Plotinus' possible debt to Plato for the argument from the
The Epicureans also claimed that thought, or more properly speaking

sensation, could be explained completely by postulating only the atoms
and the void. Perception, then, was considered to be the result of
the configuration, position, and motion of material particles in space.
Against this view, Plotinus maintains that only an incorporeal simple
can constitute the necessary condition required for the unity of
consciousness. For only if consciousness (or the soul) is an essential
unity (being immaterial, hence, unextended; and therefore a simple)
can our diverse concepts be grounded in a single and unified judgment
belonging to an identical soul. On this model, Plotinus likens the
soul to the unextended point at the center of a circle, and as
the radii represent various lines that converge at the center, so the
various sensations meet in the immaterial unity of consciousness. 15
Furthermore, Plotinus insists that if there were no center of cons-
ciousness, then all our various sensations (or concepts) could no longer
belong to one percipient, but rather that the different sense impressions
would instead belong to separate consciousnesses.
It is easy to show that if the Soul were a corporeal entity there could be
no sense-perception, no mental act, no knowledge ....
There can be no perception without a unitary percipient whose identity
enables it to grasp an object as an entirety .
... a face is known not by a special sense for separate features, nose, eyes,
etc., but by one sense observing all in one act.
When sight and hearing gather their varying information, there must be
some central unity to which both report. How could there be any statement
of difference unless all sense-impressions appeared before a common identity
able to take the sum of all?
This there must be, as there is a centre to a circle; the sense-impressions
converging from every point of occurrence will be as lines striking from a
circumference to what will be a true centre of perception as being a veritable
unity.
If this centre were to break into separate points - so that the sense-impressions
fell upon the two ends of a line - then, either it must reknit itself to unity and
identity, perhaps at the mid-point of the line, or all remains unrelated, every
end receiving the reports of its particular field exactly as you and I have our
distinct sense-experiences.
Indivisibility of the soul, see Hans-Rudolf Schwyzer. "Zu PlotIns InterpretatIOn von
Platons Timaeus 35A," Rheinisches Museum fur Phd%gie, 84 (1935), pp. 360-368;
and B. DarreIl Jackson, "Plotinus and the Parmenides," Journal of the History of
Philosophy, V, 4 (October, 1967), p. 325
15 Plotinus IS undoubtedly influenced by Aristotle's conception of the sensus
communis In De Memorw et RemmlSclentw (and De Anima, where It IS not mentIOned
by name). W.D. Ross, in Aristotle. A Complete Expos/tlon of HIS Works and
Thought (Meridian, 1961), holds that this "'IS one of the earhest passages of any
author In which the difficulties Involved in selfconsciousness are discussed" (p. 139)
But even so, Aristotle IS not making the point that the sensus communis Itself is, or IS
grounded tn, an Immaterial umty.
Suppose the sense-object be such a unity as a face; all the points of

observation must be brought together in one visual total, as is obvious since
there could be no panorama of great expanses unless the detail were compressed
to the capacity of the pupils. Much more must this be true when the sense-
objects impinge upon the centre of consciousness in the guise of indivisible
thoughts. Either the object is unified or - supposing it to have quantity and
extension - the centre of consciousness must coincide with it point by point
of their co-expansion so that any given point in the faculty will perceive solely
what coincides with it in the object: and thus nothing in us could perceive
any thing as a whole.
This cannot be. 16
Consequently, against the Epicurean thesis that senseless matter

can think, Plotinus holds that since the four elements of fIre, air,
water, and earth "are in themselves soulless," it is therefore "impossible,
in fact, that the collocation of material entities should produce life,
or mindless entities mind"; and he declares that "No one, moreover,
would pretend that a mere chance mixing [as the Epicurean school
held] could give such results."
Anyone who rejects this view, and holds that either atoms or some entities
void of part coming together produce soul, is refuted by the very unity of
soul. ... Bodily materials, in nature repugnant to unification and to sensation,
could never produce unity or self-sensitiveness, and soul is self-sensitive. 1 7
Following Plotinus, the argument seems fairly slighted throughout

the Middle Ages; undoubtedly because Epicurean materialism ceased
to serve as a real alternative. This, combined with other factors,
conspired to produce the neglect and subsequent loss of its vitality.
Hence, among the related causes of its decline, the following certainly
should be included: (a) the expiration of the Epicurean school,
in the 4th century A. D., with its doctrine of materialism and the
mortality of the human soul which, even in its own day, were taken
to imply atheism no longer functioned as an alternate account;18
(b) Augustine's "discovery," in the Confessions, that God is not
material, with the resultant dominant and pervasive influence of
immaterialism thereafter on Christian Western thought, coupled with
the Saint's lack of interest in the argument; and (c) the closing of
the Greek philosophical schools, in Athens, by the Emperor Justinian,
in 529, culminating in the emigration of the non-Christian Neoplatonists
to Persia. 19 To be sure, the argument from simplicity continues to be
16 P\otinus, Ennead, IV, 7,6; pp. 346-347.

17 Ibid., IV, 7, 3; p. 343.
18 William Inge, op. cit., I, p. 99.
19 For different reasons Friedrich Lange, in The History of Materialism, attributes
mentioned during the late Hellenistic and Medieval periods. Thus,
for example, it is discussed by certain Hellenistic "philosophers"
and Church Fathers; but even so, when it is mentioned, it is usually
in relation to its use as an argument for the immortality of the soul
and rarely in reference to the unity of consciousness. A partial list
of those who invoke it would include such thinkers as Cicero,20
Gregory of Nyssa,21 Cassiodorus,22 Maximus of Chrysopolis,23 John
Scotus Eriugena,24 Avicenna,25 and Henry of Ghent. 26 However,
the argument is generally not used in its "purity," as it is in Cicero
- and as it is later in the 17th and 18th centuries - the Churchmen
generally maintaining that although the soul is immaterial, unextended,
and simple it is in some significant sense "present" throughout the
entire material body in much the same fashion as God, whose nature
is perfect simplicity and unity, is (i) ubiquitously present in the
universe or (ii) the immaterial center of a circle is omnipresent in all
its radii. 27 This view again is directly traceable back to Neoplatonism,
for that the soul, although unextended, is yet present throughout the
material body is expressed by Plotinus (Enneads, IV, 2,1; IV, 2,2).
Augustine and Aquinas, on the other hand, 'refrain from using
the argument from simplicity in order to establish the immortality
of the soul. Both, however, are aware of the demonstration. 28
Augustine's reluctance to enlist the proof is most likely linked, in his
the virtual disappearance of materialistic philosophy from the Middle Ages until
the Renaissance to the influence of the three great monotheistic religions.
20 Cicero, De Senectute, XX, 78.
21 Gregory of Nyssa, De anima et resurrectione; P. G., 44.
22 Cassiodorus, De Anima, 12.
23 Maximus of Chrysopolis, Ambiqua, P. G., 91.
24 John Scotus Eriugena, De divisione naturae, III, 23.

2S Avicenna, De anima, V. 4. Avicenna does, however, also point to a use of
the argument in order to establish the unity of consciousness as well, in V, 2 of

his work on the soul. For a discussion of the medieval ArabiC view, actually Avi-
cennian, that the thinking performed by the higher parts of the soul requires an
immaterial soul see: Etienne Gilson, History of" Christian Philosophy in the Middle
Ages (Random House, 1955), p. 202; similarly according to Avicenna, seifconsciousness
would not be possible unless the soul were immaterial. Avicenna can, of course,
be assumed to draw on both Aristotelian and Neoplatonic elements in his thinking.
26 Henry of Ghent, Quodlibeta, IV, 21c.
27 There is similarly a strong comparison to be made between: a) the conceptIOn
of God "combining" what appear, at least to human beings, as subjectively "distinct"

attributes in his essential simplicity (the so-called "problem of divine attributes"
[see, H. A. Wolfson, The PhIlosophy of Spinoza (Meridian, 1955), Vol. IJ); and
b) the unification of diverse concepts in one immaterial center of conscIOusness in
human acts of cognition.
28 See, Augustine, De trinitate, vi, 6; Augustine does not use the argument from
simplicity in his work On the Immortality of the Soul. See also: Thomas Aquinas,
Summa Theologw, Question 75, Articles 1, 5, 6.
case, to the argument's implications which involve a doctrine of

reincarnation. For if the soul were such a perfect simple, then
(a) the possibility of its preexistence arises; and (b) the question
may be posed whether even God could extinguish it. For Plato,
of course, the consequence of the transmigration of souls is quite
acceptable and welcome, since it helps account for our prior knowledge
of the forms (see Meno, Phaedo). However, for more traditional
Christian thinkers, who believe that God creates each individual soul,
as He brings into existence the entire universe, ex nihilo, and that
souls are immortal so that they can be subject to rewards and
punishments in an afterlife, such a doctrine results in more problems
than it solves. In Aquinas, the absolute simplicity of the soul conflicts
with his primary Aristotelian principle that the soul is the form or
act of the body, an individual man being a union of matter and form,
potentiality and actuality (although see below). Thus, Augustine and
Aquinas content themselves in merely pronouncing that, relatively
speaking, thought, as compared to matter, is "simple." (Although
perhaps, like Plato, they might be content to hold the soul to be
"very nearly indissoluble" [Phaedo, 80 b].)
In marked contrast to the Thomist contention that ultimately the
individual human soul is in spiritual or incorporeal form, which,
as such, cannot be affected by the disintegration of the body,29
the Averroistic interpretation of Aristotle, as upheld by Siger of
Brabant (c. 1235-1281/84), maintains the absorption of all rational
souls after death into a single Universal Intellect. (Siger, of course,
insists that although this is philosophically and rationally acceptable,
he himself believes otherwise on theological grounds.)
Against this collectivist incorporation of individual human souls
into one, St. Thomas replies, in his De unitate intellectus, that should
the Averroistic thesis be accepted, it would follow that after death
nothing would remain of men's souls but one intellect; in which case
the bestowal of rewards and punishments after death could not
proceed. This consequence he finds unacceptable. In fact, the theme
in Aquinas, constantly repeated afterward as we shall see, is that a
necessary condition of morality is the unique immortality of the soul,
since it is clear to everyone by experience that men do not receive
what they deserve in this life. For the tradition, to deny or endanger
the principle of personal immortality, then, is tantamount to challenging
29 In Aquinas, man is the union of a twofold composition of (a) soul (form)
and body (matter); and (b) essence and act of being (esse). After the dissolution
of the first composition at death, the second persists and remains an immaterial
substance, having both essence and existence. See, Contra Gentiles, II, Chaps. 63
and 65.
the very ground of morality by undermining the foundation of ultimate
individual responsibility.
Early in the 15th century, with the rediscovery of Lucretius, other
Epicurean writings, and the outlines of the philosophy of Epicurus
given in Diogenes Laertius, "materialism" once again begins to emerge
as a serious philosophic position. 30 Lorenzo Valla (1407-1457), in
the first half of the 15th century, initiates a scandal when he undertakes
to "defend" Epicureanism against Stoicism and, many think, even
against Christianity. Thus, Antonius, who represents the Epicurean
philosophy in Valla's work, enjoys by far the longest speech and
concludes with the conviction that man is but a mortal animal,
whose highest end is grounded in the principle of earthly utility,
and he thereby rejects the conception of future goals, rewards, or
punishments. 31 It is likely that Valla himself was a fideist (perhaps
in the Latin Averroist tradition of men like Siger) and that he was
genuinely an orthodox Christian. Be that as it may, his work created
a considerable controversy and met with powerful opposition in the
century.
In reply to Valla, Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), the Latin translator
of the works of Plato and Plotinus, who as a young man was initially
attracted to Epicureanism,32 undertakes to defend the immortality
of the soul. Among the number of standard Neoplatonic arguments
he employs, to prove immortality, he enlists the one based on the
soul's simplicity33 (although, for Ficino, as for Plato, this is by no
means his main argument).34 According to Ficino, the soul mediates
30 Lange. op. ell, connects the resurgence of materialism to the Renaissance
interest In sCience My conviction, on the other hand, is that materialism, revitalized by

a return to the onginal Greek texts, is just as concerned with the questions of religion
and ethics as it is with the problems of science.
31 Lorenzo Valla, De Voluptate, II, 38-39; In Opera Omma (Torino, 1962), Vol. L
Valla's De Voluptate first appeared in 1431.
32 See, Aetes du Ville Congres (Paris, 1969), p. 640; P. O. Kristeller, The Philo-
sophy of MarslllO Flelno (Peter Smith, 1964), trans. V. Conant, p. 24; and Raymond
Marcell, Marslfe FICin (Pans, 1958), pp 221-228.
33 Marsilio Flcino, Theologw Platomca de Immortalitate ammae (Torino, 1962),
III, 2. The work appeared in 1482. See also: P. O. Kristeller's article "The Theory
of Immortality In Marsilio Ficino," Journal of the History of Ideas (1940), I pp. 199-
319; see esp. pp. 300-303.
34 The strongest argument for the indestructibility of the soul, In Plato, is based,
on the synthetiC a prlOn relationship between the essence of soul and form of life
(Phaedo). See also my article. 'The Synthetic A PrlOn In Plato", Dialogue [U.s.],
May, 1970. In Ficlno, the main argument for immortality is grounded In the
prinCiple of Eros. The soul has a natural deSire for the Good and the forms
of Virtue, it obVIOusly does not achieve union with ItS goal in thiS earthly realm;
therefore, the existence of an afterhfe IS a direct consequence, which conditions
and guarantees that the soul's natural tendency can be fulfilled.
between the sensuous and the divine (see Plato's Symposium), between
the material and the divisible, the si~ple and the pure. Through
this double affinity (which is actually located on the middle of a
five-point scale), the soul is entrapped by its commitment to its
physical origins while yet, at the same time, it enjoys an immortal
destiny. It follows from the latter that the soul's essential simplicity
guarantees its immortality, through its incorruptibility.
Therefore, remaining entire and simple [Soul] is present to the individual

parts of body as an undivided whole; just as an entire word and its meaning
is somehow present at the same time in the individual parts of a house,
since as a whole it is heard and understood in all parts almost simultaneously.
Nor is it impossible that this essence, since it is something indivisible, existing
in itself, should be thus wholly present in the mass of a great body. On the
contrary, since it is indivisible and not limited to any place, it is able as a whole
to penetrate and wholly comprehend all that is in a place. Extension of
quantity wherever it is found precludes this kind of power and presence,
so that anything quantitatively extended cannot be wholly present in many
parts at the same time. Even a thing which, although it is indivisible, is
nevertheless somehow joined to corporeal quantity, such as a point located on
a .line as the limit of that line, cannot be wholly present at the same time
through all the parts of body. Thus a point placed anywhere on the radius of a
circle is neither contained in all the other radii, nor diffused through the whole
radius or circle. But the point which is the center of the circle does not belong
to any particular radius; it is in a sense located on all the radii drawn from it
to the circumference. And whereas no point located on the circumference is
equally related to the whole circle, the center is equally related to the whole
circle, although it is not limited to any particular circumference. 3 5
Once more, the metaphor is the same, although the argument is

now used as a proof for immortality, rather than as a condition
for the unity of consciousness. For Plotinus, as the center of a circle
unifies and is equally related to the radii, so the indivisible center
of consciousnes unifies the various sensations into a single image or
the diverse concepts into one judgment. For Ficino, on the other hand,
the argument maintains that although the soul is present throughout
the body, and thereby able to collect diverse sensations or concepts
in one cognition, it can do so only in virtue of its immateriality.
From its immaterial nature follows its incorruptibility.
Hence it... follows that [the] essence [of soul] is at once divisible and
indivisible... [It] is indivisible, because it has a stable and unified substance;
it is divisible, because it is divided into many parts through its operation,
in so far as it operates through motion and time. It is indivisible, because it
35 Ficino, op. cit., III, 2. This translation is by Josephine L. Burroughs, from
the Journal of the History of Ideas (\944), V, pp. 229-230.

inclines toward the higher things which are completely unified; divisible because
it declines toward the lower things which are divided into many parts. 36
Nevertheless, the Church, exhausted by the internecine struggles

of the contending factions over the question of immortality, condemned
under Leo X, in 1513, at the eighth session of the Fifth Lateran
Council, the pursuit of philosophical proofs and disproofs for immor-
tality, while yet Leo himself declared, on Biblical grounds, that the
soul is immortal and, as the substantial form of the body, liable to
both physical pains and pleasures in the afterlife. In his decree,
Leo warns that:
In these days ... the sower of tares, the ancient enemy of the human race,
has dared to sow and foster in the field of the Lord certain very pernicious
errors, always rejected by the faithful, especially as to the nature of the
reasonable soul, that it is mortal, or one and the same in all men; and some,
rashly philosophizing, declare this to be true, at least according to philosophy.
Desiring to employ remedies appropriate to such a plague, We, with the
approbation of the sacred council, condemn and reprobate all those who assert
that the intellectual soul is mortal, or one and the same in all men, and
those who call these things in question, seeing that the soul is not only
truly, and of itself, and essentially the form of the human body ... but likewise
is immortal, and, according to the number of bodies into which it is infused,
singularly multipliable .... This manifestly appears from the gospeL .. and also
because [the Lord] promises eternal rewards and eternal torments to those
who are to be judged according to their merit in this life .... 37
And yet, despite Leo's decree, the controversy continued. Against
Ficino's argument from simplicity, Pietro Pomponazzi (1462-1525),
attracted by the Aristotelian interpretation of Alexander of Aphrodisias,
protests that "man is clearly not of a simple nature, since he includes
three souls, so to speak - the vegetative, the sensitive, and the
intellective" ;38 and he argues that in human experience the intellect
has no action that is completely independent of the body, and
therefore we have no evidence that the intellect is separable or the
soul distinct. His conclusion is that the personal immortality of the
soul is an article of conviction, based on revelation: for "that the
soul is immortal is an act of faith."39
What Ficino and Pomponazzi both agree upon, however, is that
36 Ibid.; see also: XIV, 3.

37 Quoted from George H. Williams, The Radical Reformation (Weidenfeld and
Nicolson, 1962), p. 23; for a thorough discussion of related issues see pages 20 ff.
38 Pietro Pomponazzi, De immortalitate animae (Bologna, 1954), Chapter I. The
work originally appeared in 1516. This translation is from The Renaissance Philo-
sophy of Man (Phoenix, 1967), Cassirer, Kristeller, Randall, eds. On Pomponazzi's
possible debt to Ficino, see Paul Oskar Kristeller, Eight Philosophers of the Italian
Renaissance (Stanford, 1966), p. 75.
39 De immortalitate animae, Chapter XV.
the doctrine of personal or individual immortality should be insisted

upon. In this they mutually oppose the Averroistic interpretation
of Aristotle, which declares for a collective immortality of all men
through the unity of intellects in God.
Thus, the issues which begin to emerge in the Italian Renaissance
involve two positions concerning the individual immortality of the
soul. (A) The first position - grounded in Epicurean principles,
as in Valla; or in Aristotelian premises, as in Pomponazzi - contends
that the soul, since it is inseparable from the body, can be rationally
proved to be naturally mortal and as corruptible as the body, for the
soul is not in principle distinct from the body.40 What is considered
"dangerous" about this position of Valla's and Pomponazzi's is the
attempt to prove the radical mortality of man by reducing his psychic
or mental activities to his physical or biological nature. Hence the
proponents of this view deny, for example, that there is anything
immaterial or distinct about reason or knowledge, or that the soul
"inhabits" or "belongs" to a different ontological sphere than the
one in which the bodily functions of man transpire. In these contentions
they either follow Epicurus and Lucretius in reducing the soul to
the physical or they adopt Aristotle's naturalistic thesis that the soul
is merely the form (or the act) of the body.
Similarly, Faustus Socinus (1538-1604), in a letter written in 1563,
explicitly rejects the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul
and later in his dispute with Francesco Pucci contends that:
Primus homo, antequam peccaret, jam erat terrenus; nempe, quia e terra
formatus fuerat: Sed nos in eo quod morimur & corrumpimur, imaginem
primi hominis, quatenus terrenus erat, portamus: Ergo primus homo, quatenus
terrenus fuit, mortal is censendus est, & sic etiam antequam peccaret.... Ex
praedictis intelligi potest, cum scriptum est a Paulo, per peccatum mortem
ingressam esse in mundum, non de naturali mortalitate eum loqui, sed de
ipsa morte, ut verba sonant, deque moriendi necessitate. Poterat enim Adamus,
si non peccasset, quamvis natura mortalis, a morte Dei beneficio consevari;
vel si mortuus fuisset, in vitam aliquando revocari, atque immortalis fieri.
Haec & sibi & suis peccato suo quodammodo invidit. Itaque nisi novus Dei
favor nobis adsit, necesse est omnino, ut omnes moriamur, & in ipsa morte
maneamus. Neque enim is aut necessario aut vere moritur, qui aliquando in
vitam revocandus est, sed dormit potius ac quiescit. Peccatum igitur non
mortalitatis naturalis, sed necessariae mortis causa fuit. 41
40 It is in this sense that Pomponazzi argues that the soul of man IS mortal; see,
John Herman Randall, The Career of PhIlosophy (Columbia, 1962), I, p. 75fT.
41 Faustus Socinus, Open bus omnibus (Irenopoli, 1656), I, pp. 537ff; see also:
Joshua Toulmin, Memoirs of the Life, Character, Sentiments, and Writings of Faustus
Socinus (London, 1777), pp. 214-216.
"The first man, before he sinned, was already earthly; clearly, because he had
been formed from earth. But we, in view of the fact that we die and suffer
corruption, bear the image of the first man, insofar as he was earthly. Therefore
This perspective indicates a new philosophic attitude, one quite
opposed to the traditional Medieval fideists who, like Duns Scotus
and William of Ockham, certainly do not think it necessary to
rationally prove the complete corruptibility of the soul as a preliminary
to their affirmations of faith. Rather their negative emphasis is
occupied in showing the paucity and bankruptcy of human reason
in attempts to demonstrate immortality.42 Thus, the Medieval dimen-
sion of thought is very different from the outspoken attempts of
the defendres of "conditional" immortality to positively prove the
mortality of the soul - and then make a leap of faith in regard to its
immortality.43 It is no wonder, then, to find the latter group of
thinkers being accused of insincerity and secret atheism, for their
doctrines were interpreted as ushering in a new scene of thought,
since they claimed to prove, by natural reason, that the soul is
essentially and radically mortal (thnetopsychism). Similarly, for ex-
ample, one finds their emphasis quite different from that of Siger
of Brabant. The thinking of Siger is not occupied with showing the
soul's mortality but rather with the conflict of faith and reason
and reconciling the judgment of reason as exemplified in the philosophy
of Aristotle and Averroes with the demands of the Christian Church. 44
the first man, insofar as he was earthly, is to be deemed mortal, and to be deemed
so even before he sinned ... From what has been said it can be understood, that
when it was written by Paul that through sin death came into the world, he
is not speaking about natural mortality but about death itself, as the words sound,
and about the necessity of dying. For Adam was able, if he had not sinned,
although mortal by nature, to be preserved from death by the mercy of God;
or, if he had died, to be recalled one day to life, and to be made immortal.
These things he in a manner begrudged himself and his posterity by his sin.
And so, unless a new act of grace comes to us from God, it is altogether
necessary that we should all die, and remain in death itself. For he who
some time is to be recalled Into life does not of necessity or in truth die, but rather
sleeps and is at rest. Therefore sin was the cause not of natural mortality but
of necessary death".
I am indebted to Father Waddy, of the Department of Literature at the Umversity
of California at San Diego, for the English translation of the Latin text. Whenever
possible I have referred to English translations of the sources and the supporting
citations used in this study; but of course if material was not available in English
I have cited the original texts.
42 See, Duns Scotus, Rep., 4, 43, 2, nOS 15fT.; and William ofOckham, I Sent., 3, 2,
F; Prol. Sent., 1,2.

43 See article on "Conditional Immortality" in the Encyclopedia of Religion and
Ethics (Scribner's Sons, 1961), Vol. 3, pp. 822-823; see also: H.A. Wolfson, Religious
Philosophy: A Group of Essays (Atheneum, 1961), pp. 71-80.
44 Siger, De amma intellectiva, c. 3. See, in Siger de Brabant et I'AverrOisme
latin au XllIe siecle, ed. P. Mandonnet, II, pages 153-154. Although one of the
theses which Stephen Tempier condemns at Paris in 1270 holds that the soul, which is the
form of man specifically as man, disintegrates with the corruption of the body, this is
It is in the sense of merely restricting himself to exposition, without

inclining to the view himself, that Siger affirms Averroes doctrine
of the immortal unity of the agent intellect in God. 45
(B) The second and opposite view, represented by Ficino's Platonic
rationalism, maintains that the soul's individual immortality can be
demonstrated to follow from the immaterial and unextended nature
of the thinking substance. Neither position denies an afterlife; rather
the first holds that belief in immortality is achieved by faith, whereas
the second insists that the soul is naturally indestructible and can be
proved to be such. The dispute then lies between two opposing views;
either (a) the soul is corruptible and naturally mortal, being inseparable
from the body and, therefore, immortality is a "conditional" gift
from God; or (b) the soul, or the intellect, of man is distinct from
the body and the soul can be rationally demonstrated to be naturally
immortal.
Thus, during the 15th and 16th centuries, slowly, but progressively,
the context of a controversy developed, in which Platonic rationalism
struggled against proofs contending against the natural immortality
of the individual soul. And it is in this conceptual framework that the
entire question continued into the 17th and 18th centuries.
not argued for explicitly as a personal belief against the dogma of the Church
by any contemporary, Siger included.
45 Siger of Brabant, Quaestiones super libros Physicorum, lib. 2, q. 20; De anima
intellectiva, c. 7.
CHAPTER II
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL IN THE

lITH AND 18TH CENTURIES
I now propose to present a number of authors, with supporting

citations from their works, as evidence that the simplicity argument
actually served as a powerful force in proofs for immortality in the
17th and 18th centuries. Not all the authors chosen support the
argument. However, even those who reject and criticize it attest to
its force by recognizing that it must be directly cltallenged. And
indeed, while attempting to destroy the simplicity argument, its
assailants often fall victims to it themselves. Thus, for example, Locke,
Hume, and Kant, who attack it, nevertheless themselves receive fatal
wounds.
At times my discussion of particular authors ends abruptly and
this is because in the original the argument is not separated in the
manner which I effect in this study. Where this is the case I merely
note it and indicate that the second, third, or fourth components
of the argument will be resumed in succeeding chapters. This isolation
and separation of different strands of the argument, as I pointed out
in the Introduction, is an essential purpose of my study. However,
I do offer the reader an example of the complexity and organic unity
of the proof from simplicity when I treat Moses Mendelssohn, the last
writer in the chapter, who also functions in this.context as a transitional
figure to the succeeding part.
It is easiest to begin our present discussion by recalling the foregoing
one. As I indicated, the argument for the immortality of the soul
(grounded in the immaterial and unextended character of thought,
with its necessary entailment of the intrinsically simple, and therefore
indestructible, nature of the beings thus distinguished) has been
suggested by a number of commentators to be attributable to the
Socrates of Plato's Phaedo. Whether or not Plato was explicitly aware
of the argument, as it is found in its "later" form, and if Plato had
been confronted with it, would he have even welcomed it, can be
seriously questioned. But in any case there is definitely a conceptual
20 THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
alliance between Plato and Plotinus, which extends into the controversy
in the Italian Renaissance between: (a) the Florentine Academy of
Ficino, representing the Platonic and Neoplatonic elements of the
argument, defending the natural immortality of the soul; and (b) the
extremely sympathic presentation of Epicureanism in Valla and the
Alexandrine Aristotelianism of Pomponazzi (the latter centered at the
naturalistically-oriented University of Padua), which contend for the
soul's mortality on empirical principles.
Let us follow the thread of the story from the 16th to the 17th
century, from the Continent of Europe to the British Isles, and in
doing so let us use (1) the mortalist heresy and (2) Ficino as our
guides.
(1) As early as 1636, George Withers (1588-1667), in his edited
translation of Nemesius The Nature of Man, introduced the problem
of conditional immortality in England. In the course of his work,
the positions of a long list of ancient authors, on the soul, are
summarized and "The severall and different opinions of the ancients
concerning the soul, as whether it be a substance; whether corporeaU,
or incorporeall whether mortall or immortal" are set forth. 1 Among
the many views presented are those of the Hebrews, Heraclitus, the
Pythagoreans - Plato's Phaedon (p. 108 ff.) is alloted several pages
of commentary - Aristotle, Galen, Numinius, as well as those of
"Democritus and Epicurus, and the whole sect of the Stoics [who]
do peremptorily affirm that the soul is bodie."2 The alternatives,
as they are strategically placed in the opening sections of the book,
are clearly intended to pose a serious question to the reader.
The Hebrews affinne that man was made from the beginning, neither altogether
mortall, neither wholly immortal, but as it were, in a state between both those
natures, to the end that if he did follow the affections of the body, he should be
liable to such alterations as belong to the bodie; But if he did prefer such things as
pertaine to the soul, he should then be honoured with immortalitie. For, if God had
made man absolutely mortall from the beginning, he would not have condemned
him to die after he had offended; because it had beene a thing needlesse to
make him mortall by combination, who was mortall before. And on the other
side, if he had made man absolutely immortall, he would not have caused him
to stand in need of nourishment; for nothing that is immortall needeth bodily
nourishment.
Moreover, it is not to be beleeved, that God would so hastily have repented
himself, and made him to be forthwith mortall, who was created absolutely
immortal!: For it is evident that he did not so in the angels that sinned, but ...
1 Nemesius, The Nature of Man. A learned and useful tract... by Nemesius,
surnamed the Philosopher; sometime Bishop of a city in Phoenicia, and one of
the most ancient Fathers of the Church (London, 1636).
2 Ibid., p. 78. Historically Nemesius himself argued that the soul is immortal
because it is Immaterial (Chaps. 20 and 21) and he was also influenced by the
Platonic themes of preexistence and metempsychosis.
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 21
they remained immortall, undergoing for their offences, nOt the penalty of death,
but of some other punishment. It is better therefore, either to be of the first
mentioned opinion touching this matter; or, else, thus to think, that man was
indeed created mortall, but, yet, in such wise that if he were perfected by a
vertuous and pious progression, he might become immortall: that is to say,
he was made such a one, as had in him a potentiall abilitie to become
immortal!. 3
By eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, man
"fell away from the state of growing to perfection [and] fell also
from his immortalitie, which by the mercy of his Creator he shall
recover againe at the last" (pp. 30-31).4 Meanwhile, he is susceptible
to all the corruptible vicissitudes to which the four material elements
are vulnerable, and without God's special "priviledge," man's "body
being mortall," he should never "be brought to immortalitie" (p. 42).5
In 1643, an even more blatant and vitriolic endorsement of the
mortalist position saw light in Richard Overton's Mans Mortalitie,6
printed clandestinely it would seem, literally enough, by the author
himself. Overton, who was politically a Leveller, and apparently a
revolutionary by disposition, was imprisoned several times for his
literary activities and caution concerning his political and religious
views may have lead him to misleadingly typeset Amsterdam as the
city where the book was allegedly composed in print. In fact, it seems
to have been printed in London. 7 In any case, Overton argues that
the human soul is inseparable from the body and liable to the same
destiny as the physical composition of man. Harold Fisch, in his
introduction to the recent edition of Mans Mortalitie, states that
Overton's ideas "correspond in many particulars" to Faustus Socinus'
view of the actual death of the soul with the body.8 Overton's long
title sufficiently summarizes the work as:
A treatise wherein 'tis proved, both theologically and philosophically, that
the whole man (as a rational creature), is a compound wholly mortal, contrary
to that common distinction of soule and body: And that the present going
of the soule into heaven or hell is a meer fiction: And that at the resurrection
is the beginning of our immortality, and the actuall condemnation, and salvation,
and not before.
3 Ibid., pp. 23-26.

4 Socmus had argued that Adam was mortal even before he sinned and that
therefore hIS mortality was not a result of his disobedience.
S Several of these arguments are definitely Soc in ian and it IS in passages such
as these that the mortalist heresy of the 17th century, which later influenced John
Locke (Reasonableness of Christianity, Sect. 1-12), is to be found. See also: previously
cited article on "Conditional Immortality" in Encyclopedw of Religion and Ethics.
6 Richard Overton, Mans Mortalitie, ed. Harold Fisch (Liverpool, 1968).
7 Ib,d, p. x-xi.
S Ib,d., p. XXI.
Overton thus defends a position of conditional immortality. The

soul, for all that reason can prove, is physical and mortal. 9 But God
has so ordained, by a free gift of grace, that man shall be gratuitously
favored with corporeal resurrection and immortality on the day of
the resurrection of Christ.
(2) The opposing major tendency to 17th century mortalism can
again be traced to the incorporation of certain critical elements found
in the Florentine Platonism of Ficino. Indeed, Ficino's powerful
influence on early Anglo-Saxon thought has been admirably delirleated
by Ernst Cassirer in his study of English Platonism. 10 For no doubt
Ficino's translations and commentaries on Plato and Plotinus, his
Theologia Platonica, and in general, his attempt to synthesize Chris-
tianity and Platonism went far to influence the group of rationalist
religious writers known as the Cambridge Platonists. Indeed Cassirer
has argued that the picture of Platonic philosophy drawn by Ficino
and the Florentine Academy was absorbed in essential respects, and
valiantly, although perhaps quixotically, maintained by the Cambridge
scholars, even to the point that much that was original in their own
thinking was stunted and suppressed by being made to conform to
ancient modes of thought and expression (Cassirer, Introduction and
Chapter One). In fact, in many ways the Cambridge school represents
an oddity and a reaction to the then exciting and increasing influence
of the scientific attitude of men like Galileo, Kepler, Hobbes, Gassendi,
and Descartes, which the Cambridge men consistently interpret as a
threat to such basic religious and moral doctrines as free-will and
an immaterial soul - a danger because of the dominant materialistic,
mechanistic, and over-reductivist elements present in their scientific
theories.
Although the Cambridge Platonists emerge from a Puritan back-
ground they themselves cannot be classed as Puritans. Rather they
more properly constitute a reaction to the dogmatism prevalent in
Calvinism. 11 From almost the very beginning of the founding of the
school at Cambridge it became apparent that the brand of Calvinism
issuing from Emmanuel College would be different. In particular, the
Cambridge men opposed the fanaticism and "enthusiasm" of Calvinism
with religious toleration and liberalism. The doctrine of ultimate
predestination they regarded as merely another form of determinism;
and Calvin's stress on God's voluntarism they opposed with a deep
9 See especially, ,b,d., pp. 26-27, 59, 64-65.

10 Ernst Casslrer, The PlatOniC Renaissance In England (Texas, 1953). See also:
Kristeller, Ficlno, pp. 19-20; Serge Hutin, Henry More (Hlldesheim: Georg Olms,
1966), p. 12.
11 The Cambridge Platonlsts, ed. Gerald Cragg (Oxford, 1968). pp. 8-9.
confidence in divine and human reason and in man's ability to achieve
certain theological truths.
John Smith (1618-1652) was among the first and precipitating figures
of this movement, which was dedicated to interpreting reality on
religious and spiritualist principles and he especially draws heavily
on the great Platonic and Neoplatonic tradition. He is unquestionably
the true initiator of the simplicity argument in English letters. 12
Very little is known concerning Smith's lifeY He died early, at
the age of thirty-four, and did not publish anything in his own lifetime.
Although he was reputed to be Ralph Cudworth's pupil and admirer,
he was also said to be the latter's friend and, therefore, as Passmore
suggestively points out, "it does not follow that Cudworth had nothing
to learn from Smith."14 In fact, Cudworth was Smith's elder by only
a year. My guess is that Smith did exert a strong influence in
determining and shaping at least one major character of Cudworth's
thought, namely his tendency to view the problem of materialism
within the context of the perennial conflict between the Gods and the
Giants of Plato's Sophist, between the religious immaterialism of
Plotinus and the materialistic "atheism" of Epicurus and Lucretius.
For it is Smith who is first to view the battle between "idealism"
and materialism in this fashion. (Smith's works were first published
in 1660, but since he died in 1652 he seems to have antedated
Cudworth's speculations by a good number of years, even though
12 At what must have been roughly around the same time as Smith's reflections,
Sir Kenelm Digby (1603-1665) called attention to the simplicity proof in arguing for:
(a) the unity of consciousness; (b) an "idealist" interpretation of reality; and (c) the
immortality of the soul. Sir Kenelm, who enjoyed close personal relatIOns with
Hobbes, Mersenne, and Descartes, seems to have been a man of singularly generous
nature, which in turn was reflected by his eclectic outlook. Thus, although he was in
strong sympathy with atomism "the dominant philosophy" of the 1630's (see,
R. T. Peterson, Sir Kenelm Digby (Harvard, 1956), p. 120), he nevertheless likewise
defended the immateriality of the soul. To the question whether the soul "'be
corporeal or no," Digby confesses that although he cannot explain by what artifice
bodies are "spiritualized" i.e., immaterialized, by the knowing mind, it is yet clear
that the "'quantity of the heavens" cannot "be shut up in the little circuite of man's
braine" (The ·Second Treatise: Declaring the Nature and Operations of Mans Soul:
Out of which the Immortality of Reasonable Soules Is Convinced (London, 1645),
p. 51 fr.). It follows that the soul bemg immaterial, whatever it apprehends neces-
sanly itself becomes immaterial (Ibid., p. 54). And from the soul's immaterial indi-
visibility, its immortality can be concluded (ibid., p. 79 ff.). I have concerned myself
with Smith rather than Digby because: (a) Smith is theoretically more consistent
and penetrating; and (b) he belongs to a school which had a far-reaching influence
on British philosophy.
13 A good biographical account, however, is to be found in volume two of
Tulloch's Rational Theology, although Tulloch himself refers to him as "a thinker
without a biography" (II, p. 122).
14. John Passmore, Ralph Cudworth: An Interpretation (Cambridge, 1951), p. 15.
it may be argued that Cudworth's attack on materialism in The True

Intellectual System o/the Universe [1678] was postponed in publication.)
Thus, I shall begin with Smith before the other Cambridge scholars,
and even Descartes, whose Meditations appeared in 1640-1641, because
he represents what I consider to be the first serious defense, and
by far the most explicit use, of the argument for simplicity. Conse-
quently, I have dealt with Smith prior to Descartes because with
Smith the conscious implications of the argument are presented in
fullness and with considerable insight, whereas with the French
philosopher the argument is offered in the nature of an apologetic
afterthought in the Synopsis to the Meditations.
Although it is uncertain in what philosophical context Smith actually
formulated his ideas, I believe his thinking can be understood best
in relation to the growing influence and danger of Epicurean mate-
rialism and its consequent implication concerning the soul's natural
mortality. As far as the influence of immediate predecessors or
contemporaries on Smith is concerned, Descartes is an obvious candi-
date, for Smith was indeed familiar with the writings of Descartes
and he is credited (along with Henry More) with having initiated
the study of Descartes at Cambridge. 15 But I do not think that
Cartesianism redirected his thought from issues and arguments that
he would have taken up independently of Descartes. In this sense,
then, Smith represents more properly a reaction against the threat
to rationalism posed by the Epicurean and physically-oriented natura-
listic theories gaining currency in his day. I would suggest, furthermore,
that Smith also quite likely directed his attacks on the Socinian
tenets present in such works as Wither's book and Overton's
pamphlet. 16 Thus, against Overton's position of conditional immor-
tality, John Smith argues that the natural immortality of the individual
15 See John Worthington. The Diary and Correspondence of John Worthington
(Manchester, 1847); I, p. 300. However, Benjamin Whichcote (1609-1683), Smith's friend,

teacher, and the primary influence on Smith, was already preaching and writing in
1636, a year before Descartes's Discourse on Method appeared, and his later thinking
remains decidedly untouched by Cartesianism. It is in 1636 that Smith entered Cambridge
and that Whichcote became his tutor. Furthermore it may be plausibly conjectured that
when Smith became instrumental in bringing to notice the work of Descartes, he probably
had a considerable reputation established and was probably already committed philoso-
phically before Descartes's influence. And I think that in general the Cambridge school
developed independently of Descartes (and would have continued to do so with or
without him) committed as the school was to, and continually stressing. a form of
Platonism and Neoplatonism quite uncongenial to Cartesian scientific interests.
16 In fact, John Passmore, in his article on John Smith in The Encyclopedia of
Phzlosophy (Macmillan, 1967), Vol. 7, p. 464, believes Smith may have been aware
of Mans Mortalitie. Furthermore, both Whichcote and Smith's fellow student, Natha-
niel Culverwel, refer to Socinus and the Socinians and hence one may assume Smith to
have been conversant with Socinus' unorthodox theories.
human soul can be established by rational proofs and that the basic
truths of religion are essentially a priori demonstrable. 1 7
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), who presents a position of mortal ism
in chapters 38 and 44 of the Leviathan, is another possibility as
the target of Smith's attacks, even though it may be objected that
Smith died only a year after the Leviathan was printed, and nowhere
does he mention Hobbes in his writings by name. However, it is
characteristic of Smith's style to avoid referring to contemporaries
in any case. Furthermore, it was a common practice to circulate
manuscripts privately and Smith may have had access to Hobbes's
writings in this fashion at a much earlier date. In fact, Hobbes's
Elementa Philosophica de Cive was privately printed in Paris in 1642
and Cudworth based an attack on it in receiving his B. D. degree
at Cambridge in 1644. 18 In that case, no doubt Smith and Cudworth
would have discussed Hobbes together frequently.
At any rate, my points l;lre that: (a) Smith conceived himself as
attacking materialism and Epicureanism, whether of the Hobbesian
variety or not ; (b) the philosophic position of conditional immortality
was a serious possibility against which Smith argued; and (c) Smith's
philosophy is not primarily influenced by Cartesianism, at least in
the sense that Descartes's thought itself may be placed, as I shall
presently contend, within the long-standing traditional context of the
argument for immortality.
John Smith was directly influenced by the writings of Plotinus,
as testified by the many and lengthy quotations from the great
17 See CaSSIrer, op. cit., pp. 23-24, 39-41. Although, it IS true, of course, that
Smith also may have reacted to Calvin's theory that the immortality of the imma-
terial soul depends on God's gift of grace; for according to Calvin, God wills to maintain
men after the death of the body in the expectation of the Day of Judgment; see
Williams, op. cit., pp. 581 ff.
Frequently, the scholars from Cambridge are dismissed as naively maintaining a
straightforward doctrme of direct (as opposed to predispositional) innate ideas con-
cerning higher order truths. My own conclusion, after studying their works, on the
contrary, convinces me that they were constantly appealing to complex and subtle
a priori inferential methods of disputation.
18 John Tulloch, RatIOnal Theology and ChristIan Philosophy (Hildesheim: Georg
Olms, 1966), II, p. 29. See also: John Laird, Hobbes (Russell, 1968), p. 32. Hobbes'
Elements of Law was circulated in manuscript form as early as 1640; see: Richard
Peters, Hobbes (Peregrine, 1967), pp. 26, 35. S. I. Mintz, in The Huntmg of Leviathan
(Cambridge, 1962), states, without giving any confirmatory evidence, that Hobbes
"lay behind" much of Smith's work (p. 80). H.G. Williams, in an 1859 edition of
Select Discourses, likewise simply assumes that Hobbes's doctrines "were, doubtless,
continually present to [Smith's] mind, and the refutation of them we may suppose, was
one object at least that he had in mind in some of his writings" (p. xii). Tulloch
himself, however, does not believe Smith was aware of, or at least not responsive to,
Hobbes (II, p. 141).
Neoplatonist found in his writings. 19 Perhaps his finest composition

is the one in which he undertakes to prove the immortality of the soul,
drawing specifically on arguments from ancient sources but especially
on passages from Plotinus. For Smith, as for all the Cambridge
Platonists, immortality was an essential doctrine of religion - as
necessary as absolute standards of morality and the existence of God -
and its denial directly implied atheism. Thus, in attacking the
Epicureans, who "denied the immortality of mens souls," and who
held the soul to be "material and divisible, though of a fine aethereal
nature," Smith declares that:
There is one thing ... to be considered, which may serve as a common basis
or principle to our following arguments [concerning the immortality of the
soul]; and it is this hypothesis, That no substantial and indivisible thing ever
perisheth. 20
However, Smith is aware that it is not enough to maintain that

what is simple is indestructible, for Lucretius' atoms may be said
to be indestructible and hence "immortal" in this sense. Rather what
is required is that what is simple be of a special kind, namely, an
immaterial simple or an unextended indivisible. But then the problem
becomes how are we to prove that there are such immaterial simples;
and the answer given by both Plotinus and Smith is that only by
presupposing such a simple entity, as a unifying principle, can we
account for the unity of consciousness which characterizes all our
thinking. For this unity constitutes the essential condition for the
possibility of thought, of judgment itself.21
I suppose it is so traditional as to be sacred to begin discussion
of major philosophic issues in the modern period with Descartes.
Indeed, Alan Gewirth has remarked in his lectures that all of modern
philosophy consists of addenda to the thought of Descartes rather
than to that of Plato. I have tried to undercut this custom by beginning
with the neglected figure of John Smith, for, in relation to the
simplicity argument, I am convinced that it is Smith and his Cambridge
19 So much of Plotinus is found in the writings of the school at Cambridge that
Coleridge suggested renaming them the "Cambridge Plotinists".

20 John Smith, "A Discourse Demonstrating the Immortality of the Soul", in
E T. Campagnac, The Cambndge Platomsts (Oxford, 1901), p. 107; italics his. Smith's
Select Discourses was first published in London, edited by Worthington, in 1660.
21 This relationship, however, will be the subject of the following chapter.
As I indicated above, in most of the writers with whom I deal, the various uses
of the argument are mixed together. Thus, in Smith, the discussion of the sim-
plicity argument is inter-related with his employment of it in establishing both the
Immortality of the soul and the unity of consciousness. A primary goal of my
study is to disentangle these conflated theses into clearly distmct arguments, thereby
clarifying issues and problems which have been confused in the past
fellows who hold the decided edge of philosophic insight. Consequently,
it is the English philosophers who stress and formulate the implications
of the argument for the simplicity of the soul and of thought in
connection with: (a) questions of immortality, so much discussed in
the next two centuries by British theologians; (b) its involvement in
the unity of consciousness, culminating in Kant's elaborate inves-
tigations in the first Critique; and (c) its consequences in terms of
personal identity, explored by Locke, Shaftesbury, and Hume.
Further, in beginning with Smith, it is clear that the important
background of these issues is really Epicurean materialism and the
mortalist heresy, the latter philosophically emphasizing the insepara-
bility of soul and body and insisting, perhaps on psychological grounds
(a) that punishment in an afterlife is meaningless without the
resurrection of the body; and (b) that even the wickedest soul must
ultimately perish from the eternal fires, for morally there should not
be eternal torment of even the incorrigibly evil.
As I suggested, Descartes (1596-1650) himself may be considered
in a significant respect as a 'footnote" to the simplicity argument.
Although he was aware of it he clearly both distrusted it (as in his
"final" proof for immortality) and neglected it (by not appealing
to it for either the purposes of proving the unity of consciousness
or in establishing personal identity). On the other hand, it lay beneath
a great deal of his epistemology and may have formed the unconscious
premise of his hyperbolic doubt concerning an external world. 22
Descartes had originally titled his work Meditationes de Prima
Philosophia in qua Dei existentia et Animae immortalitas demonstratur,
and it was initially intended, in Descartes's own mind, not only as
the basis for providing the required metaphysical foundation for his
proposed mathematical sciences - through the establishment of criteria
of certainty and his proof(s) for the existence and goodness of God -
but also as a revolutionary demonstration for the immortality of
the soul. Thus, for example, according to Etjenne Gilson, Descartes
is indeed the first philosopher to have established the immortality of
the soul because he is the first to show that the soul is a distinct
substance, whose essential attribute is thinking; and that it can exist
independently of the body because our clear, i.e., immediate, and
distinct, i.e., logically definable, conception of thought, as a substance,
22 This, I belIeve, is interesting because it shows the tWill paths by which
Idealism was reached in the 17th and 18th centuries The first IS by the preparatory
groundwork laid by the Cambridge Platonists for subsequent British Platonists, as
Richard Burthogge, Arthur Collier, and George Berkeley, who stress Idealism. m
their epistemological and metaphysical speculations; and the second is by the Cartesian
principle that the mind IS simple, unextended, mdivlsible, which culmmates in the
Cartesian problem of an immaterial mmd knowmg an extended world.
can be perfectly grasped without any reference to material entities.

Since our idea of thinking is separate and distinct from the concept
of body; and since it is the nature of the soul to think; it follows
that the soul is an individual and distinct substance, which can (and
does) exist apart from the body. Hence, in proving that: (a) the soul
is a substance; and (b) it is distinct from body, its immortality
follows.
Believing he had succeeded in being the ftrst to actually prove the
immortality of the soul, we may imagine Descartes's disappointment
when we consider that no sooner had he solicited his friend, Father
Mersenne, to gather a set of strategic "objections" to his work (we
can only speculate as to how genuinely Descartes really wanted
criticism) to realize his displeasure when at least the first two sets
of Objections came so quickly. In regard to the Second Objections
L. J. Beck gives a vivid picture of Descartes's reaction.
[The Second Objections] were 'collected by the Reverend Father Mersenne
from the utterrances of divers Theologians and Philosophers.' Descartes was
rather surprised and annoyed to receive this set so quickly, and did not
hesitate to say so to Mersenne, considering that the speed showed little
application and study of his work. 23
But what must have not only piqued Descartes but given him some
considerable concern as well is the special criticism, in the Second
Objection, which accuses him of not having even attempted to
demonstrate what he himself had set out to prove:
... you say not one word [in your Meditations] about the immortality of
the human soul, which nevertheless you should above all things have proved
and demonstrated as against those men - themselves unworthy of immortality -
who completely deny it and perchance have an enmity against it. But over and
above this you do not seem to have sufficiently proved the distinctness of
the soul from every species of body, as we have already said in our first
criticism: to which we now add that it does not seem to follow from the
distinction you draw between it and the body that it is incorruptible or immortal.
23 L. J. Beck, The MetaphYSICS of Descartes (Oxford, 1965), p. 40. Just how
serious Descartes was about proofs for immortality may be measured in his utterances
as early as 1630 when he confided to Mersenne, in a letter dated November 25,
that he was occupied with thoughts concerning "un petit traite de Metaphysique ...
dont les principaux points sont de prouver ['eXistence de Dieu, et celie de nos times, lors
qu'elles sont separees du corps, d'ou suit leur immortalite" (Correspondance du P. Marin
Mersenne, ed. De Waard (Paris, 1945), p. 564). See Beck, op. cll., pp. 6ff. How
earnest Descartes's countrymen were regarding proofs for immortality can be ascer-
tained by considering that, in 1669, when several candidates competed for the
chair of philosophy at the College Royal, one of the four topics which could be
defended was the immortality of the soul. (A second was a refutation of Descartes's
philosophy). See Guy Patin, Lettres choisies de feu Guy Patin (Roterdam, 1725), III,
p. 231. See also: Charles Jourdain, Histoire de I'Umversite de Pans au 17" et
18" siecles (Paris, 1862-1866), II, pp. 102-103.
What if its nature be limited by the duration o'f the life of the body, and God
has granted it only such a supply of force and has so measured out its existence
that, in the cessation of the corporeal life, it must come to an end?24
But the author of Objections II was not the only reviewer who
was critical of the proof, either real or imaginary, that Descartes
had announced, but (perhaps) had not produced in his work. For
in the Fourth Objections Arnauld raises the same problem:
since M. Descartes has undertaken to prove the immortality of souls, It IS
right to ask whether that follows evidently from this separateness of existence.
According to the principle of the vulgar philosophy that conclusion by no
means can be drawn, for the common opinion is that the souls of animals
are distinct from their bodies, but nevertheless, perish with them. [However,
as Arnauld observes, in the next paragraph but one below this quotation,
this does not present a problem for Descartes because he simply denies that
animals have souls or the power of thinking).
[But, Arnauld continues] I had carried my criticism to this point and was
intending to show how, according to our author's principles, which I believed
I had gathered from his method of philosophical inquiry, the immortality of
the soul could be easily inferred from its distinctness from the body when a
new work [viz., the Synopsis], a little treatise bearing the fruit of our author's
reflections, came into my hands; and this work not only throws much light on
the whole, but in connection with this passage brings forward exactly what
I was to adduce with a view to the solution of the above passage. 25
If we try to reconstruct what happened, I think we would arrive

at the following chain of events. Descartes, after completing the
Meditations, asked Mersenne to procure some reaction to his work
in order to test the current climate of philosophic opinion and to
gauge the possible reception that would be accorded to his more
scientific and anti-Aristotelian writings, viz., Le Monde. No sooner
had he entrusted Mersenne with the mission than he received, in
the responses, a vital criticism, concerning his alleged proof of
immortality, in the Second Objections. Descartes's reaction to this
specific criticism was twofold. First, he admitted it (though with some
qualification); and, secondly, he undertook to correct it (in the
Synopsis). Thus, in his Reply to Objections II, Descartes, in answering
the charge that he has not shown the soul to be indestructible
declares that
in the synopsis of my Meditations I stated the reason why I have said nothing
about the immortality of the soul. That I have sufficiently proved its distinctness
from any body, I have shown above. But I admit that I cannot refute your further
24 ObjectIOns II; HR, II, p. 29, (Euvres de Descartes, ed. C. Adam and P. Tan-
nery (Paris: J. Vrin, 1964), 7, pp. 127-128; 9:1, p. 101; italicized III the original;
hereafter cited as AT.
25 Objections IV; HR, II, 85; AT, 7, 204; 9:1, 159. On the larger philosophic
issues involved III whether animals can think, see Leonora Rosenfield, From Beast-
Machine to Man-Machine (Octagon, 1968).
contention, viz., that the immortality of the soul does not follow from its
distinctness from the body, because that does not prevent its being said that
God in creating it has given the soul a nature such that its period of existence
must terminate simultaneously with that of the corporeal life. For I do not
presume so far as to attempt to settle by the power of human reason any of
the questions that depend on the free-will of God. 26
Under pressure and in retreat from what he must have taken to
be (at least at first) a justified challenge, Descartes composed the
Synopsis. 2 7 In it he qualifies the impression which his original title
may have given; he commences his rejection of the expectation in
the following apologetic terms:
But because it may be that some expect from me in this place a statement
of the reasons establishing the immortality of the soul, I feel that I should
here make known to them that having aimed at writing nothing in all this
Treatise of which I do not possess very exact demonstrations .... (Synopsis)
Descartes does, however, in the Synopsis, make one more attempt,
a different one, to prove the immortality of the soul. This demonstration
is sufficiently different that, as we have seen above, Arnauld claims
himself to be satisfied with it, whereas he had expressed dissatisfaction
with the proof based on the distinctness of soul and body. The new
demonstration is based on the "indivisibility" or simplicity of the soul.
The soul, as a thinking substance, is unextended; what is unextended
is indivisible, i.e., simple, having no parts. But what has no parts,
cannot be destroyed since destruction is merely the dissolution of
a compound. It follows that the soul is immortal. 28
26 Reply to ObjectIOns II; HR, 11,147; AT, 7,153; 9:1,119-120.
27 We know that the SynopsIs was written before Arnauld submitted his obJec-
tions to Descartes, smce he (Arnauld) tells us that that "little treatise" came into
his hands while he was m the process of writmg them. On the other hand, we also
know that the composItion of the SynopsIs postdates Descartes's receptIOn of the
second set of objections, for he explicitly refers to some (unspecified) ObjectIOns
and Rep[,es m the SynopsIs Thus, for example, Descartes already mentions another
version of the proofs for God's eXistence which he offers m answer to the request of the
author of the Second ObJectIOns; and we can hardly doubt that he is referring to
his Argument Demonstrating the EXistence oj God and the D,stmctlOn between Soul
and Body, Drawn Up m Geometncal FashIOn. In point of fact, the SynopsIs was sent by
Descartes to Mersenne fifty days after the MeditatIOns (see Haldane and Ross; II,
p. 85, n. 2).
28 The proof undoubtedly held a high place among the members associated with
the Neoplatomc and Augustmian Oratory, and we may well imagine Descartes to
have been aware of it. We may also assume the Circle to have been familiar with
Plato's Phaedo, Plotmus' Enneads, and Flcmo's Theologw Platomca. Actually, Descartes
had stated, m the MedllatlOns, that the mind was "indivisible" but he had failed
to expliCitly relate this to any attempted proof for Immortality (HR, I, p. 196;
AT, 7, 85-86; 9:1, 68). See E. Brehier, The Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Chicago,
1965), pp. 226-227, and A. B. Gibson, The Phdosophy of Descartes (Russell, 1967),
pp. 44-45, 261-262. Keeling contends that the immortahty of the soul, for Descartes,
It is no surprise, then, when we find Descartes, forced to tum to the

mistrustful past and use the classic argument from simplicity, reluctant
to commit himself to more than giving men the "hope of another life
after death" (Synopsis). But perhaps the symbol of Descartes's
admission of his failure to have remained convinced that he had
provided, in the Meditations, an adequate proof of immortality is
best reflected in his decision to change the original title, and to
delete any mention of immortality from the heading; rather he
contents himself with merely saying that he has established the
principle of distinction between mind and body.29
In conclusion, then, Descartes accomplishes a volte face when he
initially declares in the "Dedication" of the Meditations that he will
"prove" the immortality of the soul, "by means of natural reason";
and later, in the Synopsis, satisfies himself in only giving men the
"hope" of an afterlife.
Clearly, however, for Descartes, as for the tradition, the problem
is silhouetted against the background of the question concerning
whether the soul is naturally or conditionally immortal. Thus, although
Descartes had initially declared, before the Objections, that
as regards the soul, although... some have even dared to say that human
reasons have convinced us that it would perish with the body, and that faith
alone could believe the contrary, nevertheless inasmuch as the Lateran Council
held under Leo X (in the eighth session) condemns these tenets, and as Leo
expressly ordains Christian philosophers to refute their arguments and to employ
all their powers in making known the truth, I have ventured in [the Meditations]
to undertake the same task 30
rests in its perpetual consciousness, op. Cit., p. 300. See also, Kemp Smith, op. clf,
pp 192, 349-350. Moreover, It IS quite likely that Jean de SlIhon utilized the slm-
pilclty argument in hiS De I'Immortaltte de l'Ame (paris, 1634). The opus itself
undertakes to prove the existence of God and the immortality of the soul against
Montaigne and the Sceptics. In pursuit of hiS goal Silhon deals With the ontolo-
gical argument; continual creation; the use of the Augustinian argument "I think,
therefore I am" against the Academics (see Leon Blanchet, Les Antecedents H/Stonques
du "Je Pense, Donc Je Suis" (Paris, 1920), pp. 34 IT.); Pomponazzi; whether the
world is the result of the chance assemblage of blind atoms; as well as the Plo-
timan argument that God is "une substance qui est parfaite sans accidents, une
simpilcite qui comprend une infinite de choses, un centre qui est partout et dont la circon-
ference n'est en nulle part" (quoted from De l'lmmortalite de l'Ame, p. SOl, in
Ernest Jovy's Pascal et Silhon (Paris, 1927), p. 46. (I have unfortunately been unable to
consult a copy of Silhon's book). In pomt of fact, Descartes was a close fnend of
Silhon and lived with him for a period of time (see Charles Adam, Vie & (Euvres
de Descartes, m Descartes, (Euvres AT, XII, pp. 93, 463n-466n.
29 Indeed, the first edition was simply titled First Meditation (HR, I, p. 144, n. 1).
See also: Descartes's letter to Mersenne, dated December 24, 1640 and Bernard
Rochot's concluding explanatory note, for support of this interpretatIOn (P. M. Mer-
senne, Correspondance, ed. C. De Waard, Vol. 10, pp. 344,347, note.
30 "Dedication" of the MeditatIOns; HR, I, 134; AT, 7, 2-3; 9:1, 5. Among
Descartes's opponents, the Socinians probably would be included; and in fact Leo's
the judicious reader can see, after the Objections, how far, in the end,
Descartes compromises his original goal.
Chronologically, after Smith and Descartes, the next important
figure to invoke the simplicity argument is Henry More (1614-1687).31
Of the three Cambridge Platonists I have taken up in this chapter,
More is the eldest by no more than four years. He comes from a strict
Calvinist upbringing and his father loved to read aloud Spenser's
The Fairy Queene to the members of the family. From the very start
this strange poem, a mixture of allegory and mystical Platonism,
must have profoundly marked the thought of the child. And from
an early age, the youth was tormented by abstruse theological problems
which he could not yet comprehend, let alone answer. In particular
More was repelled by the doctrine of predestination, which finally
culminated in his rejecting it as a religious monstrosity.32 The rationalist
influences on More are manifold including Plato, Plotinus, Ficino, 33
his own Cambridge contemporaries, and Descartes. However, toward
Descartes he reacted with increasing distrust as he became progressively
alarmed at the materialism inherent in his theory.
More is significant and illuminating because he offers a novel
variation of the argument from simplicity in his endeavor to prove
the immortality of the soul. Like Smith and Cudworth, More is
strongly attracted to Neo-platonism, although of a definitely more
mystical form than that of his colleagues. These Neoplatonic influences
are evident in his The Immortality of the Soul (1659), where he defines
"the immediate properties of spirit or immaterial substances [as]
penetrability and indiscerptibility" i. e., indissolubility (Axiom IX).
More's view is that although spirits are physically indivisible, yet they
are extended. 34 Thus both material objects and thinking substances
condemnation was directed at Sociniallism. See Chapter I of this work for a discussion
of Leo's indictment.
31 Prior to More, Walter Charleton had written "The Immortality of the Soul,
Demonstrated by the Light of Nature" (London, 1657). Charleton's argument for
natural immortality, as following from the principle that the immaterial has no parts,
begins at pp. 78 ff. The dialogue itself purports to be directed against Lucretius and
invokes the "justification" of Leo the Tenth, who "decreed the anathematization of all
atheists, who durst question. .. the immortality of the human soul" (p. 60). I mention
Charleton because his appeal to Leo X underscores the strong continuity concerning
the issues involved; see again Chapter I.
32 Hutin, op. cit., p. 40. Whichcote, the "initiator" of Cambridge Platonism, had
declared: "Do not think God has done anything concerning thee, before thou earnest
into being: whereby thou art determined, either to sin or misery. This is a falsehood:
and they that entertain such thoughts, live in a lie" (quoted by Hutin, p. 40, note 5).
33 See Hutin, op. cit., pp. 114-115.
34 Although thIS view may seem unusual to us, to say the least, Alexander Koyre
defends it as a familiar one in the 17th century. The possibility that something may be
immaterial, indivisible, and yet extended was a commonplace in certain thinkers,
are extended and the principle of distinction lies in that corporeal
objects are materially divisible whereas spirits are not. More further
contends that spirits can penetrate both other spirits and material things
as well as initiate motion. In this fashion More: (a) repudiates the
Cartesian identification of extension and matter, always in principle
composite and divisible, which is opposed to mind as unextended;
while (b) retaining the position that spirits are immaterial and hence
indivisible and indestructible. 35 In other words, More has expanded
Plotinus' discussion of the incorporeal soul as present throughout the
entire body and an immaterial God extended throughout the whole
universe. More is definitely an anomaly in his employment of the
argument for the indivisibility of the soul, but what is instructive about
More's case is that the immaterial must be extended. (For what is not
extended, according to More, is nonexistent.) This principle is in obvious
conflict with the basic Cartesian premise that thoughts and minds
are unextended. The significance of this difference is that whereas
Descartes had assumed that the immaterial and the unextended are
identical, More explicitly rejects this view. Consequently, for More,
the "simple" (i.e., indivisible) and the immaterial are distinct concepts
and extension (not essentially material in More) does not necessarily
imply divisibility as it does for Descartes.
The next philosopher whom we meet on our historical path is
Leibniz (1646-1716). Leibniz is important because, as a major figure,
he summons the argument from simplicity in order to establish:
(l) the immortality of the soul; (2) the unity of consciousness;
(3) the criterion of personal identity; and (4), along with Berkeley,
his is one of the two clear instances of how the simplicity argument
may be seen to entail idealism and the denial of an external world.
Although he was familiar with the works of More and Cudworth,
it seems clear that Leibniz conceived his proof of personal immortality
in part as an answer to the "dangerous opinion" of the "Italian
philosophers who follow Averroes," e. g., Pomponazzi. 36 Perhaps the
clearest expression of the reasoning behind the simplicity proof, with
an emphasis on its inferential nature, is found in Leibniz. In 1669,
according to Koyre. Light, magnetic forces, and gravIty would be examples of incor-
poreal but penetrable substances. See Alexander Koyre's thorough diSCUSSIon of
More's conception of spirit in From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe (John
Hopkins, 1968), pp. 126 ff. Unfortunately, More's own definition of spirits is patterned
after the conception of "ghosts" and is not as appealing to 20th century minds.
Nevertheless, More's theones were later to influence Newton's conception of absolute
space and time as the sensoria of God.
35 See Hutin, Henry More, pp. 98ff., 151-152.
36 Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters, ed. L. E. Loemker (Chicago, 1956),
I, p. 527; see II, pp. 899-900.

Leibniz composed a group of short works, which were preliminary

to a project for a definitive apology for Christianity, known as the
Catholic Dmonstrations. Leibniz, in this work, as it is clear from his
correspondence, hoped to reconcile the best thoughts of the ancients
with modern philosophy. Leibniz had translated the Phaedo and,
in his short piece, "The Confession of Nature Against Atheists,"
he invokes the Platonic-Plotinian argument from simplicity, in the
second part, called The Immortality of the Human Mind Demonstrated
in a Continuous Sorites. In an exceptionally thorough form of the
argument, he produces possibly the most perfect formulation of the
proof.
The human mind is a being, one of whose actions is thinking.
If one of the actions of a being is thinking, one of its actions is immediately
perceptible, without supposing parts in it.
For thought is (I) a thing that is immediately perceptible, mind being
immediate to itself when it perceives itself thinking. (2) Thought is a perceptible
thing without awareness of parts. This is clear from experience. For thought
is that "something, I know not what" which we perceive when we perceive
what we think [i.e., when we are self-conscious]. But when, for example, we
perceive that we have thought of Titius, we not only perceive that we have
the image of Titius in our mind, for this has parts, of course; such an
image is not enough for thinking.
For we have images in the mind even when we do not think of them,
but we perceive, besides. that we have been aware of this image of Titius,
and in this awareness of our images itself we find no parts.
Assume a being performing a certain action which is immediately perceptible,
without a perception of its parts. Then this certain action is a thing without
parts .
... If something has for one of its constituents a thing without parts, then
one of its actions must be other than motion;
For all motion has parts, by Aristotle's demonstration and common
agreement.
A being whose action is not motion is not a body;
For all bodily action is motion, since every action of a thing is a variation
of its essence, and the essence of a body is being in space.
But motion is a variation of existence in space.
Therefore every action of a body is motion.
Whatever is not a body is not in space; for to be in space is the definition
of a body.
Whatever is not in space is not movable, for motion is change of space.
Whatever is immovable is indissoluble, for dissolution is the motion of a
part.
Everything indissoluble is incorruptible, for corruption is internal dissolution.
Everything incorruptible is immortal, for death is corruption of the living,
or dissolution of its fabric ...
Therefore the human mind is immortal. Q. E. 0. 37
37 Ibid., I, pp. 174-175. The editor claims in a footnote to the above passage,
that Leibniz's demonstration "is an adaptation of Plato's old argument for immor-
tality from the indivisible unity of the soul" (p. 561).
The centrality of the principle of simplicity in Leibniz's philosophy
is quite evident from the opening section of the Monadology. A monad,
he explains, "is nothing but a simple substance." which, although it
"enters" into the formation of compounds, is actually the ultimate
constituent of reality. By "simple" Leibniz means "without parts"
(§1). "Now where there are no parts, there can be neither extension
nor form [figure] nor divisibility. The Monads are the real atoms of
nature and... the elements of things" (§ 3). "No dissolution of the
elements need be feared, and there is no conceivable way in which
a simple substance can be destroyed by natural means" (§ 4). Hence,
it is in this manner that Leibniz employs the argument for simplicity
in order to establish the metaphysical thesis of the immortality of the
soul. Without going into detail at this time, suffice it to say that there
is an obvious line of continuity between Leibniz, Mendelssohn, and
Kant, on the simplicity argument; consequently Mendelssohn will
acknowledge his debt to Leibniz in his version of the Phiidon and Kant
will expressly refer to Mendelssohn in his criticism of the argument. 38
After Leibniz, the next figure, who merits discussion, becomes
involved in the argument in an interesting and different way. Ralph
Cudworth (1617-1688), John Smith's friend and teacher and More's
colleague at Cambridge, wrote a massive work, in which he attacks
the irreligious views of what he distinguishes as four forms of
materialism, "because all atheists are mere corporealists, that is
acknowledge no other substance besides body or matter,"39 although
to be sure, Cudworth insists, not all corporealists are atheists.
Cudworth's work is basically structured on exposing the views of the
ancients as defending materialism and his attitude toward Epicurus
and Democritus is particularly hostile (p. [vi)). He presents the school
as denying that the soul can be incorporeal for, as the Giants in
Plato's Sophist, they refuse reality to whatever is not material, on the
principle that it can neither affect nor be affected by anything (p. 20).
Quite evident throughout the work, however, is the fact that Cudworth,
in attacking the atheistic form of ancient' atomism, also wishes to
destroy its modern counterpart, Hobbesian materialism, which espe-
cially presents a clear and immediate danger with its physical reduc-
tionism, determinism, and denial of absolute moral standards. 40
38 In the next chapters we will have the occasion to show how Leibniz uses the
very same principle in order to prove the unity of consciousness; personal Identity;
and, in the last chapter, how he uses it as a premise for both metaphysical and
epistemological idealism.
39 The True Intellectual System of the Universe (Stuttgart-Bad Canstatt, 1964;
first published 1678, although probably completed by 1671), p. 135.
40 See Passmore, op. cit., pp. 3, 12, 14,20,40.
Cudworth himself distrusted a priori proofs for the immortality

of the soul and the existence of God, although he avoided saying so,
perhaps in deference to his friendship with More, who differed from
him on this point. Thus, for example, he criticizes Descartes's
ontological proof, (p. 721 ff.) but refuses to condemn it outright.
And, after having argued against it, he then argues for it, "Impartially
and Candidly," and leaves it to the "Intelligent Readers, to make
their own Judgment concerning the Same" (p. 721).41 Central in
Cudworth's thinking, however, is the purpose of rationally proving
the existence of incorporeal substance, which constitutes a necessary
condition for a Christian God and the immortality of the soul.
And Cudworth believes he has demonstrated the existence of God,
not a priori, "but by Necessary Inference, [induction] from Principles
altogether Undeniable" (p. [xiii]). On the other hand, throughout the
book there is an obvious reluctance to prove immortality (see p. [iv]),
although his many references to Plotinus' proof for the unity of
consciousness clearly indicate that he is aware of the simplicity
argument for immortality.42 Cudworth, of course, is convinced that
immortality is only possible if the soul is immaterial, but he does
not explicitly invoke the principle of simplicity as following from its
incorporeality. Again he discretely refrains from pronouncing on the
issue whether the immaterial is or is not extended (p. 822), possibly
once more in deference to More. Thus, in the Preface he warns that
we shall here advertise the reader ... that in our defense of incorporeal substance
against the atheists, however, we thOUght our selves concerned, to say the
utmost that possibly we could, in way of vindication of the ancients, who
generally maintained it to be unextended, (which to some seems an absolute
impossibility;) yet we would not be supposed ourselves, dogmatically to assert
any more in this point, then what incorporealists agree in, that there is a
substance specifically distinct from body; namely such, as consisteth not of
parts separable from one another; and which can penetrate body; and lastly,
41 Elsewhere Cudworth is much more explicit concerning his rejection of a priori
proofs for God, maintaining they are "Impossible and Contradictious", T.I.S., p. [xiiiJ.
42 This is obvious also when Cudworth endeavors to make the best case possible
for the "ancient incorporealists", who contend-against atheists-that there are unex-
tended, incorporeal, indivisible substances (pp. 822-823). Consequently, when he offers
the argument for immortality in connection with Plato's and Aristotle's proofs,
based on the soul as an "incorporeal substance", he virtually invokes the inference
from simplicity. He states their demonstration in a negative form: "For that a
Corporeal soul cannot be in its own nature immortal and incorruptible, is plain
to everyone's understanding, because of its parts being separable from one another"
(p. 20). Thus Plato and Aristotle represent thinkers who affirm incorporeal and
unextended substances. Lydia Gysi, however, suggests that Cudworth himself uses
the argument from simplicity in order to show the soul's immortality (Platonism
and Cartesianism in the Philosophy of Ralph Cudworth [Bern: Herbert Lang, 1962],
pp. 13-14). But I am afraid this is a misinterpretation.
is self-active, and hath an internal energy,distinct from that of local motion ...
But whether this substance, be altogether unextended, or extended otherwise
then body; we shaH leave every man to make his own judgment concerning
it. 43
In fact, however, Cudworth gives a thoroughly sympathetic expo-

sition of the opinions of incorporealists in antiquity who believed
that spirits were extended (pp. 793-822); and 'that souls after death,
had certain subtle bodies united to them, and that those bodies of
theirs, had the same ... characterizing form, which these their terrestrial
bodies before had; but also that this together with the souls immortality,
may be sufficiently proved, from the frequent apparitions of ghosts
or departed souls" (p. 802). In all this, Cudworth must have had his
friend, Henry More, in mind.
What Cudworth does insist on in his study, however, is that unless
the soul were conceived as an incorporeal unity, it could not gather
diverse and extrinsically distinct sensations together. To this purpose
he constantly calls on Plotinus' version of the inference. Thus, against
atheism, Cudworth attempts to prove that there is an immaterial
God; against the Epicurean-Hobbesian thesis of a species of matter
endowed with sensation, he strives to prove that senseless matter
cannot think; and, against corporealists, he contends there is an
immaterial soul (whether extended or not).
This anomalous reluctance to use the argument from simplicity
in order to prove immortality and yet to invoke it in demonstrating
the unity of consciousness is significant in its anti-Cartesian (and
pro-Morean) entailments. If Descartes did depend on the soul's
indivisibility as a proof of its indestructibility, then by dismissing
it Cudworth, by implication, rejects it. However, Descartes did not
use the argument from simplicity in contending that consciousness
must be grounded in an immaterial unity; hence it is open for
Cudworth to exploit this use of the proof. The problem is that in
Plotinus, the two conclusions are connected in the same principle,
to wit, the simple, unextended nature of both soul and thought.
43 T.J.S .. p. xiv. Compare the above with More's definition: " conceive
the intire idea of a spirit m general, or at least of all finite, created and subordinate
spirits, to consist of these several powers, and properties, viz., self-penetration, self-
motion, self-contraction and dilatatIOn, and mdivisibility... I will also add... the
power of penetrating, moving, and altering the matter. These properties and powers
put together make up the notion and idea of a spirit, whereby it is plainly dis-
tmguished from a body, whose parts cannot penetrate one another, is not self-
movable nor can contract or dilate Itself, is divisible and separable one part from
another" An Antidote agmnst A theism, in A collectIOn of" several philosophical wrltmgs
of" Dr. Henry More (London, 1662; reedited, 1712), pp 15-16. One wonders If
perhaps Locke's defillition of matter as solid does not m part derive from More.
But Cudworth manages a discreet silence regarding this issue on

which he, if anyone, must have been quite aware. In any case, the
intriguing thing about Cudworth is that he himself does not (at least
explicitly) summon the simplicity proof for immortality although he
definitely does so for the unity consciousness. 44 This I take to be
even firmer evidence that the two uses are distinct than the testimony
provided by examining Descartes's case. For Descartes offers only
a single use for the argument (that of immortality) and it is therefore
problematic what he would say concerning its possible use for the
unity of consciousness.
A great deal of the'thought of John Locke (1632-1704) derives both
from being in sympathy with and in opposition to the views of the
Cambridge Platonists. Biographically it is' evident that Locke read
their works. And, philosophically there are important similarities
between the two. For instance, the Cambridge men as a group
championed the cause of reason and religious toleration in non-
essentials (hence their title of "latitudinarians") against the religious
"enthusiasm" and fanaticism prevalent in their day. In this they,
of course, shared a common purpose with Locke, whom they influenced
in this respect. Similarly, both the Cambridge men, generally, and
Locke were convinced that a number of moral truths were as rationally
demonstrable as mathematical conclusions. But more importantly,
there was a clear spiritual sympathy between the Platonists and Locke,
which has been acknowledged by commentators. 45 In other ways,
however, Locke quite obviously stands in opposition to them. Thus,
for example, Locke's criticism of innate ideas is to a great extent
directed at them and his view that it is possible, i. e., conceivable,
that matter might think is probably developed with Locke's knowledge
of the views of Smith and Cudworth on the subject. More specifically
and relevantly, in regard to the topic of this chapter, Locke can be
shown to be in conscious opposition to the position of Smith concerning
the immortality of the soul. For, as it happened, it was in 1660, eight
years after John Smith's death, that a representative collection of his
44 However, It must be pointed out that another advantage-again anti-Cartesian
m its Implication-is that If the soul is extended, it can be used to defend the
dynamic and vitalistic mterpretatlOn of the permeation of soul throughout nature
(anima mundi). In this regard Cudworth's view of the teleological "plasticity" of
nature is defmitely designed to oppose the strictly mechamstic, purposeless principles
of Descartes's physics.
45 For the influence of the Cambndge Platonists on Locke, see Aaron, op. cit.,
pp 25-28; J. Gibson, Locke's Theory of Knowledge and Its Historical Relations
(Cambndge, 1968), pp. 236-241. It is also an historical fact that Locke was an
mtimate fflend of Lady Masham, Cudworth's phllosophically-minded daughter, and
that the two enjoyed holding philosophic discussIOns together, in which she urged her
parent's views.
writings were published. Among the essays chosen for printing, his
work demonstrating the immortality of the soul was included. Also
selected was A Discourse Concerning the True Way or Method of
Attaining to Divine Knowledge. The second of these works we definitely
know Locke read, since he discusses and criticizes Smith's distinctions
between four kinds of knowledge in his Journal. 46 The Journal passage
is dated Feb. 21st, 1682. On the previous day, Locke had been
concerned with an attempted proof of immortality, a proof based on
the soul's immateriality. And I think it is very likely that his arguments
are directed at Smith's demonstrations of an afterlife. Thus he begins
his Journal entry for that day by briefly outlining his opponents'
position.
The usuall physicall proofe (as I may soe call it of the immateriality of
the soul is this, Matter cannot thinke ergo the soule is immateriall, noe thing
can naturally destroy an immateriall thing ergo the soule is naturally immorta1. 47
However, as suggested above, both Locke and the advocates of the
proposed proof (and specifically Smith) are aware that on the same
principle one could just as readily argue a corporeal entity (such as
Epicurus' atoms were said to be) indestructible; for, as Locke expresses
it, "since nothing can naturally destroy a materiall substance more
then immateriall, the body will naturally endure as well as the soul
for ever."48 Consequently, the rationalists went on to insist that
between the soul and a material body there is a vital and essential
difference, namely, that the soul continually thinks, "soe that it can
noe more cease to thinke and perceive then it can cease to be
immateriall or something."49 But Locke objects that "this is manifestly
false," for during sleep, for example, the soul ceases its activity.
In rejecting the rationalist proof, Locke accordingly concludes that
the soul is III no more of a privileged position than an Epicurean
atom.
Soe that to prove that immortality of the soul simply because it being
naturally not to be destroid by any thing it will have an eternall duration
46 R.1. Aaron and J. Gibb, eds., An Early Draft of Locke's Essay. Together
with excerpts from h,s Journal (Oxford, 1936), pp. 123-125.
47 Ibid., p. 121; italics mine. "Naturally" meaning here rationally demonstrable. See
also: letters to Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, in Locke, An Essay Concernmg
Human Understanding (Philadelphia, John Kay, 1840), IV, 6, note; Works, Vol. 4,
pp.32ff.
48 Ibid., p. 122.
49 Ibid. See also: PhilosophIcal Works of Descartes, eds. Haldane and Ross, II,
pp. 210-211, 141. For a discussion whether the soul always thinks, see S. V. Keeling,
Descartes (Oxford, 1968), pp. 209-213, especially in connection with Descartes's
arguments for immortality; N. Kemp Smith, New Studies in the Philosophy of Descartes
(Russell, 1968), p. 8. Leibniz agreed with Descartes that the soul continually thinks, See
also: Berkeley, Principles, Sect. 98.
which duration may be without any perception [eg., as in deep sleep] is to prove
no other immortality of the soule then what belongs to one of Epicurus's
attoms, viz., that it perpetually exists but has noe sense either of happinesse
or misery. 50
According to Locke, the immortality of the soul is a revealed

truth (as opposed to the existence of God which is rationally demon-
strable). In other words, it cannot be inferred, through intermediate
ideas. It can only be accepted on the basis of faith (Essay, IV,
xviii, 7). Thus:
The immortality of the human soul is revealed, according to Locke, not
known by reason. He had examined the attempts at a rational proof of
immortality but was never satisfied with any of them... A proof that the
immaterial soul is indestructible is no proof of eternal life. For often the
immaterial soul is insensible, for instance, in sleep, and if the immortality which
pertained to it was that of eternal sleep this would not be the immortality
of Scripture. Moreover, he points out in his correspondence with Stillingfleet ...
that the immortality of Scripture is not the eternal existence of the soul.
The soul did not pre-exist its present state. It is an eternity to the future
only. 51
This faith, however, is not opposed or contrary to reason, but
rather above reason. Locke's description of the future life, however,
in the section from the Essay (IV, xviii, 7), to which I've referred
above, quite obviously connects it to the "mortalist heresy" and the
resurrection of the body, for he states that in the future state "the
dead shall rise and live again."52
I have considered Locke at length because: (l) his attack on the
proof results in allowing us to see the proof in a different light;
(2) it continues to influence his thought despite his avowed rejection
of it; and (3) (perhaps most importantly) it is through his reflections
on it that he develops his section on personal identity in the Essay
and that he relates it to a truly philosophical discussion regarding
the possible criteria of moral identity, as we shall see.
The reconverted Calvinist, Pierre Bayle, as we might expect, was
also aware of the proof. It is, of course, impossible to reconstruct
in any simple billiardball sequence the complex influences either before
or after an important thinker. Thus, Bayle, for example, was aware
50 Ibid.
51 R. Aaron, John Locke (Oxford, 1965), p. 297, n.1. Cudworth, like Locke,
also argued that the soul cannot be absolutely eternal (The True Intellectual System
of the Universe, Chap. I, Sect. 34). Henry More, on the other hand, conceived the
so ul to exist forever.
52 In the same passage Locke refers to the rebellion of the angels against God
and the section brings to mind the affinities of Locke to the mortalist thought of
John Milton.
of Hobbes, Descartes, Malebranche, the Locke-Stillingfleet debate, and

Socinianism; he himself entered into argument with Leibniz; he lauded
Cudworth; influenced Berkeley and Shaftesbury and H ume; etc., etc.
It would be absurd, therefore, for me to suggest which specific ideas
"determined" Bayle or who he in turn affected and how. The problems
of the goal and criteria for such a reconstruction are part of the
larger issues concerned with questions involved in the philosophy of
history, "objectivity," "evidence," and so on. On the other hand, it
is correspondingly extreme to think that philosophic ideas float in
the atmosphere, without any sort of anchors in the shape of concrete
and living individuals. A major philosophic argument, like Peirce's
conception of truth,53 is something, a "quality" or a "reality," I
know not, that enables it to have a life of its own and allows it
to be discovered and participated in again and again. But this
participation is always performed through human beings. 54 Bayle is
a paradigm case of how ideas participate in the vital thought of a
thinker. Thus, his catalog of arguments, in his encyclopedic Dictionary,
are said to have served as the "Arsenal of the Enlightenment"; for
the value of Bayle most decidedly lies in his seminal function. His
writings are as the stem of an hourglass; concepts and arguments
that were scattered before, come to be collected and then dispersed
through his works.55 Characteristically, Bayle, throughout his works,
presented both sides of the simplicity of thought and soul controversy,
as evidenced in his Physics and Metaphysics, which formed a core
curriculum of philosophy lectures given early in his career at Sedan
from 1675 to 1677. Certainly although these compositions did not
afford Bayle a great deal of liberty of expression they nevertheless
indicate themes that dominated his thinking then and subsequently.
Thus, in the fourth volume of the collected Oevres Diverses,56 he
states that it appears beyond doubt that the soul is a spirit, or, that
which is the same thing, an incorporeal and immaterial substance,
capable of acts of selfconsciousness; and that all thinking is essentially
53 C. S. Peirce, "How To Make Our Ideas Clear", PI. IV. Peirce writes of truth
as a reahty "independent" of human minds. I, of course, cannot go so far. An idea or

argument essentially has concrete, human sources.
54 One may disagree with what I have just said. It is for me an ultimate principle,
the absolute starting point of my interpretation and study and, as such, it is as
Pascal has said, and as William James almost said, like all principles, a matter of the
heart and not the head, decided by our passional natures. It can be disagreed with
but it cannot be refuted. An opponent can only declare his own contending principle,
and he, hke myself, can merely mutely repeat it when it is challenged.
55 See Richard Popkin's Introduction to Pierre Bayle's HistOrical and Critical Dic-
tIOnary (Bobbs-Merrill, 1965).

56 CEuvres Diverses, ed. Mme. Labrousse (Georg Olms, Hildesheim, 1968; first
published 1731).
reflexive, which is to say that thought knows itself in knowing. 57

According to Bayle, the reflexive character of thought especially
proves the soul different from matter, showing it to be "une substance
incorporelle" and that "Par ces raisons memes on en prouve aisement
l'immoralite." For
si I'ame est immaterielle, il est evident qu'elle est indesctructible; car on ne
c;onc;oit point que les choses puissent etre destruites autrement que par la
division de leurs parties. Done l'ame n'aiant point de parties, il n'y a aussi
point d'agent cree qui puisse la detruire. 58
Following the tradition, Bayle is careful to point out that no

created substance can ever destroy immaterial substances, such as
those, for example, "fondi:e sur l'indivisibilite de l'ame." He then
goes on to stress that God alone, who has the power of creation,
enjoys the co-relative power of annihilation (IV, p. 457). In his
third chapter of La Me taphysique , Bayle divides unities into those
that are "tout-a-fait indivisible, non seulement en plusiers parties qui
soient la meme chose, rna is en quelques parties que ce puisse etre"
(unities such as God, angels, and human souls) from unities which
are the outcome of physical composition. The latter are corruptible
by virtue of their composite character (IV, p. 483), whereas the
former are indestructible.
Similarly, some twenty years later, in his Dictionary article on
Pomponazzi, note F, Bayle (incorrectly) alleges that
Des Cartes is the only Philosopher who laid down very solid principles
concerning [proofs of the immortality of the soul]. He says that all thinking
substances are distinct from matter; from whence it necessarily follows, that
the soul of man is a spirit, or a simple indivisible Being, and consequently
immortal. 59
57 Ih[(I., IV, p. 457. Bayle in thiS passage distinguishes "reflexive" acts of thought
(described above) from "reflective" acts, where one thought becomes the object of
another thought.
58 Ihld., IV, p. 457
59 Pierre Bayle. HlSIoncal and Critlcal DictIOnary (London, 1737), IV, p. 717; the
DIctIOnary was first published in 1697. However, Descartes is hardly either the only,
or even the first. philosopher to lay down "very solid principles" concerning immortality.
What Bayle most likely has in mind is that Descartes proved that mind and matter are
dlstmct and that therefore matter is extended, material, and composite while mind is
unextended, mcorporeal, and (presumably) Simple. But Bayle has read into Descartes.
Thus, as we have seen above, the authors of the Second and Fourth ObjectIOns were
not convinced that proving the soul and body to be distinct also thereby proved
the soul to be immortal or simple. These were defimtely two different propositions,
for example, for Arnauld. I would conclude therefore that there are two separate
arguments in Descartes; the first, given in the Meditations demonstrates that mind and
matter are distinct; and the second states, in the Synopsis, that the soul is simple,
but does not prove it or offer arguments for it.
But as Bayle points out on the following page of his Dictionary,
Gassendi's reply and criticism of the Cartesian proof soon resulted
in many disbelieving in the immortality of the soul. Bayle's conclusion
therefore is, like Pomponazzi, to accept immortality on faith and
"rely on the word of God." For if Descartes's arguments were really
demonstrative, Gassendi would not have impugned them; but since
he did then obviously they are not "evidently true." Hence one must
base his convictions on faith and scriptural authority and not reason.
Since philosophers disagree and reason alone manifestly cannot
convince thinkers concerning immortality, we must "have recourse
to the light of revelation. "60 One may conclude therefore that although
Bayle discusses the argument, probably his own real position is an
epistemological scepticism culminating in religious fideism. 61
No one reads the philosophical works of Henry Dodwell (1641-1711)
any longer and the Encyclopedia of Philosophy does not even have
an entry for him. And yet, in his own age he was referred to as
"the great Mr. Dodwell," an unimpeachable authority on all points
of learning," and "the greatest scholar of Europe .when he died."62
He was more properly a theologian rather than a philosopher, although
he displayed "great powers of reasoning" in all his research. For
example, his interests were so vast that even Gibbon, who was not
sympathetic to his theological and political opinions, nevertheless
regarded his historical knowledge of the Roman Empire as unim-
peachable. Concerning his powerful influence, the DNB rests its
appraisal by satisfying itself in pronouncing that this was evident
"by testimonies too numerous to be quoted." Specifically pertinent
for our purposes is the impact of Dodwell's work on immortality on
his contemporaries, which is manifest in the following short account:
In 1706 there appeared a complete treatise from the pen of the learned
theologian... Henry Dodwell, advocating conditionalist views. Dodwell had
been Cadman Professor of History in the University of Oxford, and had a
great reputation for scholarship and orthodoxy. This work provoked considerable
controversy. 63
Although Dodwell was never ordained as a minister, his established

reputation on religious matters caused this work to have an immediate
60 Ibid., p. 718. See also Bayle's articles on Dicaearchus, note M and Nicolas
Perrot, note L.
61 See Popkin, Bayle's Dictionary, pp. xxii ff. and the openmg paragraphs of the
"Clarification on the Pyrrhonists" in the Dictionary (p. 421, in the Popkm edition).
For an overwhelming array of possible interpretations on Bayle's religIOUS views, see
again Popkin, pp. xxvlitfT. If one "decides" that Bayle was a fidelst, it still leaves
open Just what sort of religious and moral faith he actually endorsed. As Prof.
Popkin suggests, all these questions may be insoluble in the last analysis.
62 DictIOnary of NatIOnal BIOgraphy, article on Dodwell.
63 Encyclopedw of ReligIOn and EthiCS, article on "Conditional Immortality".
and strong effect for three reasons. It was the first defense of mortal ism
by an orthodox theologian, rather than a philosopher. Secondly,
it was a systematic defense of conditional ism and it was dealt with
as a serious theme in itself, and not merely peripherally as a digression
or aside. Thirdly, Dodwell's considerable reputation, it was feared,
would soon lead others to take the position seriously. Consequently,
no sooner did the tract appear than it was answered at once by Samuel
Clarke and John Norris, as well as many others. The reason for this
quick and concerted response lay in the fact that for thinking minds
during the Age of Reason these were vital issues; they were "options"
that were, as William James would say, momentous, forced, and living;
and as such they were as important in that age as the moral and
political issues of the Viet Nam war were to Americans in the
year 1970.
One can imagine the revolutionary aspect of Dodwell's work,64
when he insists that the soul cannot be proved to be immortal by
reason and consequently that it is not naturally immortal. In the
Contents of his volume he stresses that "A naturally mortal soul is
more agreeable to be joined with a naturally mortal body, as a
constituent of human nature, than a soul naturally immortal" (Sect. 60).
Dodwell, however, as his title testifies, adopted a position of conditional
immortality. For the "immortality of the soul, is a revelation of the
gospel; and therefore not capable of being proved by reasons from
the nature of the soul itself' (Sect. 27). But, although the soul is
naturally mortal, it is immortalized by God at the time of our
baptism in the spirit of Christ. At this time, the spirit which is the
"highest part of the rational soul" (although like the lower soul,
naturally mortal), becomes immortal. Behind the author's position
of conditional immortality is the conviction that only in this fashion
can the doctrine of human immortality, as opposed to animal mortality,
be salvaged. Descartes had claimed that animals had no souls, and
were merely machines. He hoped, on these principles, to secure the
immortality of the soul for men. 65 In this he was followed by Antoine
Arnauld, Francois Lamy, and others. But as different-minded thinkers
quickly realized, Descartes's own mechanistic and physiological prin-
ciples could just as readily be applied to the explanation, and
consequent automatization, of the human "mind." In that case,
both human and animal "souls" occupied the same metaphysical
realm and "souls" were no more immortal than machines. It is for
64 Henry Dodwell, An Epistolary Discourse, Provmg from the Scriptures and The
First Fathers that the Soul is A Principle Naturally Mortal; but Immortalized Actually
by the Pleasure of God, to Punishment; or to Reward, by its Union with the Divine
Baptismal Spirit (London, 1706).
65 See Rosenfield, op. cit., pp. 7,15, 47ff., 67-68, and passim.
reasons such as these that Dodwell espouses conditional immortality.
The dilemma for Dodwell then consists in that either animals must
be supposed to be machines; or if animals are admitted to be
endowed with immaterial consciousnesses, then they also must have
immortal souls. And Dodwell rejects both alternatives, considering
it more reasonable to agree with Locke's possibility that matter may
think, and that no contradiction is implied in such a conception.
To men like Samuel Clarke (1675-1729),66 who fared much better
than Dodwell at the hands of historians of philosophy, Dodwell's
position constitutes a vital danger to morality and religion, no less
great than Hobbes's views. For unless moral truths are immutable
(a necessary condition of their permanence being their immateriality)
and the soul is immortal, moral anarchy and cruelty will reign.
You [Dodwell] teach that the soul of man is naturally mortal, and will
of it self perish and come to nothing, if not upheld by the extraordinary
power of God, in a praeternatural way. Many, who see the imprudent title
of your discourse and will not take the pains to read the book it self, will
conclude that you suppose the soul to perish at the dissolution of the body;
and all libertines, when they have read and considered all that you offer,
will still conclude, that if (as you grant them) the soul must of itself naturally
perish sometime or other, there is no time so probable when it should perish,
as the dissolution of the body; and they will easily persuade themselves to rely
upon this, that God will not work a perpetual miracle to preserve them
praeternaturally by his omnipotent power, on purpose to inflict upon them an
eternal punishment, which by nature they were capable of undergoing. 67
We see that for Clarke a moral world has as one of its conditions
belief in the immortality of the soul. For unless men have the assurance
of an afterlife, in which rewards and punishments are dispensed,
they will not act morally. But for Clarke, this assurance rests on an
a priori truth, for we can prove by reason that the soul is indestructible.
When we speak as created naturally immortal, we mean that [the soul]
is created such a substance, as not having in it self any composition, or any
principles of corruption [and] will naturrally or of itself continue for ever;
that is, will not by any natural decay, or by any power of nature, be dissolved
or destroyed ... 68
66 LovejOY says of Clarke, in The Great Cham oj Bemg, that "during the first
three decades of the eighteenth century he passed for the foremost of living English
philosophers" (p. 149).
67 Samuel Clarke, A letter to Mr. Dodwell; wherein all the arguments in his
Epistolary Discourse against the Immortality of the soul are particularly answered ...
(London, 1711), pp. 4-5.
68 Ib,d., p. 7. Leibniz, after studying the Clarke-Dodwell debate, reaffirmed his
thesis in 1715-1716, that "the soul is Immortal because of its [Immaterial] indivisi-
bility" (The Lelbmz-Clarke Correspondence, ed. H. G. Alexander) (Manchester, 1965),
p. 191; see also: p. 38.
From controversies such as the one in which Dodwell and Clarke

engaged, it is clear that the simplicity argument generated much
discussion in the time and influenced both directly and indirectly
philosophers, theologians, and even the common man. Thus meta-
physical, religious, and moral issues were integrally related and
expressed in formulations which no doubt carried great popular appeal
when they were couched in such questions as whether virtue is
essentially dependent on an immortal soul or not.
Scholars of the period often include John Norris (1657-1711) as
a Cambridge Platonist, although he actually studied at Oxford where
the philosophy of Aristotle predominated; but there is little doubt
that he was deeply influenced by and sympathized with the school
at Cambridge. 69 He in fact sought out the friendship of the aging
Henry More and later entered into correspondence with Damaris
Masham. Furthermore, in addition to being influenced by his fellow
Englishmen, Norris borrowed much from the philosophies of Descartes
and Malebranche, and indeed so much from the latter that he has
been called the English Malebranche. Beside being an inheritor,
however, he was also one of the earliest and ablest of all of Locke's
critics, and all these aspects combined to make him a popular and
seminal transmitter of ideas in his time.
The year 1708 saw the first edition of Norris' work, A Philosophical
Discourse Concerning the Natural Immortality of the Soul ... occasion'd
by Mr. Dodwell's late Epistolary Discourse (my citations will be from
the fifth edition, published in 1732). Norris begins the tract by
distinguishing two opposing views of immortality: (a) positive; and
(b) natural. In doing so he flatly states first of all that immortality
is by now an "old beaten subject," having "so long imploy'd the
philosophy of both the heathen and Christian world" (p. 1), that
there is hardly anything to add to it that is new. He then proceeds
to describe what he terms as (a) the positive immortality of the soul,
by which he understands "that which is not the immediate effect
of its nature, nor flows from any inward principle of it, but which
accrues to it wholly from without, or from the influence or operation
of an external cause, as when a creature, otherwise mortal, is made
immortal by the efficacious will or power of God, supernaturally
preserving him in being" (pp. 9-10). Norris also refers to this "sort
of immortality" as an "immortality of grace, in opposition and
contradistinction to that of nature" (p. 10). As opposed to this
positive immortality, which depends entirely on God's "will for the
continuance of it, and is liable at the pleasure of that will to be
taken away again" (pp. 12-l3), Norris sets against it (b) natural
69 Muirhead, op. CIt, p. 74.
immortality, which "is a real inherent perfection belonging to the soul,
being as a property that immediately flows from the very essence of
a thing, and is accordingly inseparable from it" (p. II). In other
words, Norris opposes two theories of immortality, one which I have
called conditional, and the other which I have termed natural or
rational.
Part II of the work then gives the desired proof of natural immortality
which we readily recognize as clothed in by now familiar terms.
For the soul as we conceive of it... is a simple, spiritual and immaterial
being, and that alone is foundation enough for this sort of natural immortality,
which consists in its incorruptibility.
For corruption is nothing else but a certain division, dissolution, or separation
of parts... But then that which has no parts, as an immaterial being (such
as we conceive the soul to be) has not, cannot possibly be corrupted. 70
And even God cannot corrupt an immaterial, simple entity. But
then Norris goes on to add still another distinction, one ultimately
grounded in Thomistic and Cartesian thought. He insists that there
is a difference between "incorruptible" and "un perishable. " What has
no parts cannot be corrupted but it can be annihilated, for it can suffer
cessation of being, i.e., it is perishable. Only in God are essence and
being identical. In human souls, however, since essence and existence
are distinct, separate, God can choose to annihilate them and souls
are not therefore naturally 'unperishable" (pp. 38-39); "so that which
may be annihilated... cannot be said to be naturally unperishable"
(p. 45). The ultimate preservation and conservation of souls belongs
to the divine influence and accordingly souls are guaranteed to be
"unperishable" by the positive power of God and not naturally
(pp. 48 ff.). The conclusion is, then, that incorruptible does not
necessarily entail immortal but that only unperishable does; and that
although the soul is simple and therefore naturally incorruptible,
it does not follow that it is unperishable, but rather that it is only
positively so, as conserved by God (pp. 61 ff.).
The atheistic implications in holding the soul to be corruptible,
Norris attributes to Lucretius and the Epicureans (pp. 66-67). Far
more interesting, however, is the amalgamation of Cambridge Plato-
nism and Cartesianism in Norris' treatise. Such syntheses result, I
believe, in the tendency of historians of philosophy to confound ideas
that definitely have their origin and value prior to and/or independent
of Cartesianism in crediting Descartes with views that more properly
belong to a pre-Cartesian tradition. Thus, for example, Descartes
had argued that "simple natures" are ideas that can be conceived
independently of other conceptions; but not that souls are simple
70 Norris, pp. 32-33.
existences (except in the problematic Synopsis). Similarly, historians

of ideas are inclined to think, as we shall see, that the question of
thinking matter arises as an offshoot of the Cartesian theory that
animals are machines. But quite clearly - without denying the power
of stimulating discussion afforded by the texts of Descartes - it is
rather evident that the accelerating influence of Epicureanism was
an even stronger impetus in considering the possibility of thinking
matter, and certainly prior to Cartesianism. In this respect the definite
and systematic attempt by the Cambridge Platonists to mitigate the
"revolutionary" aspect of Descartes and Hobbes by merely relegating
them to the position of latecomers to ancient materialism is easily
understandable and it explains their insistence that there is nothing
modern in the latters' "scientific" theories. In this fashion the English
Platonists seek to deprive the new systems of their attractive psycho-
logical quality of alleged novelty.
In 1708, Dodwell countered the first edition of Norris' book and
replied against the latter's proof of immortality based on "an indis-
solubility of parts. "71 In the refutation, Dodwell contends that the
doctrine of the "simplicity of spiritual beings" (p. 122) can neither
be found in the Scriptures nor in the early Church Fathers. He
further contends that such a simple soul would be incapable of
suffering punishment or enjoying rewards in an afterlife, since what
is without parts cannot suffer pain nor enjoy pleasure (pp. 118 ff.).
For unless the soul is naturally mortal, the body cannot be resurrected
after its physical dissolution by God on the Day of Judgment and it
cannot thereby be made capable of suffering for its sins. Norris'
failure is to "secure nothing naturally mortal, that can be capable of
eternal rewards and punishments" (p. 121). According to Dodwell,
after our deaths, the body will decompose, but the parts will, of course,
remain material. These physical parts will be reconstituted and our
bodies restored on the Day of Judgment.
Almost nothing is biographically known concerning John Witty
and the DNB does not even mention him. Neither the year of his
birth nor the date of his death are recorded, although he must have
died prior to 1714 since his work on the earth and its motion
appeared posthumously in that year. My reason for treating him in
this study is that he represents a large class of neglected but extremely
involved authors in British letters, in the 17th and 18th centuries,
who deal with the question of immortality. One need but look at
any bibliography of the period in order to get an idea of the many
71 Henry Dodweli, The Natural Mortality of Human Souls Clearly Demonstrated,
from the Holy Scriptures and Concurrent Testimonies of the Primitive Writers (London,
1708), p. 118.
treatises devoted to the question of an afterlife at that time. For all
these men were extremely influenced by the Republic of Letters and
affected by the controversial topics of the epoch. Witty was, as were
others with whom I have been dealing, a clergyman, and it is to be
expected that in this capacity, with the others, he touched large
groups of people through his sermons. Like so many comparable to
himself, he did not possess the intellect of the great philosophers of
the age; but he did form a mediating link between the dominant
thinkers on the one hand and the common man on the other. In
the same manner, Withers, who was an admired poet, and Overton,
who was a spectacular political revolutionary, served in transmitting
important ideas from the wise to the many. Thus, long before Witty,
the issue of immortality had started to become a major popular issue,
one which was increasingly removed from the technical disputes of
the scholarly. And men like Witty helped to perpetuate this far
reaching intellectual heritage. 72
Witty - who, as his writing shows, was influenced by Descartes,
Cudworth, and Locke - employed the simplicity argument in order
72 In The Great Chain of Being, Lovejoy has ably defended the use of the
study of so-called minor figures, in literature, in the history of ideas; although hiS
conception applies, I believe, mutatis mutandis, to the discipline of philosophy as well.
For it is in the lesser personages of history that the best reflection of the actual influence
and depth of an idea in an age can be most adequately determined. Thus, according
to LoveJOY, a major "characteristic of the study of the history of Ideas," as LovejOY
wishes to define it, "is that it IS especially concerned with the manifestations of
specific unit-ideas in the collective thought of large groups of persons, not merely
in the doctrines or opinions of a small number of profound thinkers or eminent
writers. .. It is in short, most interested m ideas which attain a wide diffusion,
which become a part of the stock of many minds. It is this characteristic of the study of
the history of ideas in literature which often puzzles students [and professors] in the
present-day literature departments in our universities ... Why not stick to the mas-
terpieces. .. or at least to these plus the minor classics ... ? This is a natural enough
state of mind if you don't regard the study of literary history as including withm its
province the study of ideas... which other men In past times have been moved
by, and of the processes by which what may be called literary and philosophical
public opinion is formed. But if you do think the historian [of ideas] ought to
concern himself With these matters, your minor writer may be as important as-he
may often, from this point of view, be more important than-the authors of what
are now regarded as masterpieces. Professor Palmer has said, with equal truth and
felicity: 'The tendencies of an age appear more distinctly in its writers of inferior
rank than in those of commanding genius. These latter tell of past and future as well
as of the age in which they live. They are for all time. But on the sensitive
responsive souls, of less creative power, current ideals record themselves with clearness.'
And it is, of course, in any case true that a historical understanding even of the
few great writers of an age is impossible without an acquaintance with their general
background in the intellectual life and common moral. .. valuations of that age; and
that the character of this background has to be ascertained by actual historical
inquiry into the nature and interrelations of the ideas then generally prevalent"
(pp. 19-20).
to defend the soul's immortality, by "natural reason," both against

Hobbesian materialism and the emerging deism of his day. For,
according to Witty, our souls cannot be immortal, if they are material
(pp. 149 ff.); and if our souls are not considered immortal, this leads
to irreligion. Witty proceeds by announcing that matter "is an extended,
solid movable substance,"73 whereas "the primary attributes of thinking
substances are ... cogitation or thought, self-motion and reflection"
(p. 151). Consequently he argues that
it is not possible for [material] causes to bring any thinking being whatever
to a dissolution. For I have prov'd already that thought... must be [an]
attribute [ ] of absolutely incomplex and indivisible substances; that nothing
which is an aggregate in its nature can be an individual thinking conscious
substance... Now this being demonstrated the indissolubility of thinking
substances by natural causes is capable of being thereupon unexceptionally
establish'd; For whatever is not of a complex nature can't be divisible, and
whatever is indivisible ... is not liable by natural causes to a dissolution; but
the thinking substance in us ... being necessarily absolutely incomplex in [its]
nature, and consequently above all divisibility by [physicall] causes; no thinking
substance is liable to be dissolv'd and dissipated by any [material] causes
whatever; but must for ever continue necessarily the same individual thing
without the interposition of Omnipotence in order to its annihilation. 74
Witty is careful to emphasize, as Descartes, Cudworth, and others

had before him, that God can still annihilate such a perfect simple,
if He so chooses. And the term "anninilation" had already long
since assumed an established technical significance, the opposite of
which was "creation." For as creation is the production of something
- more usually described as a substance - from nothing, so is
annihilation the bringing to nothing of the otherwise perfect incor-
ruptibility of the soul. Thus is the power of God safeguarded and
His symmetrical relation to existences preserved. For not only can
God create from nothing, but he can likewise return all that he has
so created to the same vacuum or nothingness. But beside insisting
on God's omnipotence, Witty's principle is also directly aimed against
the Democritean-Epicurean premise "that things cannot be created
from nothing and when brought forth cannot be brought back to no-
thing. "75
Concerning Witty's criticism of deism, evident in the title of his book,
it is probably directed at Charles Blount, a disciple of both Lord
73 John Witty, The first Principles of Modern Deism Confuted in a Demonstration
of the Immateriality, Natural Eternity and Immortality of Thinking Substances in

general; and in particular of human souls. Even upon the supposition that we are
intirely ignorant of the intrinsic natures of the essences of things. .. (London, 1707),
p. 149.
74 Ibid., pp. 288-289.
75 Lucretius, De rerum Natura (Harvard, 1966), I, pp. 265-267.

Herbert of Cherbury, the "father of English deism," and Hobbes.
Blount, in his Anima Mundi (1679), presents a gallery of ancient
authorities professing a disbelief in immortality. His work immediately
aroused violent criticism which almost resulted in his imprisonment.
In 1693, several of Blount's pieces appeared in The Oracles of Reason,
along with a letter from his friend, Charles Gildon. In the epistle,
Gildon contends that thought and the soul are material. However,
after arguing that the soul is composite in its nature, and suggesting
the radical mortality of man, Gildon ends by apologetically insisting
"that these are only undigested thoughts [to which] I dare neither
yield nor deny my assent to. "76
In English philosophy, the immaterialism and "idealism" of Bishop
Berkeley (1685-1753) forms the culmination, through a combination
of basic principles, of trends in Platonism, Neoplatonism, and Cam-
bridge Platonism. Although, in his own day, Berkeley was "accused"
of being a Malebranchean (and a follower of John Norris), this was
a charge against which he vigorously defended himself, primarily on
epistemological grounds. Thus, for example, whereas for the French
thinker sensations are mere appearances and inhe~ently deceitful, for
Berkeley they are, quite the contrary, most assuredly veridical. 77
But I think the comparison with Malebranche, albeit mistaken, is
nevertheless instructive as being objectionable for other reasons, reasons
of which Berkeley did not avail himself but which go at least as deep
into the matter as the ones he did use. These grounds are that
Berkeley takes the simplicity argument quite seriously and exploits
it fully in connection with proofs for the unity of consciousness,
whereas neither Descartes nor his disciple Malebranche do. What all
three share, however, is the suggestion that an external, material
world may be doubted or denied as following from the premise that
the knowing mind is itself unextended. 78
But, for the present, I wish to restrict myself to a discussion of
Berkeley's proof for immortality. Samuel Johnson, Bishop Berkeley's
disciple and correspondent, in a letter to Berkeley, dated February 5,
1730, had questioned Berkeley as to why he had not himself relied
76 Charles Blount, The Oracles of Reason (London, 1693), "The Soul is Material,"
p. 190.
77 See Berkeley, Works, IX, p. 12.
78 The discussion of this agreement, however, I shall postpone until the fifth chapter.
Thus, I shall try to show that Berkeley, who is generally considered to be mdebted
to Locke's Essay, and Locke's definition of uJea as that which the mmd Immediately
apprehends is actually not so much following Locke (although obviously he agrees
with him) as he is following out certain logical implications of the simplicity argu-
ment that lead to an Idealist conception of reality.
on the traditional proof for immortality,based on the immaterial and

therefore "indiscerpible" nature of the human soul.
I am at a loss to understand how you state the argument for the soul's
natural immortality; for the argument from thinking to immaterial from thence
to indiscerpible; and from thence to immortal don't seem to obtain in your
way of thinking. 79
Since Berkeley defines spirit as one, a simple, undivided, a monad,
indivisible, one would as a matter of course expect him to use the
argument from simplicity in order to infer the soul's immortality.
And indeed he does so in the Principles, despite Johnson's apparent
unawareness of the passage. Like those before and after him, Berkeley
is anxious to bring out the related consequences of the argument
from simplicity, namely (a) that God can always choose to annihilate
the soul, if He wills; and (b) that those who hold the soul to be
material and naturally mortal do so, according to Berkeley, in order
to deny the expectation of future rewards and punishment in an
afterlife. This in turn encourages immorality for Berkeley as it
previously did for Clarke.
It must not be supposed, that they who assert the natural immortality of
the soul are of opinion, that it is absolutely incapable of annihilation even
by the infinite power of the Creator who first gave it being: but only that it is
not liable to be broken or dissolved by the ordinary Law of Nature or motion.
They indeed, who hold the soul of man to be only a thin vital flame, or system
of animal spirits, make it perishing and corruptible as the body, since there
is nothing more easily dissipated than such a being, which it is naturally
impossible should survive the ruin of the tabernacle wherein it is enclosed.
And this notion hath been greedily embraced and cherished by the worst part
of mankind, as the most effectual antidote against all impressions of virtue
and religion ... [However we] have shown that the soul is indivisible, incorporeal,
unextended, and it is consequently incorruptible. Nothing can be plainer, than
that the motions, changes, decays, and dissolutions which we hourly see befall
natural bodies... cannot possibly affect an active, simple, uncompounded
substance: such a being therefore is indissoluble by the force of Nature, that
is to say, the soul of man is naturally immortaf.8o
Berkeley is convinced that materialism necessarily implies atheism by
reducing souls and God to physical bodies. Consequently the refutation
of the thesis of materialism is central to his religious convictions
and philosophic defense.
Lest the reader feel that I have stressed the English and French
79 The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne (Nelson, 1964), II, pp. 289-
290.
80 A Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710), Prmc. 141. In
the Preface to his work, Berkeley announces his intention to demonstrate the
inmortality of the soul agamst the sceptics and he uses a number of arguments in
order to do so.
involvement in the argument from simpliCity, and neglected the German
contingent (except for the "universal" genius of Leibniz), perhaps I
can complete this chapter with a full discussion of the related views
of Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) on the subject. As A. E. Taylor
suggests,81 the "German Socrates" employs the argument from
simplicity in order to demonstrate the immortality of the soul (as
well as related theses which Taylor does not mention). For it was
in 1767 that the Phaedo of Mendelssohn appears. In the preface to
the work, Mendelssohn mentions, among the authors he might have
cited as influential throughout the dialogue, the names of Plotinus,
Descartes, Leibniz, and Wolff;82 and although he points out the
difficulty of saying anything new about the immortality of the soul,
a topic which has been discussed by the greatest minds since antiquity,
he prefers to leave the judgment of the originality of the work to
the reader. He does, however, stress that in the third part of the book
he has tried, not merely to resurrect the ancient Greek arguments,
but to present Socrates as a thinker of the 17th or 18th century,
who might defend the immortality of the soul through reason.
Whether or not Mendelssohn is original, there is little doubt that
he directly influenced Kant's thinking,83 and that the context in
which he presents the problem of human immortality, in the Phaedo,
went far to determine the structure of Kant's own thinking about
it and related problems in the Paralogisms of the Critique of Pure
Reason.
Central to Mendelssohn's inquiry is the question whether the soul
can perish and disappear in a single instant. 84 Mendelssohn's proof
of the permanence of the soul, as Kemp Smith summarizes it, is
based on the argument:
81 See Chapter I, ftn. 8, of this work.

82 Wolff, Psychologw rationahs (Frankfurt, 1734). See Richard J. Blackwell, "Chris-
tian Wolffs Doctrine of the Soul," Journal of the History of Ideas, XXII (1961),
p.346.
83 See A. E. Taylor, Plato' The Man and HIS Work (Meridian, 1960), p. 189;
N. Kemp Smith, A Commentary to Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason' (Humanities,

1962), pp. 458-459, n. 5, 470-471. Kant alludes repeatedly to the argument for
simplicity in connection with Immortality in a number of passages: see, for example,
Prolegomena to any Future MetaphYSICS, Pt. III, Section 48, n. 8; Critique of Pure
Reason A xiv, B xxix, B xxxii, A 401, A 463 = B 491, A 466 = B 494, A 468 =
B 496. For Kant's relation to Mendelssohn, see Prolegomena, 263. Although Mendels-
sohn refers to Kant as "the all-destroyer," because of his "positiVistic" attitude in
the first edition Critique of Pure Reason, the two men had the greatest respect for
each other and corresponded; see L. W. Beck, Early German Philosophy (Harvard,
1969), p. 324
84 Moses Mendelssohn, Schriften ::ur Phliosophie, Aesthetik und Apologetik (Hildes-
heim; Georg Olms, 1968), I, p. 188.
that the soul, as it does not consist of parts cannot disappear gradually by
disintegration into its constituent elements. If, therefore, it perishes, it must
pass out of existence suddenly; at one moment it will exist, at the next moment
it will be nonexistent. But, Mendelssohn maintains, for three closely connected
reasons this would seem to be impossible. In the first place, the immediate
juxtaposition of directly opposed states is never to be met with in the material
world. Complete opposites, such as day and night, waking and sleeping, never
follow upon another abruptly, but only through a series of intermediate states
[Phaedon, pp. 184 ff.]. Secondly, among the opposites which material processes
thus bridge over, the opposition of being and not being is never to be f~und.
[Zwischen Sein and Nichtsein ist eine entsetzliche Kluft, die von der allmahlich
wirkenden Natur deI: Dinge nicht ubersprungen werden kann (ibid., p. 88)].
Only by a miracle can a material existence be annihilated. If, therefore, empirical
evidence is to be allowed as relevant, we must not assert of the invisible soul
what is never known to befall the material existences of the visible world.
Thirdly ... the sudden cessation of the soul's existence would also violate the
law of the continuity of time. Between any two moments there is always an
intermediate time in which the one moment passes continuously into the other
[ibid., p. 186].85
But still Simmias and Cebes (Mendelssohn retains the names of

the original participants of Plato's dialogue) are not quite satisfied,
and in the second part of the Phaedo, Simmias renews his objections
in the following terms.
Wenn ich Zweifel wider die Unsterblickeit der See1e errege, so geschieht
es nicht wider die Wahrheit dieser Lehre, sondern wider ihre vernunftmafsige
Erweislichkeit, oder vielmehr wider den Weg, welchen du, 0 Sokrates! gewahlt
hast, uns durch die Vernunft davon zu uberzeugen. 86
What Simmias wants proved is that after the destruction of our

body, our soul continues to exist and have ideas. For the immortality
of the soul must be more than a sleep without dreams, or even more
than mere dreaming if reason is lacking.
At this point the argument becomes inextricably related to the
problem concerning whether matter can think. Consequently Simmias'
objection - that the soul may be merely the result of the harmony
of material parts, as the melody produced from a lyre is the effect
of the material interaction of the strings - must somehow be met
by reason. Or as Echekrates sums up the objection, by declaring
that in the past, he had himself conjectured that thought is the
outcome of the configuration, position, and motion of material
particles:
und ich erinnere mich, dass ich vormals eben der Meinung gewesen, dass
die Kraft zu denken eine Eigenschaft des Zusammengesetzen sein, und ihren
Grund in einer feinen Organisation oder Harmonie der Theile haben k6nne. 87
85 N. Kemp Smith, op. elf, p. 470.

86 Mendelssohn, p. 196.
87 Ibid., pp. 201-202.
In other words, Simmias is introducing here the Epicurean and

materialistic thesis that senseless matter, under certain optimal con-
ditions, can and does think.
Aber vielleicht ist dieses denkende Verrnogen eine von den Thiitigkeiten
des Zusammengesetzten, wie die Kraft der Bewegung, der Ausdehnung, des
Zusammenhiingens u.s.w., die von der Lage und Bildung der Theile wesentlich
unterschieden, und dennoch nirgend anders, als im Zusammengesetzten, anzu-
treffen sind? 1st dieses nicht der einzige Oberrest des Zweifels, den wir bestreiten,
mein werther Simmias?BB
Socrates' answer is that one can never obtain by composition a

power or activity whose origin is not initially and essentially there
already in the elementary parts (p. 208). Simmias had offered the
example of the lyre, where the melody (= thought or the soul) is
the product of the interaction of the strings (material particles) (p. 198).
But with the dissolution of the instrument, the melody ceases, since
the harmony and the strings are inseparably united (p. 199). Socrates'
rejoinder is to point out that if the individual tones of a "harmony"
are separated and isolated, then there can be no melody. Each tone,
taken distinctly, cannot carry a harmony within itself; it is just what
it is - a mere sound. The harmony is a creation of thought, of
thinking beings, who assemble and compare the diverse sounds.
Aber diese Vergleichung und Gegeneinanderhaltung, ist sie wohl etwas
anderes, als die Wirking des Denkvermogens? und wird sie, aufser dem denkenden
Wesen ... ?B9
It is thought that mediates and transcends the sensations (of

individual sounds or tones), which are immediately and completely
given when they are given at all; for it is thought that goes beyond
sounds that, in themselves, are mere noises, mutely expressing or
referring to nothing beyond themselves, but expiring the moment
they come into being. 90
88 Ibid., p. 210.
89 Ibid., pp. 208-209.
90 See C. S. Peirce, "How to Make our Ideas Clear" (1878); ..... we observe
two sorts of elements of consciousness, the distinction between which may best be
made clear by means of an illustration. In a piece of music there are the separate
notes, and there is the air. A single tone may be prolonged for an hour or a day,
and it exists as perfectly in each second of that time as in the whole taken together;
so that, as long as it is sounding it might be present to a sense from which
everything in the past was as completely absent as the future itself. But It is different
with the air, the performance of which occupies a certain time, during the portions of
which only portions of it are played. It consists in an orderliness III the successIOn
of sounds which strike the ear at different times; and to perceive it there must
be some continuity of consciousness which makes the event of a lapse of time
present to us. We certainly only perceive the air by hearing the separate notes;
yet we cannot be said to directly hear it, for we hear only what is present at the
In addition, the question is rhetorically posed, how ~ if sensations

are to meet in the thinking self in the same fashion as they extrinsically
congregate in space ~ can there be a unity of consciousness; for
if thought is composed of parts, separate consciousnesses for each
part would result (ibid., p. 213; see Plotinus, Ennead, IV, 7).
Wir wiirden weder uns erinnern, noch iiberlegen, noch vergleichen, noch
denken k6nnen, ja wir wurden nicht einmal die Person sein, die wir vor einem
Augenblicke gewesen, wenn un sere Begriffe unter vielen vertheilt und nicht
irgenwo zusammen in ihrer genauesten Virbindung anzutreffen waren. Wir
miissen also wenigstens eine Substanz annehmen, die aile Begriffe der Bestandt-
heile vereinigt, und diese Substanz, wird sie aus Theilen zusammengesetz sein
k6nnen?91
This single substance must be simple (p. 213).

Auch unausgedehnt? denn das Ausgedehnte ist theilbar, und das Theilbare nicht
einfach ... Es gibt also in unserm K6rper wenigstens eine einzige Substanz,
die nicht ausgedehnt, nicht zusammengesetzt, sondern einfach ist, eine Vor-
stellungskraft hat, und aile unsere Begriffe, Begierden und Neigungen in sich
vereinigt. Was hindert uns, diese Substanz Seele zu nennen? - Es ist gleichviel,
vortrefflicher Freund! erwiederte Simmias, welchen Namen wir ihr geben; genug,
dass me in Einwurf bei ihr nicht statt findet, und aile deine Vernunftschlusse,
die du fUr die Unverganglichkeit des denkenden Wesens vorgebracht, nunmehr
unumstOfslich sind. 92
Thus the logic of the argument ends, Socrates having shown that
the indestructibility of the soul follows from its simplicity.
Kant was to oppose all these positions in the first and second edition
Paralogisms of the Critique oj Pure Reason, some fourteen and twenty
years later, respectively. Against Mendelssohn's argument for the
immortality of the soul, Kant replies that even if we admit that the
soul is simple, in the sense that it has no extensive quality, yet we
cannot deny to it an intensive quality; and that this latter may
gradually diminish and finally completely vanish "by elanguescence."
"As a sound, for instance, does not cease to exist by falling apart
into pieces, but by diminishing in intensity, so a self might pass out
instant, and an orderliness of succession cannot exist in an instant. These two sorts
of objects, what we are immediately conscious of and what we are mediately con-
scious of, are found in all consciousness. Some elements (the sensations) are completely
present at every instant so long as they last, while others (like thought) are actions
having beginning, middle and end, and consist in a congruence in the succession of
sensations which flow through the mind. They cannot be immediately present to us,
but must cover some portion of the past or future. Thought is a thread of melody
running through the succession of our sensations." See also, E. Husserl, The Phe-
nomenology of Internal Time Consciousness (Indiana, 1966), pp. 30-31, where the same
example is used.
91 Mendelssohn, p. 213.
92 Ibid., pp. 213-214.

of existence in the same way, as into a coma."93 Hence the soul
cannot be proved to be immortal by pure, a priori concepts, i.e.,
dogmatically (B 414- B 415).94
Thus, with Kant the argument for immortality, based on the soul's
alleged simplicity, ends. It never again, after Kant, enjoys the universal
importance and appeal that it possessed prior to his devastating
criticisms. It is not so much that Kant holds - as the Positivists
were later to hold - that the concepts and the propositions involved
in the proof are meaningless because, for example, they are empirically
unverifiable in principle (for he did not). But rather what Kant
claimed was that the question of the soul's simplicity could never be
answered in human terms because the concepts refer to existents
beyond experience. It remains a meaningful - but unanswerable -
question, one where unaided human reason will always lose itself
in the inevitable but dialectical illusions of transcendent metaphysics.
Perhaps we like to think that these metaphysical issues no longer
concern us, that they are of a time past, and we have relegated the
conflict to the book shelves of antiquity, where we imagine that all
metaphysical epics belong. But this would be a mistake, for the
uncovering of the history of the simplicity proof is not simply an
excavation in the history of ideas, for its influence on 17th and 18th
century discussions concerning the unity of consciousness and idealism,
as we shall see, forms a living connection with our philosophic present.
To these more contemporary and vital concerns, we are now in a
position to turn.
93 S. V. Keeling, op. cit., p. 300.

94 For Kant's refutations regarding Mendelssohn's arguments for (a) the unity of
consciousness; and (b) the thesis that senseless matter can be rationally proved
incapable of thinking, see Critique of Pure Reason, A 357 IT., wherem Kant rejects
both (a) and (b). Against Mendelssohn's arguments for personal identity, grounded
in the simplicity of the soul, see Kant's criticism A 363 IT. I shall take up these issues
in the following chapters.
CHAPTER III
THE UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE

17TH AND 18TH CENTURIES
Descartes and Locke are often credited with having effected a new
turn to philosophic questions. Prior to their thought, "metaphysical"
problems prevail. What are the first principles of reality? What are
the ultimate substances or constituents of the universe? Can the
existence of God be proved? The immortality of the soul? With
Descartes and Locke however, the important questions begin to sound
differently. For as metaphysical questions begin to take on more and
more of an aspect of insolubility, it becomes progressively an "epis-
temological" age. It is not so much that the old difficulties are replaced
or lose their value - and certainly they are never condemned as
meaningless, as they are in the 20th century - but rather new challenges
start to predominate. Significant issues now become what can man
know; what are the limits of knowledge? How does he know? What
is knowledge? With caution and qualifications, I believe, this is a
convenient and fairly accurate way of dichotomizing the history of
ideas until the 20th century. Thus, for example if these very general
categories have validity, as I think they have, we can expect the
argument from simplicity to undergo some corresponding change,
namely to conform from a use in metaphysical contexts to an increasing
employment in epistemological ones. And indeed our expectations
would be fulfilled. For whereas, prior to the 17th century, the simplicity
argument is primarily used in proofs for immortality, beginning with
the 17th century, the argument gains in importance and influence
in epistemological reflections as well.
On the other hand, however, it is just as evident that it would be
misleading to characterize all thinkers and schools in the period as
tending toward this separation or "shift" to an epistemological
emphasis. John Smith and Ralph Cudworth, as representatives from
the school at Cambridge, for instance, are certainly exceptions. Thus,
although it may be true that their spiritual ancestor separates
metaphysical and epistemological interests in the Phaedo and Theae-
THE UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 59
tetus, for instance, still the model for these thinkers remains the
Republic, where both intellectual pursuits of man find welcome
expression, where one perfect and unified dialogue takes up problems
concerned with knowledge (as in the divided line in Book VI) and
a proof for immortality (as in Book X). Or, similarly their paradigm
is the Enneads of Plotinus, where discussions concerning knowledge
are inextricably related to those regarding being. In this sense, the
Cambridge Platonists regard metaphysical and epistemological ques-
tions as inseparably interwoven. The goal of knowledge is necessary
truth; the highest order of truth pertains to verities that cannot be
given in, nor do they refer to, mere experience, but rather they apply
"beyond" experience, to metaphysics. And a significant number of
these truths are attainable by human reason. But apodictic certainty
can be found "below" experience as well, in epistemological investi-
gations, and the Cambridge men believe they have secured it in
proving the unity of consciousness by virtue of the soul's immaterial
simplicity.
As metaphysical and epistemological questions ooalesce and inter-
mingle in Plato and Plotinus in like manner do the answers corres-
pondingly tend to converge. For example, in Plato, the immateriality
of the forms helps explain (a) their ontological immutability (what
is "simple" cannot change [see Rep., 380 d]; (b) their apprehension
by the knowing soul (like knowing like [Phaedo, 78 b ff.]); and
(c) the immortality of the soul (the form of the "soul" is necessarily
and always accompanied by the form of life [3rd argument in the
PhaedoD. In Plotinus, the application of the simplicity argument - which
serves so well in relation to a proof for immortality - is, as we
have seen, also extended in order to solve important difficulties in
an epistemological context. The Cambridge scholars, fully aware of
this recurrent dual exploitation of principles are thus naturally led
to emulate their masters in this regard by considering the argument
from simplicity both in dealing with metaphysical issues and in treating
cognitive ones. 1
Thus in England, the implications involved in metaphysical proofs
for the immortality of the soul and contentions supporting an
epistemological unity of consciousness may be discovered as explicitly
separated by some philosophers (e.g., Locke), while by others the two
1 I am not saying that the English Platonists all regard the simplicity demon-
stration as felicitously applicable to proofs for both the immortality of the soul
and the unity of consciousness (thus Smith does, whereas Cudworth does not). But
rather that they do not in principle tend to sever epistemological and metaphysical
issues and therefore they are inclined to investigate the possibility of the argument's
use in these twin spheres.
60 THE UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS
proofs are essentially related (e.g., Smith). In this respect, Locke

finds proofs for immortality to be "above" human reason whereas
the issue of how the soul thinks, although perhaps not determinable,
is nevertheless not beyond the scope of philosophic discussion. In
opposition, Smith on the other hand, believes that there is no bifur-
cation between the metaphysical and the epistemological spheres and
he therefore grounds his proofs for both immortality and the unity
of consciousness in the a priori simplicity argument. In both Smith's
and Locke's cases, however, these controversies lead to dogmatic
assertions on the one hand and sceptical attacks on the other in
religion, metaphysics, and epistemology. And atheism in tum is once
again, as in the Hellenistic period, directly linked to the doctrine of
materialism, to the suggestion that the soul is corporeal, inherently
mortal, and that matter might be able to think. Perhaps John
Yolton's book on Locke best suggests the thread I am anxious to
disentangle when he connects the dispute over thinking matter with
the question of proofs for the immortality of the soul.
The full origins of the controversy over the ability of matter to think have
not as yet been satisfactorily uncovered. It very definitely seems to be an
offshoot of the Cartesian discussions on the nature of animals' minds and
their possible souls; but the discussion in England of the early part of the
[18th] century suggests that its relation to the doctrine of immortality is no
less important. It is in this latter relation that the controversy takes on a
relevance to Locke and to his doctrine of substance. 2
The vital connection occurs because certain - in fact most - religious
thinkers in the age are firmly convinced that the incorporeality of
the soul is a necessary condition for immortality and consciousness.
Arguing that the soul's essential activity of thought enables it to
possess an existence independent of the physical world, these thinkers
go on to insist that human thought is not bound by the limits of
sensation and past experience. Accordingly they maintain that the
soul has a power of achieving truth and acquiring knowledge about
its origin and destiny independently of experience. Similarly, the
transcending power of the soul is manifested, for instance, in the
ability of thought to transport itself to distant universes or to burst
the bonds of sensibility and encompass within itself the limitless
expanses of space. There is a fine passage in Kemp Smith, which
begins with a cynical quotation from Voltaire's Ignorant Philosopher
and then goes on to exemplify the rationalists' conviction in the
dignity of thought over Voltaire's pessimism: "it would be very
2 J. W. Yolton, John Locke and The Way of Ideas (Oxford, 1968), p. 149; see
pp. 148-166, for a first-rate discussion of some of the numerous authors involved
in the controversy.
singular," Voltaire announces, "that all nature, all the planets, should
obey eternal laws, and that there should be a little animal, five feet
high, who, in contempt of these laws, could act as he pleased, solely
according to his caprice." The response is given from the standpoint
of Leibniz, but certainly the Cambridge Platonists would have applau-
ded the answer as their own. For, as Kemp Smith replies, Voltaire
"is forgetting that this same animal of five feet can contain the stellar
universe in thought within himself, and has therefore a dignity which
is not expressible in any such terms as his size may seem, for vulgar
estimation, to imply. Man, though dependent upon the body and
confined to one planet, has the suns as the playthings of his mind.
Though finite in his mortal conditions, he is divinely infinite in his
powers."3
We shall first tum to the Cambridge Platonist rather than to
Descartes because in connection with the simplicity proof, in its use
as an argument demonstrating the epistemological unity of conscious-
ness: (1) the historical continuity of the argument, from Antiquity
into the Renaissance and then into the Modem period, is evident in the
case of the Platonists, whereas in Descartes it completely disappears,
since Descartes simply says nothing concerning it; and (2) the thOUght
of the British Platonists may be fully considered without assuming
any dependence on Cartesian ism, given that their primary development
arises from Platonic and Neoplatonic sources. Similarly, we shall not
begin with Locke, because, despite his obvious and revolutionary
importance, we can show that the English Platonists preceded him
and had a considerable influence on him and that he in tum then
determined the thought of other thinkers on the topic.
In many cases this exposition is merely a continuation, although I
insist a separable sequel, to arguments for immortality based on the
soul's immaterial simplicity, since, as I suggested, it was believed that
a necessary condition for both the unity of consciousness and
immortality was the immateriality of the soul. Hence, I will begin
with the Cambridge Platonists' positive invocation of the demonstration
and then take up Locke. Locke serves in this chapter in an analogous
way as Hobbes did in the last. He exemplifies the opposition in the
clash between Platonists and "materialists" in a manner which is
reminiscent of the struggles between Plotinus and the Epicureans;
Ficino and Pomponazzi; and Smith and the Epicureans. The Cambridge
men contend that matter cannot think; Locke suggests that it can.
The entire issue centers on this possibility. And once more I will
end with Kant, while urging that Kant's own attack on the simplicity
3 Kemp Smith, Commentary, p. xxxi.

argument for the unity of consciousness, in the Second Paralogism,

seems ambivalent and could (perhaps) have applied to his positive
account of the transcendental unity of apperception, which he sets
forth in the second edition Transcendental Deduction of the categories
in the Critique of Pure Reason.
My purpose then is: (1) to show that the argumentis in fact historically
all-important in 17th and 18th century epistemological issues, and I
do this by taking up a sufficient number of authors, many of whom,
for the sake of continuity, have already been introduced in the second
chapter; (2) to de~l with authors, like Cudworth, who use the argument
in order to prove the unity of consciousness but who nevertheless
refrain from summoning it as a proof of immortality, thus indicating
the separability of its uses; (3) to show that the struggle generated
by the opposing parties results in endowing the argument with an
independent "life" of its own; (4) to indicate how the entire atmosphere,
manifested by the ubiquitous presence of the argument, enhanced its
exploitation in the moral and epistemological spheres taken up in
Chapters IV and V; and (5) to document some pre-Kant ian antecedents
in its use, thereby dispelling the illusion of commentators and historians
of philosophy, intent on crediting Kant as being the initiator of the
argument via his transcendental or Copernican revolution.
The argument from the simplicity of thought and its postulation
as the "transcendental" condition for the unity of consciousness most
often occurs in opposition to the Epicurean-Hobbesian principle that
senseless matter can think; and the argument always refers to the
peculiar nature of consciousness and, especially, of selfconsciousness.
Thus, for instance, the rationalist tradition involved in this episte-
mological aspect of the simplicity theory constantly stresses the idea
that either all consciousness is actually selfconsciousness; or that
there is something special, "rational," about selfconsciousness which
essentially distinguishes it from mere sensation, perception, or con-
sciousness. And that even if perception might conceivably be explained
on Epicurean grounds, selfconsciousness could never be so understood.
Furthermore, unless different "thoughts" or concepts inhered in
something essentially unified and simple, they would fall apart and
crumble into distinct pieces and a disunity of consciousness would
thereby result. But the fact that we cannot divide our idea of, say,
blue into pieces as we can partition a blue object demonstrates that
there is something different in principle between ideas and objects;
and if there were not, stones could think and reason as readily as
minds. Thus unless consciousness were unified by something intrin-
sically simple, and therefore necessarily a unity (for what is simple
must be a unity), sensation, perception, cognition, awareness, memory,
reason, etc., would all be impossible.
In A Discourse Demonstrating the Immortality of the Soul, John
Smith revives the Plotinian argument which contends that the soul
is an immaterial unity. More specifically, Smith, relying heavily on
Plotinus' Fourth Ennead, seeks to prove, against a group of opponents,
whom he refers to as Lucretius and the Epicureans that: (a) matter
and motion cannot account for sensation and reason in man; (b) matter
and motion cannot account for selfconsciousness; (c) matter and motion
are inadequate to explain the faculty, in rational beings, that collects
and unifies the various perceptions of our several senses together;
and, finally (d) matter and motion cannot explain how consciousness
can bind past, present, and future in one thinking substance. Let us
take these in order. Concerning (a) Smith develops his argument in
the following terms.
But yet though we should grant all this which Lucretius contends for,
how shall we force up these particles of matter into any true and real perceptions,
and make them perceive their own or others motion ... ? For he having first laid
down his principles of all being, ... he only requires these postulata to unfold
the nature of all by concursus, motus, ordo, positura, figurae. But how any such
thing as sensation, or much lesse reason, should spring out of this barren
soil, how well till'd soever, no composed mind can imagine. For indeed that
infinite variety which is in the magnitude of parts, their positions, figures
and motions, may easily, and indeed must needs, produce an infinite variety
of phaenomena, which the Epicurean philosophy calls eventa. And accordingly
where there is a sentient faculty, it may receive the greatest variety of impressions
from them, by which the perceptions, which are the immediate result of a
knowing faculty, will be distinguish'd: Yet cannot the power it self of sensation
arise from them, no more then vision can rise out of a glasse, whereby it
should be able to perceive these idola that paint themselves upon it, though
it were never so exactly polish'd, and they much finer then they are or
can be.
Neither can those small corpuscula, which in themselves have no power
of sense, ever produce it by any kind of concourse or motion, for so a cause
might in its production rise up above the height of its own nature and virtue;
which I think every calm contemplator of truth will judge impossible ... 4
Here the main gist of the argument is quite easy and straightforward.
Material particles, having no original power of sensation to start
with, cannot result in sensation and any juxtaposition of their physical
configurations can never, therefore, account for the occurrence of
thought,S for as Smith observes "an effect cannot rise above its
cause."
4 Smith, op. cit., pp. 112-113. See Plotinus, Enneads, IV, 7, 3.
S Of course, a great many philosophers and physiologists have denied this con-
clusion. Thus, for example, Bertrand Russell has argued that a peculiar relation of
matter may result in the production of a novel entity. Just as hydrogen and oxygen,
both "dry" elements, combined in certain proportions, produce a "wet" entity, so,
he has argued, thought may be the outcome of a particular configuration of matter.
Locke and Hume, in principle, as we shall see, will suggest the same point.
Next (b), Smith proceeds to draw a distinction between conscious-

ness and selfconsciousness. For not only is the mind affected by
external matter impinging on the sense organs, and, as some desired
to argue, this account is sufficient to explain thought (although
Plotinus and Smith would emphatically deny even this contention),
but it also has the capacity to turn inwardly, to "introreflect."
And concerning thought's self-regarding power, Smith maintains that
the physiological and mechanistic model proves especially inadequate.
For example, even if one were somehow to explain how one is
experiencing a sensation of a red object, yet one could never describe
how it is that he is aware that he is seeing red; how it is that his
own thought can reflect on itself. This is a problem of a different
order. For there are no mental mirrors in nature, no thinking devices
which bounce our ideas back at us. Just so, the eye can see outwardly,
but it cannot see itself, although it can see itself reflected in an
external medium. However, a reflected eye is not itself an eye; it
cannot see. Thought, on the other hand, can have itself for its own
object, and in so reflecting upon itself, the thought and the object
of thought, as thought, are qualitatively and essentially the same,
namely self conscious. 6 In thus continuing his criticism of the Epicurean
theory of awareness, Smith expresses himself in terms which later
will suggest a turn of phrase employed by Cudworth, Bentley,
Shaftesbury, and others:
by [vim mobilem Lucretius] understands not merely an active power of motion,
but a more subtile energie, whereby the force and nature of any motion is
perceived and insinuated by its own strength in the bodies moved; as if
these sorry bodies by their impetuous justling together could awaken one another
out of their drowsie lethargie, and make each other hear their mutuall impetuous
knocks [italics mine]: which is as absurd as to think a musical instrument
should hear its own sounds and take pleasure in those harmonious aires that
are plai'd upon it. For that which we call sensation, is not the motion or
impression which one body makes upon another, but a recognition of that
motion; and therefore to attribute that to a body, is to make a body privy
to its own acts and passions, to act upon itself, and to have a true and
proper self-feeling virtue ... 7
6 For Descartes and Locke, as for Smith, all consciousness is selfconsciousness,

and the distinction between consciousness and selfconsciousness is eliminated. John
Norris, on the other hand, will distinguish what he terms a "figurative" difference
between direct and reflex thought (The Theory of the Ideal World (London, 1704),
II, pp. 118 ff.).
Some philosophers have denied that there is anything remarkable about conscious-
ness, while others have even gone so far as to deny that the term consciousness
denotes anything at all resembling what rationalist philosophers ever since Plato have
conceived it to mean. In this connection, see, for example, William James' and
Bertrand Russell's theory of "neutral monism," as set forth in James' essay "Does
'Consciousness' Exist?" and in Russell's "The Philosophy of Logical Atomism,"
Section VIII.
7 Smith, op. cit., p. 116.
The "self-feeling virtue" is, in this case, Smith's way of characterizing
selfconsciousness.
A further and more interesting point, namely (c), that Smith wishes
to make (as did Plotinus), is that the soul is a unity and/or is
productive of unity as, for example, in the unity we experience
concerning our thoughts. Accordingly Smith argues against the mate-
rialists that not only is the soul incorporeal but it is an indivisible
unity as well; and in doing so he explicitly draws on Aristotle's
conception of the sensus communis, as set forth in De Anima, Book III,
Chapter 1. But unlike Aristotle, Smith argues that the common
sensibles presuppose an immaterial unity in the thinking subject. For
this line of thought he gains support from Plotinus.
We also find such a faculty within our own souls as collects and unifies
all the perceptions of our several senses, and is able to compare them together;
something in which they all meet as in one centre: which [a footnore reference
to Enneads, IV, 7,6 is given] Plotinus hath well expressed ... That in which all
those several sensations meet as so many lines drawn from several points in
the circumference, and which comprehends them all, must needs be one. For
should that be various and consisting of several parts, which thus receive
all these various impressions then must the sentence and judgment passed
upon them be various tOO.8
In other words, Smith argues that only an immaterial simple can
serve as a "transcendental" condition for the unity of consciousness.
For should consciousness be composed of separate parts for the
various impressions, a "disunity" of consciousness would thereby
follow, and awareness would fall apart into distinct consciousnesses.
Unlike matter, which combines by the mere aggregation of extrinsically
related parts, thought rather must inhere in what is intrinsically and
essentially immaterial, for only what is immaterial, as unextended,
can be simple and therefore a true unity.
And finally (d), Smith rhetorically concludes with the rather Kantian
question, "What matter can thus bind up past, present, and future
time together?"9 This query itself is but an echo of Plotinus' statement
that "our memories" and "our recognition of familiar things" in
the present are dependent on a "stably identical soul." 1 0
John Smith's attempt to rationally prove the immateriality of the
soul as following from the nature of consciousness, and more
specifically selfconsciousness, is in method diametrically opposed to
Descartes's line of procedure (although for both, of course, thought
8 Ibid., p. 122. This passage is interesting because it suggestively anticipates an

example given by Kant (and later by Franz Brentano), namely, that if the soul is a unity,
then judgments or propositions must be as well.
9 Ibid., p. 123.
10 Enneads, IV, 7, 5.
is immaterial). For Descartes, neither the conditions nor the attributes

of thought are, properly speaking, demonstrable. Rather, Descartes's
idea is that thought, as a simple nature, is immediately, intuitively,
directly, clearly (and distinctly) apprehended or understood, and
cannot be inferred. 11 And yet there is another conception of the
nature of awareness in Descartes, for at times he seems to hold
that consciousness is a diaphanous medium, "through" which, or
"in" which, things appear. In neither of these views, however, is it
possible, on Descartes's principles, to get "beneath" or "below"
consciousness itself in order to discover its conditions. For according
to Cartesian ism, consciousness is an ultimate given, an unanalyzable
form of awareness, and there is nothing we can prove or infer
concerning its presuppositions. 12 Hence, on Descartes's view, for
example, even the cog ito does not constitute discursive or mediate
knowledge. For, as he tells us
when we become aware that we are thinking beings, this is a primitive act
of knowledge derived from no syllogistic reasoning. He who says, '[ think,
hence, [ am, or exist' does not deduce existence from thought by a syllogism,
but by a simple act of mental vision, recognises it as if it were a thing that is
known per se. This is evident from the fact that if it were syllogistically deduced,
the [universal] major premise, that everything that thinks, is, or exists, would
have to be known previously; but yet that has rather been learned from the
[immediate and particular] experience of the individual - that unless he exists
he cannot think. For our mind is so constituted by nature that general
propositions are formed out of the knowledge of particulars. 13
Like the cogito, the apprehension of thought, as an attribute, is
directly accomplished and its distinguishing characteristic of unex-
tendedness is grasped as selfevident, and not demonstrated. Accor-
dingly, if my interpretation of the Plotinian argument, as employed
11 Descartes, HR, II, p. 103; AT, VII, p. 229; IX: I, p. 177; Descartes's letter
to Princess Ehsabeth, 1643, AT, III, pp. 664-665; and HR, I, p. 190; AT, VII,
pp. 78-79; IX: I, p. 62; HR, I, pp. 324-325; AT, X, pp. 523-524. See S.V. Keeling,
Descartes, p. 73, 101, III; L. J. Beck, The MetaphysIcs of Descartes (Oxford, 1965), p.
p. 115; Kemp Smith, New Studies in the Philosophy of Descartes (Russell, 1963), p. 51 fT. ;
and Wolfson, Spinoza, II, pp. 163fT., esp. pp. 168-169.
12 Kemp Smith, A Commentary to Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason'; pp. xxxix-xl;
see also: Kemp Smith, New Studies, p. 9. Descartes did, however, have an excellent
opportunity to utilize the argument for the unity of consciousness against hiS
disowned disciple Regius. For Regius, as Descartes tells us, had actually asked
"Whether thought be material or immaterial [?]" and had suggested "that man is
body alone and that mind IS but a mode of body" ("Notes Directed against a
certain agamst Programme Published in BelgIUm at the End of the Year 1647";
HR, I, pp. 436-437; AT, VIII: 2, pp. 349 fT.). But IS answering Regius, Descartes
merely repeats, as he always does, that mind and body are distinct because they
can be conceived in complete separation.
13 Descartes, HR, II, p. 38; AT, VII, pp. 140-141; IX: I, pp. 110-111. See also:
Wolfson, Spmoza, I, pp: 168-169.

by the Cambridge Platonists, is correct, then there IS an essential
difference both in principle and in method between the Cambridge
men and Descartes's conception regarding the giveness of thought. For
with the Cambridge Platonists, it is, of course, far otherwise. Committed
to a powerful faith in the ability of human reason to plumb to its
own depth and origin, they seek to discover and establish the very
condition that makes consciousness itself possible.
After the introduction of the argument from simplicity into the
contemporary realm of philosophic thought in England by Smith,
its influence becomes powerful but diffuse. Perhaps because of its
familiarity to the age, references to the argument become quite often
couched in what to the 20th-century reader retrospectively appears
to be vague and general terms; and after a while longer the authors
who invoke it refrain or, perhaps, are unable to specify its true
sources. Indeed, in all likelihood after its immersion into the life
of thought of the 17th and 18th centuries it would seem that its
Plotinian sources were soon neglected and subsequently forgotten.
Although to be sure, this was not always true, as in the cases of
Cudworth and Berkeley, for example, who remain well aware of their
heritage and debt. Thus, Cudworth, who (like Smith) is acutely aware
of the ancient antecedents of the inference from simplicity, defends
the thesis of the unity of consciousness and criticizes the theory that
material substances could conceivably produce immaterial thought,
reason, or selfconsciousness. The reader may remember that Cudworth
had differentiated and opposed several kinds of atheism, all of which
he found to be hopelessly committed to the reductivist principle
of materialism. The 'Atomick or Democritical" variety of irreligion
especially comes in for concentrated attack and its characterization
is highly reminiscent of Smith's description of Epicureanism:
the Democritick atheism. admitting a true notion of body, that (according to
the doctrine of the first and most ancient atomists) it is nothing but resisting
bulk. devoid of all manner of life; yet because it takes for granted that there
is no other substance in the world besides body. does therefore conclude,
that all life and understanding in animals and men, is generated out of dead
and stupid matter... as resulting from the contextures of atoms, or some
peculiar composition of magnitudes. figures, sites and motions. and consequently
that they are themselves really nothing else but local motion and mechanism ... 14
In meeting the atomists' challenge, Cudworth is fond of claiming

that he is turning their own principle, that nothing comes from
nothing, against them. Hence, if matter is senseless, it can never
produce sensation; and life, sensation, and reason, which we undeniably
discover within ourselves, would be without a cause, if there were
14 Cudworth. T./.S., I. Chapter III, Sect. 34, p. 144.

no incorporeal substance, since they cannot possibly be derived from

dead matterY According to Cudworth two important points follow.
There being indeed nothing more requisite, to a thorough confutation of
atheism, than the proving of these two things; first that life and understanding
are not essential to matter as such; and secondly that they can never possibly
rise out of any mixture or modification of dead and stupid matter whatsoever.
The reason of which assertion is, because all atheists, as was before observed,
are mere corporealists. 16
Essentially then, Cudworth's objection will be seen to follow that of
Smith, as he makes clearer several passages prior to the ones just
quoted, and they rest on the same point as Smith's, namely, that
however one may juxtapose or manipulate bodies physically in space,
one can never produce a thought from such a fortuitous combination
of matter.
Indeed we are not ignorant, that some who seem to be well-wishers to
atheism, have talk'd sometimes of sensitive and rational matter, as having
a mind to suppose, three several sorts of matter in the universe, specifically
different from one another, that were originally such, and self-existent from
eternity; namely senseless, sensitive, and rational: As if the mundane system
might be conceivable to arise, from a certain jumble of these three several sorts
of matter, as it were scuffling together in the dark [italics mine], without a God,
and so producing brute animals and men. But as this is a mere precarious
hypothesis, there being no imaginable accompt to be given, how there should
come to be such an essential difference betwixt matters, or why this piece of
matter should be sensitive, and that rational, when another is altogether
senseless; so the suggestors of it are but mere novices in atheism, and a kind
of bungling well-wishers to it. I 7
Concerning the unity and simplicity of the thinking substance,

Cudworth, like Smith, draws directly from Plotinus' Fourth Ennead,
Seventh Tractate. As for Smith, the essential emphasis lies for Cudworth
in the consideration that if diverse representations are to be collected
and bound together, it must be accomplished by something that is
intrinsically unified and simple.
And this is properly called, I My Self, not the extended bulk of the body,
which is not one but many substances, but an unextended and indivisible unity,
wherein all lines meet, and concentre, not as a mathematical point, or least
extensum; but as one self-active... substantial, or inside being, that containeth,
holdeth, and connecteth all together. IS
15 Lydia Gysi, op. cit., pp. 13-14.

16 T.l.S., Bk. I, Chap. III, Sect. 34, p. 145.
17 Ibid., I, iii, 32, p. 137. See also: I, v, p. 823. Compare the italicized phrase
with the passage from Smith, above.

18 Ibid., I, v, p. 826. Probably Locke's later distinction of the "self' (in his
chapter on personal identity in the Essay) as that which others see, and "person" as
that which I know from within (Cudworth's "inside being") has its origin in this
section of T.I.S. Similarly I believe the context of Locke's later discussions regarding
One commentator, Lydia Gysi, has put the issue in the following
succinct manner.
We should get into great difficulties, if we tried to explain sense perception
without admitting an indivisible centre in man, where all the perceptions
converge. Were the soul Extension, it would necessarily be divisible. Each part
would then be Soul itself, and the other parts superflous .
... If Soul is divisible, and therefore a plurality, it follows that every man
is a plurality of percipients. 19
The positive aspect of the proof again ultimately derives from

Plotinus, and the passage referred to by Cudworth is the same as
the one already alluded to by Smith.20
That which perceiveth in us, must of necessity be one thing, and by one and
and the same indivisible, perceive all; and that whether they be more things,
entring through several organs of sense, as the many qualities of one substance;
or one various and multiform thing, entring through the same organ; as the
countenance or picture of a man. For it is not one thing in us, that perceives
the nose, another thing the eyes, and another thing the mouth; but it is one
and the self same thing, that perceiveth all. And when one thing enters through
the eye, another the ear, these also must of necessity come, all at last to one
indivisible, or else they could not be compared together, nor one of them
affirmed to be different from another? The several sentiments of them meeting
no where together in one [Plotinus] concludes therefore, that this one thing
in us, that sensibly perceives all things, may be resembled to the centre of
a circle and the several senses, to lines drawn from the circumference, which
all meet in that one centre. Wherefore that which perceives and apprehends
all things in us, must needs be really one, and the very same; that is, unextended
and indivisible 21
Thus Cudworth attacks all forms of materialism, ancient as well
as modem. Among the modems, he intends, of course, Hobbes (whom
he refuses to mention by name) with his Epicureanism; moral relativism
and scepticism; and conception of a material God. The special guilt
of Hobbes is to identify the imaginable and the conceivable. For if
we can have no idea which is not reducible to sense experience, it
follows that we can have no conception of 'an immaterial soul or an
incorporeal deity. But Descartes comes in for some severe criticism
as well. Both Cudworth and More had initially welcomed Cartesianism,
but as time went on they repented of their early enthusiasm and
became convinced that Cartesian ism was tainted with mechanistic
personal identity can be found here where Cudworth connects the idea of the self
with the conception of an "indivisible unity." (ThiS topic will be resumed in
Chapter IV).
19 Lydia Gysi, op. CIl., pp. 13-14.
20 Cudworth is himself convinced that Plotinus, not Plato, was the first to employ the
above arguments in order to prove the soul to be unextended and indivisible
(T.I.S., The Contents, references to pages 822-826).
21 T.I.S., I, v, p. 824 and following.
principles. In fact, Cudworth even went so far as to accuse the

Cartesians of having "out done" the atomists in their "mechanizing
humour." For the Cartesians, wrote Cudworth, "have an undiscerned
tang of the mechanistic Atheism hanging about them. "22
To sum up then: Cudworth, although he avoids using the simplicity,
i.e., inextension, argument in order to prove immortality, nevertheless
employs it in upholding the unity of consciousness, confessing that
"there is something unextended even in our very selves" (p. 823).
His excuse for doing so is his desire to propound the theories of
certain of the ancients who contend "that there is something unextendly
incorporeal" (p. 823). How really important for Cudworth the entire
question of whether the immaterial is or is not extended, however, clearly
appears in his :'aside" that an "un extended deity is no impossible
idea." Poor Cudworth. What a dilemma! Are immaterial entities
unextended or not? He found excellent reasons for accepting both
positions. But at least he could rest assured that the authorities he
respected most, both in the ancient and contemporary world (i.e.,
Henry More), upheld the doctrine of the existence of immaterial
substances.
I have dealt with Cudworth for two reasons. First, although Smith
precedes him in using the argument, Cudworth is by far the more
influential writer on later thinkers; and a definite connection can be
established between Cudworth and Locke, whereas the evidence for
Locke's debt to Smith is admittedly more tenuous. More importantly,
however, Cudworth, unlike Smith, separates two uses of the argument;
or at least he indicates the grounds on which such a compartmen-
talization can be secured. Thus, although he avails himself of the
simplicity proof in order to argue to a unity of consciousness, he
avoids doing so for the purpose of demonstrating the immortality
of the soul. 23
The two figures whom I have just summarized are sympathetic
supporters of the argument; but as I indicated in my prefatory remarks
regarding this part of the study, Locke's opposition and criticism
of the simplicity argument undoubtedly contributes as much to the
propagation of the proof, as a living issue, as the positive appeals
made for it by the Cambridge thinkers. For as John Stuart Mill said,
in On Liberty, unchallenged ideas soon become merely parroted
words. It is in this sense that Locke's function in the ensuing
epistemological discussions take on the vital significance which
Hobbes's objections and alternate theories had in Chapter II.
22 Quoted from J. H. Muirhead, The PlatOniC Tradition in Anglo-Saxon Philosophy
(Allen and Unwin, 1965), p. 26.

23 See Chapter II of this study.
Perhaps even more than Descartes, Locke best reflects the epistemolo-
gical attitude gaining favor in his day. Locke's significance centers on the
fact that although he seemingly rejects the argument, with him at least,
unlike Descartes, the simplicity proof is clearly, consciously present
as forming the contextual framework of ideas surrounding his oppo-
sition. He was definitely aware of it in its epistemological context,
whereas it seems unlikely that Descartes was. Despite the fact that
Locke is not the initial nor even the first major philosopher in the
17th century to defend the possibility or conceivability of matter to
think (for at least Hobbes preceeded him in this) nevertheless he is
the author who is most influential in bringing the question into focus
both by his explicit utterances on the topic and through his influence
in the widely read Essay.
As we have seen, although Locke dismisses the rationalist argument
for simplicity, in connection with an attempted proof for immortality,
it is clear from his later writings that the context in which the argument
presents itself in his thought still continues to trouble him, and that
he realizes the implication of the soul's alleged simplicity in relation
to his broader epistemological speculations. This broader frame of
reference is eminently brought out in Gibson's commentary on Locke.
To be sure, Gibson relates his discussion to Locke's examination of
Malebranche, but I believe the point he makes affords us considerable
insight into Locke's thought as he sought to develop his ideas in reply
to the doctrine of the Cambridge Platonists as well. According to
Gibson, the initial assumption, which underlies Locke's entire procedure
in the Essay, is that the existence of ideas may be taken for granted
and their employment in knowledge investigated without attempting
to take up the questions or difficulties which may arise regarding
their status as elements of reality or their relation to the knowing
mind as a substance. However, although these problems are avoided
in the Essay, they are nevertheless repeatedly perused in Locke's
subsequent writings. In this regard, Locke challenges Stillingfleet to
answer "how the action of thinking is performed" and to conceive
"how your own soul or any substance thinks." In a reply to Norris,
Locke traces the difficulty of accounting for the mind's relation to
its ideas to what he regards as its ultimate source, namely, in the
current and prevailing metaphysical and epistemological postulation
of the soul as a simple substance. For, as Locke insists, "No man
can give any account of any alteration made in any simple substance
whatsoever." As Gibson's interpretation of Locke's position points
out:
Experience assures us of the difference between having a perception and being
without it; but when we seek to penetrate below this deliverance of consciousness,
and endeavour to understand the fact in terms of our assumed construction of

reality, we are brought up by this indissoluble problem.24
From these and numerous other passages found throughout Locke's
later works, Gibson concludes that
it is apparent that the process of reflection upon knowledge from the standpoint
of experience, which Locke had initiated, was already undermining the current
dogmatic metaphysics in one of its strongholds. But while indicating the depth
of Locke's dissatisfaction with the dogmatism of his age, they also serve to
illustrate the limits of his criticism. Notwithstanding the difficulties and apparent
contradictions to which the current determination of the soul as a simple
substance leads us, it is not set aside as intrinscally mistaken or absurd [i.e.,
meaningless].25
However, if I am on the right track in tracing the historical influence

of the rationalist argument in 17th and 18th century thought, then
Locke's inability to free himself from the "dogmatist" reasoning of
such Cambridge Platonists as Smith and Cudworth is undoubtedly
due to a great extent to the persuasive character of their thought.
For not only had the Cambridge men attempted to prove the
immortality of the soul, but, what is more important to Locke, they
had also employed what may be called a "transcendental" argument,
or, as Gibson puts it, they sought "to penetrate below" immediate
awareness. In other words, given the undeniable fact that thinking
human beings are able to, and do, compare, collect, and bind various
ideas together in one consciousness, they asked themselves what sort
of essential characteristic must consciousness itself have in order to
perform such cognitive acts? What presupposition or condition is
assumed in order to account for the unifying power of human
awareness? The answer that both Smith and Cudworth set forth was
that consciousness is a unity because the soul is simple, and what
24 John Gibson, Locke's Theory of Knowledge and Its Historical Relations (Cam-
bridge, 1968), p. 27; italics mine. At this point in his text Gibson offers the foIl owing
quotation from Locke's Examination of Malebranche, Section 39, directed against the
Oratorian's account of sentiments: "Different sentiments are different modifications
of the mind. The mind or soul that perceives is one Immaterial indivisible substance.
Now I see the white and black on this paper. I hear one singing in the next room, I feel
the warmth of the fire I sit by, and I taste an apple I am eating, and all this at the
same time. Now I ask, take 'modification' for what you please, can the same
un extended and indivisible substance have different-nay, inconsistent and opposite
(as those of white and black must be) modifications at the same time? Or must we
suppose distinct parts in an indivisible substance, one for black, another for white,
and another for red ideas?"
Malebranche himself takes up the question whether matter can think and naturaIly
decides in the negative. The issue is brought up in relation to the problem of human
immortality. See Entretiens sur la Metaphysique et sur la Religion (Paris, 1961),
pp. 62ff., 112ff. See also: Leibniz Selections, ed. P. Wiener (Scribners, 1951), p. SOl.
2S Gibson, p. 28.
is simple is necessarily a unity.26 Unlike Descartes and Locke, the
Cambridge men tried to get "beneath" or "below" our ideas to their
origins and conditions.
In direct opposition to the Cambridge philosophers, then, Locke
insists first, as we have seen in the preceeding chapter, that immortality
cannot be demonstrated "from natural reason"; but rather he believes
the doctrine to be a revealed truth. And secondly, Locke declares,
in the Essay and in his correspondence with Stillingfleet, that since
substance is unknowable in its intrinsic nature
it is possible, i.e., involves no contradiction, that God, the omnipotent immaterial
spirit, should, if he pleases, give to some parcels of matter, disposed as he
thinks fit, a power of thinking and moving; which parcels of matter, so
endued with a power of thinking and motion, might properly be called spirits,
in contradistinction to unthinking matter. 27
This possibility, which Locke seemingly entertains as a digression,
explodes like a bombshell on the intellectual field of battle and elicits
a profusion of violent accusations of Socinianism and deism against
him, his accusers pointing out that his doctrine represents a specific
danger to Christianity. Thus, Stillingfleet charges "that it is repugnant
to the idea of senseless matter, that it should put into itself sense,
perception, and knowledge" (Essay IV, iii, 6, note); and he demands,
"What is there like self-consciousness in matter?"; for, as the Bishop
argues, "self-consciousness depends upon an individual, immaterial
substance" (ibid.). Always the reasoning is the same, whether it is
the unity of consciousness of the thinking subject or the immortality
of the human soul that is being considered. Thought and immortality
depend on unity and indestructibility, respectively. What is immaterial
and unextended is simple and therefore unified and indestructible.
Immaterial thoughts and incorporeal substances are simple, having
no parts, and therefore, they are essentially unities and indestructible.
Locke in opening up the possibility of matter being able to think
26 A compound mayor may not be a unity. In the case of a biological organism,
for instance, it may be argued that such an entity is a unity, although it is not
a simple entity. But in the case of a simple existent it is necessarily a unity.
27 Essay IV, iii, 6, note (James Kay, 1840). Locke's "materialism" was soon
connected with those of Socinus, Hobbes, and Spinoza. Elsewhere, however, in the
Essay (IV, x, 5ff.), when Locke offers a proof for the existence of God, by main-
taining that all thought must ultimately derive from the nature of God, he expresses
himself in language that is very reminiscent of the Cambridge Platonists (and of
Stillingfleet, below): "For it is as repugnant to the idea of senseless matter that it
should put into itself sense, perception, and knowledge, as it is repugnant to the
idea of a triangle that it should put into itself, greater angles than two right ones
(see also: Works, 4, p. 36). Locke's passage predates Stillingleet's (below) by six
years.
On Locke's debt to Cudworth in this regard, see Aaron, Locke, pp. 142-143.
thereby implies that the soul is material. But if the soul is material
it cannot be immortal. Locke's twofold answer, however, remains
firm. The assertion that the soul is an immaterial substance is no
explanation of "how the action of thinking is performed" (ibid.).
Indeed, Locke insists that the fact that an immaterial substance can
think is no less of a miracle, and no more of an explanation, than
that a material substance should be granted the power of thought.
Secondly, according to Locke immateriality is not a necessary condition
of immortality.28 The reason Locke does not believe this is probably
because he believes in the ressurrection of the dead.
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 first begin 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 designated to men, according to their doings in this
life. 29
Thus, as Locke hastens to add, on Pyrrhonian grounds, whether
the soul is immaterial or material "is a point which seems to me to
be out of the reach of our knowledge" (ibid.).
Locke's famous debate with Stillingfleet - over the question whether
senseless matter can think - took place in 1697. 30 Some five years
earlier, Richard Bentley (1662-1742) delivered a sermon directed against
the notion that corporeal substances could think. In 1682 Bentley had
been chosen as tutor to Stillingfleet's second son and from 1683-1689
he resided in Stillingfleet's house. Then, in 1690, when Stillingfleet
became Bishop of Worcester, Bentley was appointed his chaplain.
Whether or not the two men ever discussed Locke's Essay together
is difficult to determine, although it seems rather unlikely that neither
was cognizant of Locke's teachings between 1690-1692. In any case,
notwithstanding the fact that Locke is not mentioned by name in
Bentley's deliverance - a situation not at all unusual considering the
penchant of the time to avoid reference to contemporaries - it is clear
28 See A Letter to the ... Bishop of Worcester, Works, IV, p. 33; Yohon, op. cit.,
pp. 152-153.
29 Essay, IV, iii, 6. See also Chapter II.
30 Professor Popkin has argued in a recent article that the Anglican divine did not
undertake to challenge Locke's views until he was alarmed by the appearance of
John Toland's deistic work, ChrIStianity not Mysterious (1696), which applied many
of Locke's views in his (Toland's) criticism of Chnstian religious beliefs, as for
example, concerning the Trinity ("The Philosophy of Bishop Stillingfleet," The Journal
of the History of PhIlosophY, IX, 3 [July, 1971], pp. 307, 310-311). Presumably then,
even if Stillingfleet was aware of Locke's doctrines prior to that time he did not
consider them sufficiently dangerous to warrant public censure.
that Bentley was responding to current philosophical and theological
issues when, in 1692, he preached a sermon, entitled Matter and
Motion Cannot Think: or, A Confutation of Atheism, 31 ostensibly
directed against, among others, the Epicureans, who "ascribed the
origin and frame of the world not to the power of God, but the
fortuitous concourse of atoms" (p. 28). But beside the atomists Bentley
definitely has Hobbes (and perhaps Locke as well) in mind (p. 50).
Consequently, in opposition to "every Atheist and counterfeit Deist
of these times, that believes there is no substance but matter, and
excludes all incorporeal nature out of the number of beings" (p. 36),
Bentley affirms, on Cartesian principles, "that there is an immaterial
substance in us which we call soul" (p. 34). But then his argument
becomes decidedly Plotinian when he goes on to say that the mechanists
maintain that sensation and perception proceed from particles of
matter; but if this were so either: (a) "every stock and stone would be
a percipient and rational creature" (p. 35); or (b) "every single
atom of our bodies would be a distinct animal, endued with self-
consciousness." For, as he explains, "a great number of such living
and thinking particles could not possibly, by their mutual contact and
pressing and striking, compose one greater individual animal, with
one mind and understanding, and a vital consension of the whole
body, any more than a swarm of bees or a crowd of men and women,
can be conceived to make up one particular living creature, com-
pounded and constituted of the aggregate of them all" (pp. 35-36).
Predictably, Bentley concludes that the chance collocation of atoms
could never result in consciousness and selfconsciousness.
But what a strange and miraculous thing should we count it, if the flint
and the steel, instead of a few sparks, should chance to strike out definitions
and syllogisms? and yet it's altogether as reasonable as this sottish opinion
of the Atheists, that dead senseless atoms can ever justle and knock one another
into life and understanding. 32
Like Smith before him, who used the example of a highly-polished

piece of glass being unable to see, Bentley asserts (in connection with
animals possibly being mere machines) that a looking-glass can have no
awareness of the objects it reflects nor the index of a watch a
consciousness of the hour to which it points (p. 46). And like Samuel
Clarke after him, Bentley holds, against Locke, that God himself
could not create thinking matter.
31 The Works of Richard Bentley, ed. A. Dyce (A M S Press, 1966), III, p. 27 fT.
32 Ibid., pp. 42-43. The resemblance in argument, language, and metaphor, which
may seem at times to border on unacknowledged plagiarism, I believe, can be
attributed to the consideration that some of these compositions were intended as
direct appeals to congregations, where contemporary secondary references would have
merely detracted from the rhetorical purpose and appeal of the sermons.
Omnipotence itself cannot create cogitative body.

And 'tis not any imperfection in the power of God, but an incapacity in
the subject. The ideas of matter and thought are absolutely incompatible ... 33
As the lecture of Bentley indicates, it is possible to connect the

question of thinking matter as deriving from either (a) Epicureanism;
(b) Cartesian ism, with its principle of animal automatism, and its
possible extension to human thinking; or (c) both. To what extent the
Cartesian physic is itself indebted to Epicureanism is hard to say.
Certainly Descartes would have been familiar with atomistic principles
from Lucretius' De rerum natura, at least through the essays of
Montaigne. 34 However, although the Epicureans assigned ultimate
reality to both the atoms and the void, Descartes, who identified space
and matter, differed from them on this point. On the other hand,
there is a strong emphasis on explanations restricted to matter and
motion, resulting in determinism, in both. 35 Similarly, Descartes at
least would have been aware of Montaigne's tales of syllogizing dogs
and reasoning foxes, examples advantageous to both Sceptics and
Epicureans, which he wished to explain. In other words, I believe
a strong case can be made that the "physical" and "physiological"
aspects of Descartes's natural philosophy are traceable to Epicurean
elements. Furthermore, I suspect that the thinkers who historically
followed Descartes, and were more impressed by their own "moder-
nity," probably conceived themselves as dealing with issues revolving
around animal and human automatism; whereas those who adhered
to the notion that there is "nothing new under the sun" viewed the
new materialism as merely a revivification of the ancient form.
John Norris, like Bentley, exemplifies this fusion of modem and
ancient elements in his handling of Platonic and Cartesian principles.
In 1701 and l704, volumes I and II, respectively, of Norris' The
Theory of the Ideal World appeared. The discussion of the "great
question," namely, whether matter can think, occurs in the second
tome of that work. As Norris indicates, the interesting thing is "how
we think" and "what it is in us that is the principle of thought"
(II, p. 5). Norris commences his inquiry by admitting that although
we cannot "lay open and unfold the very nature and essence of the
soul" - and against Descartes he insists that we cannot have a direct
intuition or clear idea of it - nevertheless it remains an indubitable
proposition that the soul "must be allowed to have a conscious
33 Ibid., p. 45.
34 See Richard Popkin, The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes
(Harper, 1964), pp. 175, 176.
35 Classic Epicureanism did posit the doctrine of the random "swerve" of atoms,
as they fell through space, but this did not principally affect the general doctrine of
physical (as oposed to moral) determinism.
sentiment, as of its being, so also of its operations, and to be able
also to reflect upon them." "This," Norris continues, "being the
privilige ... which the spiritual has above the carnal eye, that whereas
the eye of the flesh sees other things but not it self, the understanding
sees other things and it self too, as being able not only to act,
but to reflect upon its actions, and so to make it self its own object.
A privilige peculiar to spirit, and which exceeds the whole power and
capacity of matter" (II, p. 4).
Three things may be stressed regarding Norris' views on the impos-
sibility of matter to think. First, the whole discussion once again
begins in connection with the vital issue concerning the immortality
of the soul. This work of Norris' (which preceeded Dodwell's tract
on immortality), argues that those who opt to believe that matter
can think "make it plainly unpossible to prove the immateriality,
and consequently the natural immortality of the soul" (II, p. 8). For
as immortal is taken for indissolvible, and as 'tis opposed to corruption, so
nothing but what is immaterial, can be immortal. Since if material it will be
divisible and so mortal and corruptible. 36
Thus, Norris stresses that if one believes that matter can think,
and that the soul is material, then one can never proceed to demonstrate,
starting from this corporeal principle, that the soul is immortal;
although, one can still, of course, believe it on the basis of revelation
or faith. The premise of a material soul precludes in principle the
proof of its immortality. And already in these passages Norris
distinguishes the conception of positive immortality from that of
natural, which he was later to exploit in his response to Dodwell in
developing his distinction between incorruptible and unperishable (as
we have already observed in Chapter II). Secondly, Norris, I think,
is aware of the controversy between Locke and the Bishop of Worcester
and he criticizes Locke for abandoning reason in suggesting that divine
omnipotence could create thinking matter (II, pp. 46 ff.). And finally,
Norris' entire proof, that matter cannot think, is fundamentally based
on the Cartesian (and Malebranchean) principle that the material and
the mental are conceptually distinct. This is significant and informative
because throughout the entire section Norris does not use the argument
from the unity of consciousness. If my contention is correct, namely,
that Descartes himself was ignorant of (or at least unimpressed by)
the proof for the unity of consciousness, then this is to be expected,
Norris in this respect clearly being more influenced by Descartes
rather than his spiritual neighbors from Cambridge. 37
36 Ibid., p. 9.
37 The section I have just discussed, in The Theory of the Ideal World, is followed
in Norris' book by a "digression" concerning the souls of brutes.
Bayle serves the same function in this chapter as he did in the last.
Once it can be established that the argument found its way into his
hands, it can be assumed to have been transmitted into the larger
intellectual hands of the entire age. As one might expect, Bayle,
who knew everything and believed that one could prove nothing,
discusses the argument from simplicity in connection with the possibility
of thinking matter in his encyclopaedic Dictionary. According to Bayle,
it is absurd, i.e., selfcontradictory, to maintain that senseless matter
could think, and he concludes therefore that the soul is immaterial.
Furthermore,
there is nothing more dangerous or contagious than to lay down a false
principle... One absurdity once laid down, draws after it many others. If you
only err concerning the nature of the human soul; if you flatly think that it is
not a substance distinct from matter; that falsity will lead you to believe that
there are gods, who at fIrst were born from fermentation... Nothing appears
to be grounded upon clearer and more distinct ideas than the immateriality
of every thinking being, and yet some Christian Philosophers maintain that
matter is capable of thinking. 38
The argument underlying this absurdity, as Bayle gives it is grounded

in the fact that the Epicureans cannot meet the objection "founded
on the unity, properly so called, which must belong to thinking
beings" (III, 790). For unless "man, as a thinking being, is not
corporeal, or material, or divided, or compounded of many beings"
(III, 791), he could never be conscious; he could not achieve acts
of knowledge; and he could never grasp anything as a whole. There-
fore, unless the soul is an immaterial unity, it cannot think. In
addition, Bayle, in his article on Aristotle's disciple, Dicaearchus,
points out that the controversy over the posibility of thinking matter,
in which Locke and Stillingfleet are engaged, "has made much noise
in England" (II, pp. 661-662). This confirmation again lends support
to the continuity and obvious popularity of the issues involved.
Mme. Labrousse, in her two volume book on Bayle,39 gives a
38 Pierre Bayle, The DictIOnary Historical and Critical (second edition, 1737), III,
article on "Jupiter," Note H, p. 650.

Simon Foucher, whom Bayle admired and seriously read, in his Dissertation sur la
recherche de la verite, contenant l'apologie des academiciens, .. , (Paris, 1687), defended
the Platonic Academics by arguing for the immateriality and unity of the soul. For,
as Foucher contended, drawing on Plotinus, there must be an indivisible subject
underlying all our sensations, thoughts, and judgments; otherwise it would be impos-
sible to construct a thinking being from insensible and separable parts; and conse-
quently the soul must be an indivisible unity. And, he argued, from its unity and
indivisibility, the soul's immortality immediately followed. Bayle, who is aware of the
simplicity argument's uses in proofs for immortality and the unity of consciousness
may have easily borrowed here from Foucher.
39 Elisabeth Labrousse, Pierre Bayle (Nijhoff, Vol. I, 1963; Vol. II, 1964).
thorough discussion of whether matter can think, within the context
of the Cartesian problem of whether or not animals are mere automata.
The Aristotelians had held that the souls of animals were sensitive,
but not rational. However, for Bayle, to be sensitive is to be aware
that one feels and therefore it entails selfconsciousness. Thus, according
to Bayle, "il est evident a quiconque sait juger des choses que toute
substance qui a quelque sentiment sa it qu'elle sent," that "tous les
actes des facultez sensitives sont, de leur nature et par leur essence,
reflexifs sur eux-memes."40 Although in the main, Bayle pretends to
restrict himself to merely reporting the paradoxical and conflicting
opinions of philosophers, in fact he seems strongly to incline to the
view that the soul cannot think unless it is immaterial. Hence, Bayle,
probably with Locke and Cudworth in mind, declares:
Voici une ... difficulte qui ne seroit pas moins insoluble si les plus Philosophes
de notre siecle avoient voulu seconder Mr Descartes, au lieu de se faire un
point d'honneur de Ie contredire. S'ils eussent agi de concert avec ce grand
homme, ils eussent peutetre banni des ecoles ce nombre innombrable de
substances materielles it qui l'on donne du sentiment et meme quelques vestiges
de raison. Ceux qui enseignent une telle chose afoiblissent I'un des plus fort
argumens que l'on puisse proposer contre les Naturalistes. On embarasseroit
beaucoup un Stratonicien si on lui disoit: vous otez it la Nature Ie sentiment,
d'ou vient donc que vous sentez et que vous avez de l'esprit? Une Nature
insensible peut-elle donner la pensee a un petit nombre de ses portions? Et
pourquoi la donne-t-elle it celles-lit plutot qu'a d'autres? II ne repondroit rien
qui vaille, mais en se jettant sur la retorsion, il prendroit un peu d'haleine.
N'avouez-vous pas, repondroit-il it nos Philosophes, que la Nature est insensible
et que neanmoins les betes sentent, quoiqu'elles ne soient que des portions de la
nature et que tout ce qu'elles ont so it tire de la matiere? Si la Nature a pu
s'elever jusques lit dans les animaux, elle a pu s'elever dans l'homme jusque au
degre de connoissance qu'il possede '" Un Cartesien se pourroit promettre de
tout autres avantages dans cette dispute, en niant d'abord que rien de materiel
puisse sentir.41
Characteristically, however, Bayle elsewhere 42 presents an argument

from Father Ignace Pardies, with apparent approval, which compares
the material souls of animals, able to perform complex operations,
with those of men, and suggests that the intellectual activities in men
may just as well be the result of material souls or, differently put,
that the operations of men's souls and animals' souls differ only in
40 Ibid., II, p. 236; Bayle as quoted by Mme. Labrousse.

41 Bayle, Oevres Diverses, III, pp. 342-343; also quoted by Mme. Labrousse.
(The aHusion to "un Stratonicien" brings to mind Cudworth's attack on "Stratonical
atheism.") This passage seems to represent Bayle's own positive view, namely, that
matter cannot think; but as we shaH see immediately below, other passages in Bayle
indicate a different interpretation.
42 Article on Rorarius; see especiaHy note F.
degree. In other words, spiritual souls are denied to men as a

differentiating characteristic and matter can think.43
What is clear, however, is that once more the general framework
of the discussion is placed within the context of the problem of
immortality. And perhaps, ultimately, Bayle again (as in Chapter II)
would consider the difficulties insoluble and the solutions paradoxical.
For if an incorporeal soul is a sufficient condition for immortality,
and animals think (and thereby have immaterial souls), it follows
that animals are immortal. Thus, my own guess is that Bayle would
once more appeal to faith as the final arbiter to the dilemmas prompted
by his sceptical rationalism.
After Bayle, John Witty, in taking up Locke's suggestion of thinking
matter, roundly declares, in the same vein as Bentley had previously,
that "A power of reflection neither is nor can be a primary attribute
43 Fundamentally sceptical and Baylean in attitude are Voltaire's later utterances
on the subject in his multi-versioned Dictionary articles on "Soul." In opposition to

the Epicureans, Voltaire inquires how it is that an atom can think. For it is manifestly
clear that stones cannot think. On the other hand, it is just as evident that you
cannot divide a judgment, since it is not constituted of parts of matter (Section XI).
Explicitly following Locke Voltaire acknowledges his respect for "an eternal object
for disputation," regarding which "we must ever continue in a labyrinth of doubts
and feeble conjectures" (Section I). Thus, according to Voltaire: "[Soul and thought]
are nothing distinct from matter, you say; but what proof have you of this? Is it
because matter is divisible and figurable, and thought is not? But how do you know
that the first principles of matter are divisible and figurable? It is very likely that they
are not; whole sects of philosophers assert that the elements of matter have neither
figure nor extent. You triumphantly exclaim: Thought is neither wood, nor stone, nor
sand, nor metal; therefore thought belongs not to matter. Weak and presumptuous
reasoners! Gravitation is neither wood, nor sand, nor metal, nor stone; nor is motion,
or vegetation or life, any of all these; yet life, vegetation, motion, gravitation, are given
to matter. To say that God cannot give thought to matter, is to say, the most insolently
absurd thing that has ever been advanced in the priviliged schools of madness and
folly. We are not assured that God has not done this; we are only assured that
He can do it. ... Of what avail, in these questions inaccessible to reason, are the
romances of our uncertain imaginations? What avails it, that the fathers in the four
primitive ages believed the soul to be corporeal? What avails it that Tertullian, with
a contradictoriness that was familiar to him, decided that it is at once corporeal,
figured and simple [i.e., indivisible]? ... How, then, shall we be bold enough to affirm
what the soul is? We know certainly that we exist, that we feel, that we think. Seek
we to advance one step further-we fall into an abyss of darkness; and in this abyss,
we have still the foolish temerity to dispute whether this soul, of which we have
not the least idea, is ... perishable or immortal" (Voltaire, articles on "Soul,"
circa 1765, in The Works of Voltaire [DuMont, 1901], Vol. XIII). The entire discussion
occurs in obvious relation to the question of immortality and possible proofs for it based
on its alleged immaterial indivisibility. Voltaire, I believe is as sincere a "believer"
as Bayle and prefers to leave such issues beyond human comprehension in the hands
of faith. See also: Francois Fenelon (1651-1751), Oevres Philosophiques. Premiere
Partie: Demonstration de I'Existence de Dieu (Paris, 1775), pp. 98-99, 145-148, 165 fT.
of matter being utterly inconsistent with extension and solidity."44

Indeed Witty, in considering Locke's question 'Whether Omnipotence
may not add to a system of matter fitly disposed, a power of thinking"
(p. 149), insists that "thinking matter" is a contradiction in terms,
and that even God could not endow matter with thought (p. 241). For
no thinking substances can be complex at all, or be made up of infinite
independent particles of the same nature with the whole mass; on the contrary
whatever is complex is incapable of thinking, neither can Omnipotence invest
it with the power of thought. 45
Agreeing with - but hardly to be put off by - Locke's scepticism
regarding the ultimate unknowability of substance Witty holds that
tho' we do not know, or have no ideas of the intrinsic natures of the substances
or essences of matter and thinking beings, yet it does not thence follow that
we are incapable of demonstrating, that those substances or Essences are of
intirely different and incompatible nature. 46
In pursuit of his demonstration of the thesis of the unity of
consciousness, Witty, who, as his references to "Democritic" and
"Hylopathic atheists" show, was familiar with Cudworth's views,
uses one of Cudworth's chief "principles" in his refutation.
Matter in motion cannot think: For nothing can give what it has not;
... whereas cou'd the extension and solidity, size, and figures and motion of
the particles of a system of matter, all these in composition, give to that
system a power of thinking, they must give what they have not. 47
Like Cudworth and Bentley, Witty regards Hobbes as "the great
Modern patron and Promoter of Atheism ... forc'd to have recourse
to this most absurd hypothesis, in order to defend this notion, that
sensation and thought are the effects of mere matter and motion"
(p. 159).
Samuel Clarke similarly emphatically rejects the possibility of
thinking matter in his dispute with Dodwell and attacks the Epicurean
thesis that thought or consciousness is the result of figures, motions,
and situations of material particles in the brain. 48 In contending that
44 John Witty, Modern Deism Confuted (1707). p. 232.

45 Ibid., p. 290.
46 Ibid., p. 280.
47 Ibid., p. 185; see also the passage from Witty quoted in the second chapter
of this study. Smith's expression of the principle was the Plotinian-Carteslan one
that no effect can rise above its cause or that there must be at least as much reality
in the cause as III the effect. Cudworth had rhetorically altered this expression to
read against the Epicureans that nothing comes from nothing, therefore thought, which
is something, cannot come from matter, which does not have it in the first place.
48 Samuel Clarke, A Defense of an Argument Made use of in a letter to Mr. Dod-
well, To Prove The Immateriality and Natural Immortality of the Soul (London,
1707), pp. 14ff.
"Matter cannot have a power of thinking or an individual conscious-

ness" (p. 15), Clarke defines "consciousness... [as] the reflex act,
by which a man knows his thought to be his own thoughts."49
What Clarke means by calling his "own consciousness" an "individual
power" (ibid., p. 5) is the same thing that I have been referring to as
the unity of consciousness. The terms may vary, but the conception
remains the same.
I mean thereby to express that it is really one undivided consciousness ...
Now the thing to be proved, was, that such an individual power as consciousness,
cannot possibly inhere in or result from a divisible substance. 50
J quote the proof that senseless matter cannot think, immediately

below, from Clarke's first letter. It is as follows:
that the soul cannot possibly be material, is moreover demonstrable from
the single consideration even of bare sense and consciousness itself. For, matter
being a divisible substance, consisting always of separable, nay of actually
separate and distinct parts; 'tis plain, unless it were essentially conscious,
in which case every particle of matter must consist of innumerable and distinct
consciousnesses, no system of it in any possible composition or division can be
an individual conscious being. For suppose three, or three hundred, particles
of matter, at a mile, or at any given distance, one from another; is it possible
that all those separate parts should in that state be one individual conscious
being? Suppose then all these particles brought together into one system,
so as to touch one another; will they thereby, or by any motion or composition
whatsoever, become any whit less truly distinct Beings, then they were at the
greatest distance? How then can their being disposed in any possible system,
make them one individual conscious being?51
Clarke's contention then is that if awareness were to reside in a

material atom, "indued with consciousness or thought," then concei-
vably it could be divided, by the power of God, into two distinct
parts and two distinct consciousnesses would thereby result (pp. 18-19).
This possibility Clarke finds repugnant to reason and he therefore
concludes that "properly and strictly speaking, such as consciousness
or thinking must needs be acknowledged to be, can only proceed from,
or reside in, an individual being" (p. 15). Consequently, for Clarke,
the "giveness" of consciousness proves that the soul must be immaterial
and "indiscerpible."
Leibniz and Berkeley are two major philosophers who continue to
defend the argument; and, as I stressed before, they are important
because they are the only two who consider the argument in all
four of its uses. In the preceding chapter I quoted Leibniz's central
49 A Second defense of an argument made use of in a letter to Mr. Dodwell

p.42.
50 Ibid., p. 5.
51 A Defense of an Argument. pp 1-2.
principles from the opening sections of 'the M onadology in order to
show in what sense Leibniz holds the monad to be a simple. Leibniz
initiates the Principles of Nature and of Grace, Founded on Reason
(1714), in a very similar fashion. He defines substance as a being capable
of action and distinguishes two kinds, simple and compound. Strictly
speaking, only the former are true substances; the compounds are
more properly termed substantial. Simple substances are also called
Monads, and, as he points out, "Monas is a Greek word which means
unity, or that which is one"; and "simple substances, lives, souls,
spirits, are unities" (§1). A Monad is that which has no parts. The
importance of these definitions and assumptions, for Leibniz, lies in
understanding that for him the essence of perception is multiplicity
in unity (§§14, 16);52 and that consciousness is "inexplicable on
mechanical grounds, that is to say by means of figures and motions"
(§ 17). Unless diverse impressions or ideas can meet in a center of
consciousness, all we could ever "experience" is what William James
has called the buzzing, blooming confusion of the chaotically and
immediately given. There could be no awareness, for our "sensations"
would fall apart into a radical disunity. And in order to illustrate
his point, Leibniz draws on the familiar Plotinian analogy of the
circle.
For the simplicity of substance is by no means inconsistent with the mUltiplicity
of the modifications which are to be found together in that same simple
substance ... It is as in the case of a center or point [itself unextendedl, in which,
although it is perfectly simple, there is an infinite number of angles formed by the
lines which meet in it (Monadology, § 2).
Leibniz's solution to the ancient Greek problem of the one and many,
then, is to appeal to the principle of the intrinsic unity of the monad
as a transcendental condition of consciousness. As previously men-
tioned, Leibniz was initially attracted to Epicureanism in his youth
(and he remained greatly interested in Hobbes during his life). With
time, however, Leibniz began to grapple with the many inadequacies
of materialism and soon turned with increasing sympathy to Platonism.
In this sense he seems to have conceived his conception of the Monad
as a mediation between Epicureanism and Platonism, for the ultimate
constituents of reality, for Leibniz, are indestructible, unextended
units, which he defines as intensive centers of force and consciousness.
There are three grades of monads: the living, the conscious, and the
selfconscious. This highest degree of consciousness Leibniz also entitles
apperception and its role in German idealism, as we shall see, went
far to influence Kant.
52 For other references establishing this interpretation, see Latta's IntroductIon to

his edition of The Monadology and other PhIlosophical Writings (Oxford, 1968), p. 35.
Berkeley, who, in the Principles, describes spirit as "one simple

undivided" being (§ 27) and proves the immortality of the soul as a
consequence of its simple nature (§ 141), also uses the argument from
simplicity in order to prove the unity of consciousness as well. Hence,
in the Dialogues (1713), Philonous declares: "I know or am conscious
of my own being... I know that I, one and the same self perceive
both colours and sounds: that a colour cannot perceive a sound,
nor a sound a colour: that I am therefore one individual principle,
distinct from colour and sound."53 This passage, of course, merely
suggests the doctrine of the unity of consciousness. But Berkeley's
other writings are more explicit. Thus, for example, in Alciphron
(1737), Berkeley protests against the consequences of dividing the
mind and warns that "If I should suppose things spiritual to be
corporeal ... or by metaphysical skill split things simple and individual
into manifold parts, I do not know what may follow."54 And, similarly,
in his Neoplatonic work, Siris (1744), Berkeley explicitly contends
that "personality is the individual centre of the soul or mind, which
is a monad so far forth as she is a person" (§ 346). Monads are for
Berkeley, as for Leibniz, metaphysivally indivisible, and he adds that
"the person or mind of all created beings seemeth alone indivisible,
and to partake most of unity" (§ 347). Having established this much,
Berkeley then proceeds to judiciously quote the eclectic Themistius'
commentary on Aristotle, rather than the Philosopher himself.
According to Themistius, Berkeley tells us, the mind is essentially
simple, indivisible, and a unity. Hence the intellect, unlike sense or
fancy, which is of composite origin, has the power "to collect many
notions into one, and to consider them as one" (§ 355). Thus:
Aristotle himself, in his third book Of the Soul, saith it is the mind that maketh
each thing to be one ... How this is done, Themistius is more particular,
observing that, as being conferreth essence, the mind, by virtue of her simplicity,
conferreth simplicity upon compounded beings. And, indeed, it seemeth that
the mind, so far forth as person, is individual [i.e., simple and a unity).55
I would next like to treat someone who was not dealt with in the
second chapter because his role in opposing the simplicity argument
is confined to the controversy over the ability of matter to think and
the criterion sufficient to establish personal identity (Chapter IV).
This again I take to be a welcome confirmation of my contention
that the uses of the argument are distinct and not necessarily
connected.
53 The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne (Nelson, 1964), II, pp. 233-234.
The editor himself remarks In a note to the passage that there "may be a reminis-
cence here of Anstotle's De Anima, III, Ii, 425[b]12."
54 IbId., III, pp. 314-315.
55 Ibid., V, p. 160.
Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, whose
boyhood tutor was John Locke, and whose friend in maturity was
Pierre Bayle, was in many respects the intellectual heir of the Cambridge
Platonists. S6 Like the Cambridge Platonists he repeatedly refers to
Epicurus and Lucretius in his writings in order to criticize their
doctrines, and it is obviously through his acquaintance with the
philosophy of Cudworth, and perhaps Smith, that he presents the
argument from simplicity, in relation to the possibility of senseless
matter thinking, rather than through any affinity with Descartes.
In many respects, the French philosopher represented, for Shaftesbury,
"mechanism" and the danger of materialism, just as he did for his
Renaissance-oriented predecessors. And like the Cambridge men
Shaftesbury is also influenced by Plotinus, either directly or indirectly
through their writings. Similarly, again like them, he is violently
opposed to the reductivist principles and consequences of Hobbes's
philosophy, which he considers merely as atomism in a modern form.
And yet despite his tremendous debt to the Cambridge men, he differs
from them, as he does from Locke, with a sane scepticism that must
have appealed to Hume, who referred to him as "'a great genius."57
Shaftesbury's conception of the rationalist a priori argument from
simplicity is given in the following terms.
As for what is said of 'A material unthinking substance being never able to
have produced an immaterial thinking one', I readily grant it, but on the
condition that this great maxim of nothing being ever made from nothing may
hold as well on my side as my adversary·s ... The spiritual men may. as long
as they please, represent to us in the most eloquent manner, 'That matter
considered in a thousand different shapes, joined and disjoined. varied and
modified to eternity. can never. of itself, afford one single thought, never
occasion or give rise to anything like sense or knowledge'. Their argument will
hold good against a Democritus, an Epicurus, or any of the elder or latter
atomists. But it will be turned on them by an examining Academist, and when
the two substances are fairly set asunder, and considered apart as different
kinds, 'twill be as strong sense, and as good argument, to say as well of the
immaterial kind: 'That do with it as you please, modify it a thousand ways,
purify it, exalt it. sublime it. torture it ever so much or rack it, as they say,
with thinking, you will never be able to produce or force the contrary substance
out of it.' The poor dregs of sorry matter can no more be made out of the
simple pure substance of immaterial thought, than the high spirits of thought
or reason can be extracted from the gross substance of heavy matter. So let
the dogmatists make of this argument what they can.58
56 See Stanley Grean, Shaftesbury's Philosophy of ReligIOn and Ethics (Ohio UnIver-
sity Press. 1967). pp. 4, 13. 31, 33. 39-41, 62-63, 91. 112-113. 131, 137-138, 149.
219-220.246; see also CasSlfer, op. cit., pp. 2,157-169,183-200.
57 Hume. A Treallse of Human Nature (Oxford, 1955; first pubhshed in 1739).
p. 254, note 1.
58 Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristics of lvfen, Manners, Opmions, Times
(Bobbs-Merrill, 1964; ongmally published 1711), II, pp. 69-70 (Italic mine).
A number of slight technical comments should be made about this

passage. The "great maxim" referred to is, of course, once more
Cudworth's.59 The "spiritual men," "the dogmatists," represent the
rationalist tradition from Plotinus to the Cambridge Latitudinarians,
and perhaps even back before Plotinus to Plato and Aristotle. The
"latter atomists" are thinkers like Hobbes. And an "examining
Academist" really represents the outlook of Pyrrhonian scepticism,
not Academic, with which Shaftesbury himself, at least in this context,
identified.
The interesting paradox with which Shaftesbury challenges the
dogmatists is that although it may be true that material particles
cannot conspire to produce thought, it is just as true that unextended
thoughts cannot combine to result in extended objects. The upshot,
I believe, is that Shaftesbury desires to deemphasize the claim of the
rationalists, namely, that there is something inherently superior or
transcendent about thought, and to thereby divest the dogmatic
argument of its principal rhetorical advantage, more properly bringing
it down to a level of logic and experience. Shaftesbury himself does
not deny the dogmatist's contention but he obviously wishes to mitigate
the conclusions they wish to extend from a principle which he
acknowledges.
In proceeding, I now wish to try to indicate how Hume, who
inherits Locke's philosophical criticism of the simplicity argument,
m~ have become involved in the fray. Hence, I will attempt to show
that in order to understand Hume's Treatise sections Of the immate-
riality of the soul and Of personal identity, it helps considerably to
keep in mind that much of Hume's discussion occurs against the
historical and conceptual background of the simplicity argument.
Thus, in the present chapter I shall undertake to exhibit the fashion
in which the proof for the soul's unity influenced Hume's own counter
proposals; and in Chapter IV I shall explore how Hume attacks
the rationalist thesis of a simple and identical self.
Earlier I offered a quotation from Cudworth's True Intellectual
System, page 824. In this passage which explicitly relies on Plotinus
and is but one of numerous references to Plotinus to be found
throughout his work, Cudworth presents the argument for the unity
of consciousness based on the unextended simple nature of the soul.
I believe this section of Cudworth's demonstration influenced Hume.
Thus, for example, whereas Cudworth asserts: "We cannot conceive
a thought, to be of such a certain length, breadth and thickness,
mensurable by inches and feet, and by solid measures" (T. I. S., p. 828),
similarly Hume rhetorically inquires: "For can anyone conceive a
59 Cudworth, T.l.S., p. 30fT.
passion of a yard in length, a foot in breadth, and an inch in
thickness?"60 Hume's own version of the argument from simplicity,
which he, like Locke and Shaftesbury before him, and Kant after him,
avowedly rejects, is as follows.
There is one argument commonly employ'd for the immateriality of the soul,
which seems to me remarkable. What ever is extended consists of parts; and
whatever consists of parts is divisible, if not in reality, at least in the imagination.
But 'tis impossible any thing divisible can be conjoin'd to a thought or
perception, which is a being altogether inseparable and indivisible. For supposing
such a conjunction, wou'd the indivisible thought exist on the left or the right
hand of this extended divisible body? .. If it be conjoin'd with the extension,
it must exist somewhere within its dimensions. If it exist within its dimensions,
it must either exist in one particular part; and then that particular part is
indivisible, and the perception is conjoin'd only with it, not with the extension:
Or if thOUght exists in every part, it must also be extended, and separable,
and divisible, as well as the body; which is utterly absurd and contradictory ...
Thought, therefore, and extension are qualities wholly incompatible, and
can never incorporate together into one subject. 61
The whole recapitulation of the rationalist argument is highly remi-
niscent of Cudworth.62 Against the rationalists, Hume argues - in
sympathy with Locke's possibility that God could endow matter
with a faculty of thought - "we may certainly conclude, that [material]
motion may be, and actually is, the cause of thought and perception"
(see Treatise, pp. 247-248). Hume, of course, believes (apart from his
extreme scepticism displayed in the Appendix)63 that human cognition
can be explained by appealing to psychological principles of connection,
which are supplied by the mind's subjective tendency, and enhanced
by custom, to associate ideas through resemblance, contiguity, and
causality. For the Cambridge men, this would be merely begging the
issue. The "idea" of resemblance, for instance, they would contend,
is not itself a particular image but a relation; it cannot be traced to a
60 Hume, Treatise, I, p. 234.

61 Ibid., pp 234-235: see p. 247. See also: An EnquirY Concernmg Human Under-
standmg, XII, I, §§ 119, 122-123.
62 According to John Laird (Hume's Phtlosophy of Human Nature [Archon, 1967],
p. 164), Edmund Law, in his note on Archbishop King's book, had quoted Cudworth's
True Intellectual System, pages 823-832, and he believes Hume may have read this
excerpt in Law's work. I agree, although I also believe, as I shall contend in the next
chapter, that Hume was directly mfluenced, in passages such as these in the Treatise,
by Shaftesbury.
63 See N. Kemp Smith, The Philosophy of David Hume (St. Martin, 1964), p. 73.
Kemp Smith contends that in the Appendix Hume realizes the difficulties In which
he has landed himself. "The complex [of the mind] he there recognizes, is not merely
in itself complex, but is [selfconsciously] apprehended as complex and any explanation
that refers only to its constituents and to the associative agency through which
they are assembled, is Ignoring factors which are not to be so accounted for." In other
words, Hume assumes seifconsciousness in the very process of searching for the self.
particular impression. 64 And Hume, in not trying to explain resem-

blance, as he does the feeling of the causal inference, as a natural
fiction produced by the imagination, unwittingly accords to it a status
in which it functions apart from his associative theory. The second
criticism that may be levelled at Hume is that, due to his atomistic
psychology, he believes "ideas" come carrying their own conscious-
nesses with them and that the only difficulty then is to explain why
(or how) certain ideas seem to generally go together. But the strong
claim of the Cambridge Platonists (and, in a qualified sense, of Kant)
is that ideas cannot exist at all unless the thinking soul is an immaterial,
simple unity. This constitutes a "transcendental" condition for the
very possibility of consciousness. Hume most clearly recognizes this
problem in the Appendix to the Treatise (pp. 635-636). Consequently,
when he tries "to explain the principle of connexion, which binds
[our particular and distinct perceptions] together," he finds himself
involved in insuperable difficulties. The dilemma results because Hume
maintains two principles which are particularly problematic in regard
to a satisfactory theory explaining the apparent (for Hume) "unity
of consciousness." Those principles are: (l) all our perceptions are
separate and therefore distinguishable; and (2) there are no rational,
a priori, principles of connection in the mind. Since Hume, like Locke,
rejects the solution of the Cambridge Platonists, namely, that "our
perceptions ... inhere in something simple and individual" (because
it is allegedly the nature of the self to be a simple and an identity),
it results for Hume that he can only "plead the privilige of a sceptic
and confess, that [to explain the principles, that unify our successive
perceptions in our thought or consciousness] is too hard for my
understanding" (p. 636).
In any case what is obvious is that, in the 17th and 18th centuries,
a satisfactory solution to the issue of the unity of consciousness
is crucial for any epistemological theory to survive. This point is so
important it bears emphasizing. The transcendental rationalist's con-
tention may be put most powerfully in the following terms borrowed
from a later context. It is Kant's challenge to Hume, as presented
by Kemp Smith.
Now the fundamental characteristic of consciousness, the very condition of
its existing at all is its unity ... To attempt to explain the unity of consciousness
through the mechanism of association is to explain an agency in terms of
certain of its own effects. It is to explain the fundamental in terms of the
derivative, the conditions in terms of what they have themselves made possible ...
Ideas do not become associated merely by coexisting. They must occur together
in a unitary consciousness and among the conditions necessary to the possibility
64 See Kemp Smith (ibid., p. 260), who discusses this objection.

of aSSOCIatIOn are therefore the conditions of the possibility of experience.
Association is transcendentally grounded. So far from accounting for the unity
of consciousness, it presupposes the latter as determining the conditions under
which alone it can come into play.65
I have cited this passage because it forms the very center of the
issues involved. Kemp Smith holds Kant to be saying that ideas cannot
exist in consciousness unless consciousness is a unity. Otherwise we
could not be conscious, we could not even be aware of a single idea,
and so therefore we would have nothing to "associate," if awareness
were not presupposed as integrated. The difficulty in all this, then,
is not how to explain the mechanism of the association of ideas but
rather to account for the possibility of ideas at all. In other words,
how is the occurrence of even a single idea possible?
If Leibniz's formulation of the simplicity argument, given in
"continuous sorites," serves as the model of clarity for the rationalist
demonstration of the immortality of the soul then certainly Kant's
expression of the argument from simplicity offered in .the Paralogisms
functions as the parallel classic example which demonstrates that
consciousness is a unity. However, whereas Leibniz accepts the
argument Kant completely rejects it; although, as we shall see, he
advances a strikingly similar version of it in the second edition
Deduction of the Critique of Pure Reason.
In ushering forward the proof from simplicity in the Second
Paralogism, Kant deservedly eulogizes it and makes it clear that he
regards it with the greatest respect, for he describes it as "the
65 The remainder of this important passage reads as follows: "Representations must

exist in consciousness before they can become associated; and they can exist III
consciousness only if they are consciously apprehended, they must conform to the
transcendental conditions upon whIch all consciousness rests; and in being thus
apprehended they are set in thorough-going unity to one another and to the self. They are
apprehended as belonging to ... the unity of self-conSCIOusness. . ..
The fundamental characteristic of consciousness is the unified form in which alone
it can exist; only when this unity is recognized as indispensably necessary, and
therefore as invariably present whenever consciousness exists at all, can the inter-
relations of the contents of consciousness be properly defined.
If this main contention of [Kant's] teaching be accepted, Hume's associationist
standpoint is no longer tenable. Association cannot be taken to be an ultimate and
inexplicable property of our mental states. Nor is it a property which can be
regarded as belonging to presentations viewed as so many independent existences. It is
conditioned by the unity of consciousness, and therefore rests upon the 'transcendental'
conditions which [Kant's] analysis reveals. Since the unity of consciousness conditIOns
association, it cannot be explained as the outcome and product of the mechanism of
association." Kemp Smith, Commentary, pp. 254-256. In this connectIon, see also: F. H.
Bradley's "The Vulgar Notion of Responsibility," pp. 36-40, wherelll he attacks the
associationist account as inadequate to explain selfconsciousness; and A. E. Taylor,
Plato, p. 196.
Achilles," the most powerful of all the rationalist demonstrations

of nonempirical psychology. Indeed, Kemp Smith even suggests that
despite Kant's criticism "it may well seem a quite invulnerable
argument" to Kant himself.66 Kant begins his criticism of the a priori
metaphysicians in the following fashion.
This is the Achilles of all dialectical inferences in the pure doctrine of the
soul. It is no mere sophistical play, contrived by a dogmatist [i.e., rationalist]
in order to impart to his assertions a superficial plausibility, but an infer~nce
which appears to withstand even the keenest scrutiny and the most scrupulously
exact investigation. It is as follows.
Every [material] composite substance is an aggregate of several substances,
and the action of a composite, or whatever inheres in it as thus composite,
is an aggregate of several actions of [external] accidents, distributed among
the plurality of substances. Now an effect which arises from the concurrence
of many acting substances is indeed possible, namely, when this effect is
external only (as, for instance, the motion of a body is the combined motion
of all its parts). But with thoughts, as internal accidents belonging to a thinking
being, it is [in principle] different. For suppose it be the composite that thinks:
then every part of it would be a part of the thought, and only all of them
taken together would contain the whole thought. But this cannot consistently
be maintained. For representations (for instance, the single words of a verse),
distributed among different beings, never make up a whole thought (a verse),
and it is therefore impossible that a thought should inhere in what is essentially
composite. It is therefore possible only in a single substance, which, not being
an aggregate of many, is absolutely simple.
The so-called nervus probandi of this argument lies in the proposition, that
if a multiplicity of representations are to form a single representation, they must
be contained in the absolute unity of the thinking subject. 67
66 Commentary, p. 458.
67 Critique of Pure Reason, A 351-352 (italics mine). In this passage Kant identifies,
as he often does in the Critique, unity and simplicity. Consequently, although the
subtitle of the Paralogism section may seem to indicate application of the argument
to the simplicity of the soul, a re-reading of the citation will show that the argument
is really being offered in support of the dogmatists' defense of the unity of the
soul or consciousness.
Robert Paul Wolff, in his book Kant's Theory of Mental Activity (Harvard, 1963),
employs the very example I have italiCIZed from Kant above in order to explain what
Kant means by the unity of consciousness, which Wolff takes to be the ultimate and
undeniable premise of the entire Transcendental Analytic (pp. 105-106). (Wolff is under
the impression that Brentano is the first to use the example). See also: A. C. Ewing,
A Short Commentary on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (Chicago, 1967), p. 203.
I have challenged Wolff's (and Ewing's) views in The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 23,
No. 91 (April, 1973), pp. 156-161. Following Kemp Smith, I have contended that it is our
consciousness of time-not our awareness of unity-which constitutes the ultimate and
Irreducible datum of awareness.
A. E. Taylor and Kemp Smith have suggested Christian Wolff's Psychologia Ratio-
nails (1743) and Mendelssohn's Phaedo (1767) as possible sources for Kant's parologism.
I agree although I think Leibniz is intended as well. Kant's allUSion within the
Second Paralogism section itself to the problem "whether senseless matter can think"
(A 356, A 359; see A. 383, B 417-418, note) may also point to Kant's familiarity
THE UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 9'1
Kant's rejection of the simplicity argument is founded upon two
criticisms. First, the concept of the "I think," utilized in the paralogistic
fallacy, is completely empty, totally devoid of content, and therefore
cannot be either confirmed or disconfirmed by any possible experience.
[A]s far as mere concepts can show [the unity of consciousness] may relate
just as well to the collective unity of different substances acting together (as
the motion of a body is the composite motion of all its parts) as to the absolute
[i.e., immaterial] unity of the [thinking] subject. (A 353).
The second objection is quite general and consists of Kant bringing

to bear his entire positive and critical teaching expounded in the
Aesthetic and Analytic. The soul is not a thing-in-itself and cannot
be treated as such; therefore any pure a priori argument which
pretends to reach conclusions concerning the seWs real nature is
intrinsically self-defeating.
Nevertheless in the second edition Critique Kant completely recasts
the Paralogism section, entirely drops the Deduction in A - along
with its correspondingly clearer emphasis on temporal consciousness
(A 99) - and adopts what he terms an analytic or "logical"
(epistemological) unity of consciousness in the new Deduction in B.
[O]nly in so far as I can grasp the manifold of the representations in one
consciousness do I call them one and all mine (B 134).
The identity of the self, as a universal and necessary condition of

awareness, Kant now informs us, constitutes the presupposition for
any and all particular acts of cognition. This self Kant entitles the
transcendental unity of apperception (see Section 16; esp. B 131- B 132).
In summary then, in a significant sense, Kant returns to a modified
version of the unity of consciousness and argues for it on the grounds
of his Copernican Revolution. The unity of consciousness, he tells us,
conditions the possibility of both (a) human awareness 68 and (b) natural
science. In this respect, then, Kant's greatness lies not so much in the
fact that his transcendental turn is new - for it is not, having been
often anticipated from Plotinus to the Cambridge Platonists - but
rather in the determined and central formulation which he gives to it.
The crux of this aspect of the argument is that senseless matter
cannot think; for matter - being devoid of life, sensation, consciousness,
and selfconsciousness - can never produce what it has not (or is not)
with the materialistic views expressed in Joseph Priestly's Disquisitions relating to

Matter and Spirit (1777). Kant mentions Pnestly (in A 745 = B 773) and cites his
opposition to proofs for immortality.
68 See Critique of Pure Reason, A 52=B 76, A 62=B 87, A 93=B 126; Kemp
Smith, Commentary, pp. xl, xlii, Ii, 168, 222, 253, 370, 375-376, 387; Wolff, Kant's
Theory of Mental Activity, pp. 76, 112, 147, 156, 157, 159, 180 and 279.
within itself. Or, matter cannot result in what it does not initially
have or contain. Do what you will with bodies, you can never achieve
a unity of consciousness from mere physical manipulation. For
consciousness in order to be a unity, in order to be characterized
as the unity of which we are all aware when we think, must itself
essentially be a unity, in that its unity is a condition, a presupposition,
which "logically" precedes awareness. For the dogmatists this very
unity could be rationally demonstrated as following from the immaterial,
unextended, and therefore simple nature of the soul. For Kant, on the
other hand, it could not be so demonstrated, but rather it represented
a step which had to be "transcendentally" deduced, justified, or
"proved. "
In Chapter II and III I have tried to emphasize two things. First,
that the argument from simplicity was in fact prevalent throughout
the period and how it was used. And indeed one need but to begin
reading various theological and philosophical works in the period
before it soon becomes clear how thoroughly saturated the writings
of the period were with proofs which began with the simplicity of
the soul and concluded in the epistemological unity of consciousness.
The second essential point I have sought to stress is substantially
harder to pin down but it will become increasingly clearer in the next
two parts of the study. It is that the Ubiquity of the argument naturally
and inevitably leads to its use in related realms of thought. Thus,
we shall see that the connection made prior to Locke - between a
simple metaphysical soul, continuous and identical, which serves as a
condition of moral imputability, reward and punishment, in an
afterlife - is elaborated into a search for the criteria of personal,
i.e., moral, identity, an identity sufficiently constant to guarantee
moral accountability for acts performed at various times. Similarly,
we shall return to a second epistemological use of the argument, one
which is closely related to the use just discussed, and yet at the same
time quite distinct from it. For, just as the immaterial simplicity of
the soul provides the condition for the unity of consciousness so,
it will tum out, the unextended character of soul (as substance) and
thought (as essential attribute) results in the impossibility of the
independent existence of an extended, external world - the impossibility
of a "world" existing apart from mind.
CHAPTER IV
PERSONAL IDENTITY
IN THE 17TH AND 18TH CENTURIES
I now wish to show that the simplicity argument forms a major

part of the contextual background of discussions concerned with
personal identity in the 17th and 18th centuries and that the important
examinations of the rules for the determination of moral identity
occur in relation to it. Indeed, the philosophic conception of personal
identity and the criteria necessary and sufficient for ,its establishment
are completely 17th and 18th century problems, which first find an
explicit formulation in Locke's revolutionary chapter in the Essay,
specifically dealing with the standard of identities of individual things.
To be sure, there are already traces in Cudworth of an anticipation
in this direction, but the implications are not followed out in his work.
Plotinus, who influences Cudworth at every turn, had long ago
emphasized that awareness depends on a "stably identical soul"
(Enn., IV, 7, 5). For Cudworth, as for almost the entire Christian
tradition, it is because of "personal identity," in the form of an
individual's immortal soul, that ultimately a man can be justly
punished or rewarded, in the afterlife by God. But the criteria pertaining
to the permanence of the soul or self are simply assumed and hence
remain unexamined. And throughout Western philosophy this had
been the case. Thus, for example, Plato simply defined the soul as
residing in the highest functions of our rational faculties; Aristotle
defined the human substance as a composition of soul and body,
form and matter; and Descartes defined the self as that which
continually thinks. But the criteria for the definition are not discussed
and consequently no standard by which to judge problematic cases
is offered. 1
1 Locke, on the other hand, for instance, considers such paradoxical examples
as a man who believes his soul is that of Socrates; a fictitIous prince who awakens
in the occupation and situation of a cobbler; etc. (Essay, II, xxvii). These puzzling
cases seem to have occurred to Locke during his reflections on issues concerned
with the possibility of reincarnation, and it is with these difficulties in mind that
Locke evidently inquired into the criteria pertaining to the determination of the self.
94 PERSONAL IDENTITY
I propose to begin with Cudworth because, although his reflections

on the matter do not achieve a sufficient degree of clarity for him
to realize that the topic of personal identity forms a distinct and special
philosophic problem (as Locke does), he nevertheless says enough
along these lines to enable Locke to achieve his contribution, namely,
of isolating the problem as a separate and unique philosophic issue,
one with an identifiable constellation of related concepts. And again
I shall end with Kant's definitive criticism of the simplicity argument's
employment in this context, for after Kant the argument is never
again taken seriously.
Among the suggestive novelties which Cudworth introduces is the
utilization - he appears to have been among the first - of the term
personality in the English language;2 and he introduces it in order to
indicate the distinction between, on the one hand, a moral self, to
whom we can legitimately impute responsibility, praise and blame, and,
on the other hand, an organic or animal being, which qua organic,
does not possess the power of selfconscious reflection, i.e., reason. 3 The
reader may recall that Cudworth, in his argument for the unity of
consciousness, had defined the "Self' as one unextended and indivisible
unity 4 and had gone on to declare that:
A thinker, is a monade, or one single substance, and not a heap of substances:
whereas no body or extended thing is one, but many substances, every conceivable
or smallest part thereof, being a real substance by it self. 5
According to this line of reasoning it follows that the identity of the
person resides in an unchanging center that remains continuously
present despite both physical and mental changes in the percipient
substance. In other words, the indivisible and immutable monad
constitutes a universal self constantly present during all particular acts
of cognition. This same self, which "grounds" or constitutes a necessary
condition for awareness, also serves as an essential and sufficient
requirement of moral identity.
The next step in the development toward a clear conception of
2 See Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford, 1961), Vol. VII, p. 727; Cudworth,
T.I.S., pp. 749-750.
3 The connection between immortality and reward and punishment is at least
as old as Plato's Myth of Er, presented in Republic X. However, the difference which
Cudworth seems to be suggesting, and first made explicit by Locke, is the relation
of personal identity to moral responsibility. Consequently, I am suggesting that the
innovation lies in connecting the concepts of reward and punishment with the idea
of personal identity, an identity grounded in philosophic criteria. Locke, I am convinced,
was quite familiar with the works of Cudworth, and probably Smith, as I have
tried to indicate in Chapter II.
4 See passage already quoted from Cudworth in the previous chapter (T.l.S., p. 826).
5 T.I.S., p. 830.
PERSONAL IDENTITY 95
personal identity is practically accomplished at a stroke by Locke's
innovative section in the Essay. For it is through Locke that the
rationalist argument from simplicity, which attempts to demonstrate
the immortality of the soul (Smith); the unity of consciousness (Smith
and Cudworth); and moral identity (Cudworth) acquires a significantly
new dimension. Thus in the second edition of the Essay, Locke adds
a chapter, at the request of his friend Molyneux, on identity and
diversity. More specifically, Locke, in distinguishing four kinds of
identities (of which I will only discuss the last two), introduces the
question of personal identity into philosophy, and the possible criteria
for its establishment. However, before proceeding to Locke's own
words, there are a few points I would like to make. The first is that
Locke's whole expanded discussion of the principium individuationis
is related to the question concerning the identity of simple and
compound substances. For as Locke declares, although "it seems
easier to conceive [identity] in simple substances or modes; yet when
reflected on, [it] is not more difficult in compound ones."6 The
following point is that Locke attempts to incorporate the thought
of Cudworth into his discussion by grounding personal identity and
moral responsibility in selfconscious reflection and memory. Indeed,
the term person and its use in Locke merely extends Cudworth's
employment of the term personality. 7 Similarly it is from Cudworth that
Locke borrows the conceptual framework in which he discusses the
question of personal identity. That context includes such concepts
as responsibility, punishment, and the continuity of the moral subject.
To retrace our steps a bit. Cudworth, in dealing with the issue of the
immortality of the soul, also proceeded to discuss the punishment of
the wicked after death, proposing to interpret certain ancient philo-
sophers as holding that such punishment depends on the soul's
perpetual union to an incorporeal extension. 8 Cautiously continuing
with his own "undogmatical" views, Cudworth concludes that:
Wherefore when it is said, that the immortality of the humane soul is
demonstrable by natural reason, the meaning hereof is no more than this,
that its substantiality is so demonstrable; from whence it follows, that it will
naturally no more perish or vanish into nothing, than the substance of matter
6 Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding; II, xxvii, 4.

7 Thus, I would agree with Passmore's general remark that although Locke
repeatedly insists on his independence as an original thinker it is clear that "his
moral psychology is in many respects very like Cudworth's, and perhaps derives
from it, directly or indirectly" (Passmore, Ralph Cudworth, p. 96).
8 Cudworth, T.l.S., pp. 776ff. As stated in the second chapter Cudworth cites
Origen (among others) as holding that after death souls had certain "subtle bodies
united to them" which had the same form as their terrestrial bodies and made
them susceptible to rewards and punishments T.l.S., p. 802).
it self; [but] not that it is impossible either for it, or matter, by divine power
to be annihilated. Wherefore the assurance that we have of our own souls
immortality, must depend upon something else, besides their substantiality,
namely, a faith also in the divine goodness, that he will conserve in being or
not annihilate, all such substances created by him; whose permanant subsistence,
is neither inconsistent with his own attributes, nor the good of the universe;
as this of rational souls unquestionably is not; they having both morality and
liberty of will, and thereby being capable of rewards and punishments, and
consequently fit objects for the divine justice to display it self upon. 9
I am persuaded that Locke realized through Cudworth that judg-
ments concerned with praise, blame, and, in general, imputability had
to be based in a present, earthly self - as well as the immortal self
indicated by Cudworth above - in order to have ethical validity and
that this, coupled with his mortalist sympathies, directly led to his
own views on the matter. The ground of the continuity of this self,
in turn, had to be secured in terms of either a mental continuity;
a material permanence; or both. For there is no sense in rewarding or
punishing a man at Time 2 if he is no longer the same person that
he was at Time 1, at the time of the moral act. iO And in the interest
of philosophic clarity and moral certainty these twin possibilities of
psychic and/or physical permanence were explored by Locke as
questions having meaning in this life, in this world of human experience.
Locke's position itself can best be understood within the context of
his attempted refutation of the dogmatism of those who, like the
Cambridge Platonists, regard the soul as an "immaterial substance"
(Essay, II, xxvii); and his criticism that their conception of the soul's
immortality is consistent with transmigration (an implication against
which Cudworth had previously sought to defend himself). For, as
Locke charges,
if the identity of soul alone makes the same man; and there be nothing in
the nature of matter why the same individual spirit may not be united to
different bodies, it will be possible that those men, living in distant ages, and of
different tempers, may have been the same man ... 11
9Ibid., pp. 868-869.
10This basic moral premise, as we shall see, was also taken up by Shaftesbury
and Hume as a necessary condition for the establishment of practical accountability.
See also: F. H. Bradley, "The Vulgar Notion of Responsibility in Connexion with
the Theories of Free Will and Necessity," in Ethical Studies (Oxford, 1927), p. 5.
The connection of responsibility with knowledge nrst occurs in Plato; responsibility
and voluntary choice (= ratiocinative desire or desiderative reason) initially appears
in Aristotle; and responsibility with free will is found at least as early as Boethius'
Consolation of Philosophy. But, I believe, the relation of responsibility with an
identical and continuous self does not arise until Cudworth's pregnant suggestions
concerning moral responsibility, in his True Intellectual System, and Locke's sharpening
of these views in the Essay.
11 Essay, II, xxvii, 7; see also: Sect. 14. Henry More upheld the pre-existence of
souls in his treatise on Immortality.
In addition, as Locke indicates, what is repugnant about this view is
not that it is logically absurd but rather that it is inconsistent with
our usual way of speaking and conceiving things, since "body and
shape are excluded" from our conception of man. Yet, the next point,
as Gibson cautions, should be taken as a warning against interpreting
Locke too rigorously.
Locke's theory is defmitely set over against the current dogmatic view, which
regarded the identity of self as consisting in an identity of spiritual substance .
... It must be observed, however, that even in this, the maturest product
of his criticism, Locke does not succeed in entirely freeing himself from the
old way of looking at things. Questions about the identity of an underlying
spiritual substance are banished from the realm of our knowledge, but they are
not declared to be intrinsically unintelligible. Locke still firmly believes that
there is an unknown substrate to the mental life of the individual ... 12
In the Essay, Locke contrasts an organic unity from an accidental
aggregate of material particles, maintaining that the former constitutes
an identity in virtue of the common life in which the several parts
share, all the parts contributing to the same end. The principle,
and even the terms and one of the examples Locke uses (of an oak)
will be taken up by both Shaftesbury and Hume in their positive
accounts of personal identity.
In the state of living creatures, their identity depends not on a mass of the
same particles, but on something else. For in them the variation of great parcels
of matter alters not the identity: an oak growing from a plant to a great tree,
and then lopped, is still the same oak, and a colt grown up to a horse,
sometimes fat, sometimes lean, is all the while the same horse; though in both
these cases, there may be a manifest change of the parts; so that truly they
are not either of them the same masses of matter, though they be truly one of
them the same oak, and the other the same horse. The reason whereof is, that,
in these two cases - a mass of matter and a living body - identity is not applied
to the same thing.
We must therefore consider wherein an oak differs from a mass of matter,
and that seems to me to be in this, that the one is only the cohesion of particles
of matter any how united, the other such a disposition of them as constitutes
the parts of an oak; and such an organization of those parts as is fit to
receive and distribute nourishment, so as to continue and frame the wood,
bark, and leaves, etc., of an oak, in which consists the vegetable life. That
being then one plant which has such an organisation of parts in one coherent
body, partaking of one common life, it continues to be the same plant as long
as it partakes of the same life, though that life be communicated to new
particles of matter vitally united to the living plant, in a like continued
organization conformable to that sort of plant. For this organization, being
at anyone instant in anyone collection of matter, is in that particular concrete
distinguished from all other, and is that individual life, which existing constantly
from that moment both forwards and backwards, in the same continuity of
insensibly succeeding parts united to the living body of the plant, it has that
12 Gibson, op. cit., pp. 118-119.

identity which makes the same plant, and all the parts of it, parts of the same
plant, during all the time that they exist united in that continued organization,
which is fit to convey that common life to all the parts so united. 13
This sort of identity, as Locke observes, can be properly attributed
to plants, animals, and men. (The same approach will be used by
Shaftesbury and Hume.) The principle of organization found in living
beings comes from within the organism, and in this it differs funda-
mentally from the principle of organization in such things as a watch,
for instance, where the principle is imposed from without by the
artificer. Personal or moral identity, on the other hand, according
to Locke; is constituted by consciousness and memory, which enable
a man to bridge the interruptions occuring in his mental life,
discontinuities caused by sleep, swoons, etc. Bodily identity cannot
lje a sufficient condition of personal identity because, as Locke
indicates, "even in this life the particles of the bodies of the same
persons change every moment, and there is thus no such identity in
the body as in the person." (The view, concerning the constant
physiological changes occurring in the body, we shall find also brought
up by Shaftesbury and Hume in their rejections of materialistic
explanations of identity.) The exhaustive possible alternatives accoun-
ting for the identity of the individual Locke poses in the following
matrix.
First, it must be either the same individual [i.e., simple], immaterial, thinking
substance; in short, the same numerical soul, and nothing else.
Secondly, or the same animal, without any regard to an immaterial soul.
Thirdly, or the same immaterial spirit united to the same animal.
[But, continues Locke] take which of these suppositions you please, it is
impossible to make personal identity to consist in anything but consciousness;
or reach any further than that does. 14
The reason for this Locke has just given us.
Self is that conscious thinking thing - whatever substance made up of,
(whether spiritual or material, simple or compounded, it matters not) - which
is sensible or conscious of pleasure and pain, capable of happiness or misery,
and so is concerned for itself, as far as that consciousness extends... That
with which the consciousness of this present thinking thing can join itself
[through memory], makes the same person, and is one self with it, and with
nothing else; and so attributes to itself, and owns all the actions of that thing,
as its own, as far as that consciousness reaches, and no further; as everyone
who reflects will perceive.
In this personal identity is founded aU the right and justice of reward and
punishment ... 15
13 Essay, II, xxvii, 4-5. For a parallel, and illuminating, discussion see Leibniz's
New Essay Concermng Human Understanding (Open Court, 1916), II, xxvii, § 4.
14 Locke, Section 21.
15 Ibid., Sections 17-18. See again Leibniz, New Essays, II, §5.
Again:
Wherever a man finds what he caHs himself, there, I think, another may
say is the same person. [Person] is a forensic term, appropriating actions and
their merit; and so belongs only to intelligent agents, capable of a law, and
happiness, and misery. This personality extends itself beyond present existence
to what is past, only by consciousness, - whereby it becomes concerned and
accountable; owns and imputes to itself past actions, just upon the same ground
and for the same reason as it does the present. 16
But person or personality is not only a legal term but a religious
and moral one as well.
For, though punishment be annexed to personality, and personality to con-
sciousness, and the drunkard perhaps be not conscious of what he did, yet
human judicatures justly punish him; because the fact is proved against him,
but want of consciousness cannot be proved for him. But in the Great Day
[of Judgment], 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 shaH receive his doom, his conscience accusing or excusing him. I 7
Thus, Locke rejects the dogmatists' contention that the soul is an

immaterial and unextended simple, continually thinking, and unchan-
geable and immortal. Such a doctrine Locke finds to be inconsistent
with the facts concerning interruptions in consciousness, as in sleep
(see Essay, II, i) and dangerously too consistent with the theory of
metempsychosis. He likewise rejects the materialistic view, that bodily
identity can serve as a ground for personal identity, because of the
fleeting composition of animate beings. His own position is sceptical
and uncertain. He is certain of what is false but he is not so sure of
what is true. He believes the soul to be immortal but considers this
doctrine to be a truth which can only be given by revelation. He
believes that the question concerning the soul's immaterial simplicity
is meaningful; and yet his often reductivist temperament insists that
it is possible that matter may think. At least it is no more inexplicable
than that immaterial substances think. And finally, he seems to believe
that the body will be ressurrected although he does not seek to give
arguments for this position. IS
After Locke, a number of other thinkers early in the 18th century
explicitly rely on the argument from simplicity in order to establish
a necessary and sufficient criterion of personal identity. Thus, for
example, John Witty, who was influenced by Locke, nevertheless,
16 Locke, Section 26; italic mine.

17 Ibid., Section 22. See also: Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters, I, pp. 502,
518; New Essays, II, xxvii, §9.
18 See Essay, IV, XVii, 23; Reasonableness of Christianity, §§ 1-12; Works, Vol. 4,
330 IT.
insists that as thinking substances "are absolutely simple, and infinitely

removed from divisibility by a strict necessity, each of them must
forever continue the same simple individual thing."19 Similarly, Samuel
Clarke, in directing his objections against "Materialists and Mecha-
nists," is especially critical of Henry Dodwell's thesis that man is a
material compound. For, as Clarke insists,
your [Dodwell's] doctrine perplexes the notion of Personal Identity, upon which
identity the justice of all reward or punishment manifestly depends; makes the
resurrection in your way of arguing, to be inconceivable and impossible: And
consequently your doctrine, (which supposes the body to be the whole man,) is
destructive of religion; leaving no room for reward or punishment, but in the
present life only; and consequently giving men the liberty to do every thing for
their present pleasure or advantage ... Which is the greatest mischief that can
possibly befall mankind. But if the soul be, as we believe, a permanent indivisible
immaterial substance, then all these difficulties vanish. 20
Witty and Clarke notwithstanding once Locke had accomplished
his thorough analysis of identities in the Essay, it was no longer open
to any first-rate philosopher to naively argue that personal identity
can be sufficiently established by relying on the principle that an
immaterial soul remains identical because it can suffer no change,
since it is simple, i.e., without parts. The reason for this is that as
soon as Locke's work appeared it was recognized as a major
achievement, which had to be taken into account. In 1688 an abstract
of the Essay had already been printed and it was immediately translated
into French, appearing in Leclerc's "Bibliotheque universelle" (VII,
pp. 49-142), where Leibniz first gained knowledge of it. After 1690,
a quick succession of editions became available in 1694 (which first
included the section on personal identity), 1697, 1699, and 1705, and
these manifestly testified to its welcome reception by cultivated circles.
Leibniz himself undertook a progressively careful study of it, point by
point, and, as was his custom, attempted to engage Locke in
19 John Witty, op. cll., p. 290.

20 Clarke, Third and fourth defense of an argument made use of by Mr. Dodwell ... ,
p. 62; see: pp. 44-45. Clarke gives the example of the problem of the identity of the
ship, whose parts and planks are substituted successively, in his discussion of personal
identity. Hume later cites the same instance in his section on personal identity in the
Treatise. See also: Leibniz, New Essays, II, xxvii, Sect. 4; and translator's note 2.
Newton, whose views on absolute space and time were defended by Clarke, in
Newton's dispute with Leibniz, himself holds that "Every soul that has perception
is, though in different times and in different organs of sense and motion, sti1l the
same indivisible person" (Newton's Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Phi-
losophy by Sir Isaac Newton, trans. A. Motte [New York, 1846], Bk. III. General
Scholium).
The reasoning always remains clear and consistent. Moral identity is grounded
III personal identity. For if the soul (or the person) were not essentially an identity,
moral accountability would be impossible.
correspondence regarding their disagreements. When Locke failed to
respond, Leibniz nevertheless continued to pursue his interest in
Locke's work, which was enhanced by a French translation of the
Essay, in 1700, by Pierre Coste, and he formulated a plan for a more
thorough answer to the Englishman's challenge. Delays in connection
with rumored changes that Locke had achieved and Locke's death
in 1704 finally decided Leibniz in abandoning his goal of publication.
And in fact his New Essays did not reach print until 1765, almost
half a century after Leibniz's own death.
Leibniz' composition itself assumes the form of a dialogue between
two friends, Philalethes and Theophilus, the former representing
Locke's views and the latter those of the author. Thus, in the section
of the New Essays concerning identity Theophilus declares that
as regards substances, which are in themselves a true and real substantial unity,
to which may belong actions properly called vital, and as regards substantial
beings ... which a certain indivisible spirit animates, you are right in saying
that they remain perfectly the same individual through this soul or this spirit
which constitutes the ego in thinking beings.
And although Leibniz agrees in great part with Locke "that conscious-
ness or the perception of the ego proves a moral or personal identity"
(Sect. 9) (and that this distinguishes the "immortality of the soul of
man" from "the incessability of the soul of an animal" [Sect. 9]),
he nevertheless contends against Locke that "consciousness is not the
sole means for constituting personal identity" and in some cases
"the testimony of another or even other proofs can supply it" (Sect. 10).
The entire discussion occurs within what we, as 20th century readers,
would take to be simply problematic cases of transposed and transferred
identities, but in point of fact the actual context surrounding the issue
concerns metempsychosis - and what it would entail in terms of
moral responsibility. For Leibniz "the identity of one and the same
individual substance can be maintained only by the conservation of
the same soul, for the body is in continual flux, and the soul does not
dwell in certain atoms appropriated to itself' (Sect. 5). (And Locke
agrees.) But in opposition to Locke, he maintains that despite
discontinuities in consciousness and memory we nonetheless hold a
man responsible even though he has forgotten the circumstances of
a past action or even if he no longer thinks of himself as the same
person (Sect. 9, 16). The result of this is that consciousness and
memory alone cannot be sufficient criteria of moral identity. On the
other hand, Leibniz, drawing on his distinction between three degrees
of consciousness, admits t~at:
An immaterial being or spirit cannot be stripped of all perception of its past
existence. There remain for it some impressions of all that has formerly happened
to it... but these feelings are most often too small to be capable of being
distinguished and perceived, although they may perhaps sometimes be developed.

This continuation and bond of perceptions constitutes in reality the same
individual, but the apperceptions (i.e., when past feelings are perceived [when the
act of reflecting is the same as the act upon which you reflect in perceiving it;
Sect. 13]), prove besides a moral identity and make real identity appear. The
pre-existence of souls does not appear to us through our perceptions, but if it
were true, it might sometimes make itself known. Thus it is not reasonable
that the restitution of memory becomes forever impossible, the insensible
perceptions. .. serving here, moreover, to preserve the seeds. 21
How vital the entire issue is in Leibniz's own mind may be ascertained
from the next sentences below the ones just cited. For there, Leibniz
takes up Henry More's defense of the pre-existence of souls and
Francois Mercure van Helmont's argument for transmigration. Rather
similar to More, Leibniz believes that souls emanate through continual
fulgurations from God but unlike Van Helmont he rejects the idea
of reincarnation as improbable. He does, however, contend that
"transformations" occur.
[The soul] keeps always, even in death, an organized body, a part of the
preceding, although what it keeps is always subject to insensible dissipation and
to reparation, and indeed to undergoing in a certain time a great change.
Thus instead of a transmigration of the soul there is a transformation,
envelopment, or development, and finally a fluxion of the body of this soul. 22
For Leibniz, the soul is immortal because it is a simple, indivisible

monad. This constitutes a necessary, but not sufficient, condition of
moral identity. It is essentially moral, however, because it can, and
will, ultimately recall, by an internal development of its petitio percipi,
its past actions and hence, despite whatever considerable transfor-
mations transpire, continue the same, identical moral self. In this way,
Leibniz admits Locke's emphasis on selfconsciousness as a requisite
of moral accountability while at the same time he incorporates his
own earlier thought concerning the soul's unextended and monadic
character. The two positions are indeed reconcilable and follow from
Leibniz's own principle that all monads unfold from within. What is
important about Leibniz's treatment is his frank recognition of the
issues involved and his sympathetic emphasis of the different principles
concerned.
Although we might have expected Berkeley to advance the simplicity
proof as the condition of personal identity, he does not. Berkeley
distinguishes between minds and ideas.The former are active, indivisible
substances; the latter inert, fleeting, dependent, and unsubstantial.
Like Malebranche, Berkeley maintains that knowledge of the self is
non-ideational and that we are not, in full, objects to ourselves,23
21 Ibid., Section 14.
22 Section 6.
23 Luce, Berkeley'S Immaterialism, p. 148.
although "We comprehend our own existence by inward feeling or
reflexion"(Principles, Sect. 89; 2nd ed.). Unlike our knowledge of other
minds, our awareness of the self is not inferential (ibid.). Rather,
this primary sort of knowledge of the self Berkeley describes as
immediate and intuitive, and terms it a "notion." Hence, Berkeley
admits in the Dialogues that:
I have properly no idea, either of God or any other spirit; for these being active,
cannot be represented by things perfectly inert, as our ideas are. I do nevertheless
know, that I who am a spirit or thinking substance, exist as certainly, as I
know my ideas exist. Farther, I know what I mean by the terms I and myself;
and I know this immediately, or intuitively, though I do not perceive it as
I perceive a triangle, a colour, or a sound. The mind, spirit or soul, is that
indivisible unextended thing, which thinks, acts, and perceives. I say indivisible,
because unextended; and unextended, because extended, figured, moveable things,
are ideas; and that which perceives ideas, which thinks and wills, is plainly
it self no idea, nor like an idea. ( Works, II, p. 231)
Certain philosophers, like Berkeley, believed that the simple, unex-
tended character of the soul is a datum of reflex ion which is immediately
given. Others, on the other hand, like the Cambridge Platonists, sought
to infer, to prove, this truth. Hume, as we shall see in relation to
Shaftesbury, develops his arguments concerning personal identity
against both these metaphysical positions. 24
Shaftesbury continues Locke's speculations dealing with personal
identity and, like his former tutor, he conceives of the problem within
the context of the rationalist argument concerning the immateriality
and simplicity of the thinking subject. In the same spirit as Locke,
Shaftesbury attacks the rationalist and the materialist accounts of
both the identity of the self and the nature of thought. In his attempt
to establish the requirements necessary for a moral self, Shaftesbury
seeks to synthesize Locke's two criteria of organic and personal identity.
Thus, according to Shaftesbury, not only is there no problem in
conceiving that some living organisms are self-conscious, but indeed
it is quite obvious that this is actually the case. However, although
this is factually evident, it is just as clear, argues Shaftesbury, that the
constant identity of these entities is not derived from any continuity
of existence, either of a simple spiritual soul or of a material body.
In other words, moral identity cannot be established in virtue of
either (1) a simple soul or a continually present, identical thought
in individual consciousness; nor (2) by pointing to a configuration of
physical particles, constantly present throughout the course of life.
Shaftesbury does acknowledge, as Hume will after him, a certain
force to the rationalist argument that all thinking resides in "the
24 On Berkeley's awareness of the difference between soul and person see his
Philosophical Commentaries (Notebook B), Sections 14, 24, 25, 200.
simple pure substance of immaterial thought" ;25 and he conceives

the argument within the context of a theory of the self. 26 But although
not able to directly criticize this view of the self, Shaftesbury proceeds
to give what he considers to be a more plausible explanation of
individual, human identity, one expressed in terms applicable and
analogous to the identity we naturally and easily attribute to other
living entities. The following passage should be read with the thought
in mind that Shaftesbury's interests in this context are primarily
directed from his perspective as a moralist and that his inquiries into
the criteria of personal identity reflect these purposes.
Why, said he, is there any difficulty in fancying the universe to be one entire
thing? Can one otherwise think of it, by what is visible, than that all hangs
together as of a piece? Grant it; and what follows? Only this, that if it may
indeed be said of the world 'that it is simply one,' there should be something
belonging to it which makes it one. As how? No otherwise than as you may
observe in everything.... I know you look upon the trees of this vast wood
to be different from one another; and this tall oak, the noblest of the company,
as it is by itself a different thing from all its fellows of the wood, as with
its own wood of numerous spreading branches (which seem so many different
trees) 'tis still, I suppose, one and the self same tree. Now ... if you questioned
me fairly and desired I should satisfy you what I thought it was which made
this oneness or sameness in the tree or any other plant... I should affirm,
'that wherever there was such a sympathising of parts as we saw here in our
real tree, wherever there was such a plain concurrence in one common end,
and to the support, nourishment, and propagation of so fair a form, we could
not be mistaken in saying there was a peculiar nature belonging to this form .
. .. By virtue of this, our tree is a real tree, lives flourishes, and is still one and
the same even when by vegetation and change of substance not one particle
in it remains the same. [Next] let us examine this thing of personality between
you and me, and consider how you, Philocles, are you, and I am myself.
For that there is a sympathy of parts [Hume will use the same three words]
in these figures of ours other than in those of marble formed by a Phidias ...
sense, I believe, will teach us. And yet that our own marble or stuff (whatever
it be, of which we are composed) wears out in seven or at the longest in twice
seven years, the meanest anatomist can tell us. And where, I beseech you, will
that same one be found at last, supposing it to lie in the stuff itself, or any
part of it? For when that is wholly spent, and not one particle of it left, we are
ourselves still as much as before ... [And] though this may happen to a man and
chiefly to one whose contrary vices set him at odds so often with himself,
yet when he comes to suffer or be punished for those vices he finds himself,
if I mistake not, still one and the same. And you, Philocles, though you disown
philosophy, are yet so true a proselyte to Pyrrhonism, should you at last...
be wrought upon to own the divine hypothesis, and from this new turn of
thought admit a total change in all your principles and opinions yet would
you be still the self-same Philocles... You see, therefore, there is a strange
simplicity in this you and me, that in reality they should be still one and the
same, when neither one atom of body, one passion, nor one thought, remain
the same. 27
25 Shaftesbury, Characteristics, II, p. 70.
26 Ibid., II, pp. 102-103.
27 Ibid., II, pp. 99-101, italics mine; see also, passage from Locke, above. Hume
Hume will follow the same reasoning in his attempt to establish
personal identity; and there can be little doubt, as his explicit
acknowledgement of Shaftesbury makes clear, that in this regard he
considers Shaftesbury as his mentor. Both Shaftesbury and Hume
(like Locke) deny the rationalistic as well as the materialistic explana-
tions of the self. Both base identity in the common end pursued by
the several parts of an organism. Both hold that despite a total physical
change the organism remains the same, although to be sure Hume
entitles this sameness "a fiction," produced by the imagination. 28
However, this sort of fictional identity is yet a sufficient condition,
in Hume's own view, for imputations of moral praise and blame to
agents, and it is adequate for all the practical purposes of life. On this
account, Hume's analysis of personal identity runs on all fours with his
criticism of the rationalist view of causality, which similarly culminates
in Hume's naturalistic view, emphasizing belief against reason. In both
cases it is the imagination, or custom when he is discussing causality,
which effects the transition between what he sometimes describes as
associatively related ideas. 29
Differently put, what is at issue is always this. The materialists,
possibly in order to defend the doctrine of resurrection: (a) had tried
to account for the activity of thought on reductively materialistic
principles; and (b) had endeavored to establish personal identity on
a model of bodily identity. Both Hume and Shaftesbury agree: (\) that
"thought," however designated, and matter are irreconcilable; and
(2) that personal identity could never be established through the
criterion of bodily identity, for the simple reason that "anatomists"
had conclusively shown, in the eighteenth century, that the body
undergoes a total and complete physiological change in a relatively
short period of time.
would, of course, reject the italicized phrase above. It IS merely a reiteration of a

point made by Locke in Essay, II, xxvii, 4-5. However, it is this italicized phrase,
as well as Shaftesbury's use of the words "strange simplicity" that has misled John
Laird into thinking that Shaftesbury intended something mysterious and unknown.
But by "peculiar" Shaftesbury merely means, as did Locke above, the singular or
particular nature of different species of living things; the term "strange" is just a
rhetorical flourish. In a similar sense, Hume will use the term "remarkable," in
describing the sympathy of parts contributing to a common end (below). I might
also point out in passing that Shaftesbury's example of the oak is quite similar to the
passage Hume gives in the Treatise, I, p. 257: "An oak that grows from a small
plant to a large tree, IS still the same oak; tho' there be not one particle of matter, or
figure of its parts the same." Locke, Shaftesbury, and Hume all use the same example
of the oak and indeed much of the same terminology.
28 Treatise, I, pp. 259-260 and Book II throughout.
29 Compare Treatise, I, pp. 259-260 to pp. 164-166; see also: Kemp Smith, PDH,
pp. 375-376.
The rationalists argued in a parallel manner, being just as convinced

as the materialists, that the same principle of explanation could be
used to understand both thought and personal identity. Thus, from
the unextended and indivisible character of thought they concluded
to the indivisible, i.e., simple aspect of the self. Again, Hume and
Shaftesbury are one in denying that personal identity can be exhibited
in this fashion; Hume holding that there is no simple and identical
idea of the self, continuing invariably through our whole lives; and
Shaftesbury contenting himself in criticizing the reductionism of the
rationalists and resting his case in an epistemological scepticism.
Finally, both Hume and Shaftesbury, while insisting on the fact
of se1fawareness, proceed to give an alternate explanation of the self,
one modelled in terms of an identity analogous to that which we
attribute to a plant or an animal. In this respect they seek to mediate
the over-reductionism of both materialists and rationalists.
Shaftesbury's positive explanation of personal identity then rests on
two principles. First, that we can reflect on our inner states, on our
own awarenesses, on our "selves"; and secondly, that our selves enjoy
the same sort of identity attributable to plants and animals (Hume will
add political unities and artificial products to the list). Accordingly,
Shaftesbury, after having given his account of identity proceeds to
maintain, in An Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit (corrected in the
same year that The Moralists was published, 1709), that
In whatever manner we consider of this, we shall find still, that every reasoning
or reflecting creature is by his nature forced to endure the review of his own
mind and actions, and to have representations of himself and his inward affairs
constantly passing before him, obvious to him, and revolving in his mind. 30
Again:
For let us carry scepticism ever so far, let us doubt if we can, of everything
about us, we cannot doubt of what passes Within ourselves. Our passions and
affections are known to us. They are certain, whatever the objects may be on
which they are employed. 31
In The Moralists, Theocles similarly assures Philocles that there

is actually such a "particular one as yourself," for in this respect,
"your own mind, 'tis hoped will satisfy you." This exchange follows
upon Philocles own statement that:
Truly ... as accidental as my life may be, or as random that humour is which
30 Characteristics, I, p. 305. This was a common assumptIOn of 17th and 18th century
Bntlsh "moralIsts," shared by Hobbes, Locke, Butier, Hume and many others, which
served as a methodological pnnclple in the newly proposed sciences of man. Perhaps
the ultImate determimng influence in thIS case is Cartesian.
31 Ihul, pp. 336-337.
governs it, I know nothing, after all, so real and substantial as myself. Therefore
if there be that thing you call substance, I take it for granted I am one. 32
This thought is repeated in Miscellaneous Reflections when Shaftes-
bury affirms that against the speculations of the metaphysicians,
who hold "that identity can be proved only by consciousness" (p. 275;
italic mine) he will, instead, take his own being "upon trust" (p. 276).
Shaftesbury's entire treatment, I believe, Hume found to be singularly
suggestive and congenial when he undertook his own discussion of
personal identity. Unlike Locke and Bishop Butler before him, Hume
declines to regard selfconsciousness and memory as sufficient criteria
for identity. He, of course, no more than Shaftesbury denies that
human beings characteristically are aware of what passes within
themselves; but he does not consider this the essence of personal
identity. Rather, like Shaftesbury, he seeks to give his explanation
along naturalistic lines, and draws his models from biology and
society.
As I have tried to emphasize, Hume's problems and solutions
concerning identity, and the causative factors involved regarding the
question of the immateriality of thought, can be viewed as the
continuation of the answers which Locke and Shaftesbury provided,
within the context Locke had initiated. 33 Shaftesbury had argued
against the rationalists (Shaftesbury also calls them the dogmatists)
that the constancy of the self could not be established on the principles
they had argued, to wit, simplicity and identity established by thought
alone. That Hume was similarly aware of this very reasoning, used
in attempts to establish the simplicity and the identity of the thinking
32 IbId., p. 103.
33 Norman Kemp Smith, in his Philosophy oj'David Hume, has argued that there
IS a conflict, In the TreatIse, between two distinct views of the self. The basis for the
disparity between the two positions on the self Kemp Smith attributes to an essential
opposition between (a) Francis Hutcheson's early influence on Hume, where a constant
and biological model of the self IS posited as observer and is deemed requisite for any
pOSSible ascnptlOn of moral acts, as well as imputations of praise and blame to
the agent (see Books II and III, and see esp. Treatise, pp. 4\0-412 along with the
corresponding passage in An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding); and (b) Hume's
later Newtonian emphaSIS, expressed in terms of the association of Ideas, where this
previous, constant self seems to dissolve through the applicatIOn of a sceptic's solvent
(Book I). On thiS baSIS Kemp Smith has argued that Book II (and III) IS earlier in date
of composition than Book I. See Kemp Smith, PDH, pp. 73-76, 96-99, 497-505.
Elsewhere, I have critiCIzed Kemp Smith's interpretation and have argued that the self in
Book I is consistent with the self Hume offers in Book II, and in doing so I have
maintained that Hume was directly Indebted to Shaftesbury for his positive account
of self identity. See my article, ""Hume and Shaftesbury on the Self," Philosophical
Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 85 (October, 1971), pp. 324-336. Consequently, I shall disregard
Kemp Smith's analysis in what follows.
subject, as well as in proofs trying to argue for the immateriality and

immortality of the soul, can be shown by the following passages,
taken from the section in Treatise, Book I, entitled Of the immateriality
of the soul. In this section Hume criticizes both the materialist and
the rationalist accounts of thought. Briefly put, against the materialists,
he argues that the greatest part of "beings," i.e., our perceptions, do not
exist in any particular place. Hence he states the "maxim"
that an object may exist, and yet be no where: and I assert that this is not only
possible, but that the greatest part of beings do and must exist after this
manner. An object may be said to be no where, when its parts are not so
situated with respect to each other, as to form any figure or quantity; nor the
whole with respect to other bodies so as to answer to our notions of contiguity
or distance. Now this is evidently the case with all our perceptions and objects,
except those of the sight and feeling. A moral reflection cannot be plac'd on the
right or on the left hand of a passion, nor can a smell or sound be either
of a circular or a square figure. These objects and perceptions so far from
requiring any particular place, are absolutely incompatible with it, and even the
imagination cannot attribute it to them. 34
The ultimate premise in this reasoning is undoubtedly the principle

that thoughts are unextended. Feelings, desires, and most of our
perceptions, to give a rationalist description, are apprehended by
thought and are, therefore, unextended, i.e., they exist no where, in
no particular place. So far Hume's position against the materialists
is clear and quite straightforward. However, when Hume comes to
discuss the rationalists he finds himself unable to dispatch of their
argument as readily, since he has himself adopted a version of their
premise. (See already quoted passage from Treatise, pp. 234-235;
Enquiry, XII, I, 119, 122-123). What is troubling Hume is not the
rationalist principle that thoughts (Hume's impressions and ideas)
are unextended; this he accepts, and indeed, as we have seen above,
employs this same principle in his argument against the materialistic
account of perception. Rather, what Hume objects to is the rationalist
contention that the self can be traced to a simple or identical idea
of self. But although Hume wishes to argue against this, properly
speaking, he does not do so in the section Of the immateriality of
the soul but rather postpones his criticism until he reaches the section
on personal identity. However, despite this, Hume does afford us ample
warning of the line he will take as early as Part IV, Section II,
Of scepticism in regard to the senses, when he says,
we may observe, that what we call a mind, is nothing but a heap or collection
of different perceptions, united together by certain relations, and suppos'd tho'
falsely, to be endow'd with a perfect simplicity and identity.35
34 Treatise, I; pp. 235-236.

35 Ibid .. p. 207.
Hume never means to deny that we have a notion of the self;

it is only the rationalist conception of the self that Hume is concerned
to challenge. That view holds: (a) that the immateriality, simplicity,
and unity of the soul can be demonstrated, as the Cambridge Platonists
had sought to prove;36 and/or (b) that we are continuously and
immediately, intuitively) aware of the self, that we have an idea of
the self, every moment of our lives, as a simple and identical being
(as Berkeley had intimated).37 This, and this alone, Hume, no less
than Shaftesbury, seeks to deny. To thought he will grant, nay he will
insist that it is unextended; but against the demonstrative rationalists
of position (a) he will claim that the indivisibility of thought (as
unextended) does not allow them to infer or prove the simplicity of
the self or the immateriality of the soul. Against (b), the intuitional
rationalists, Hume argues that at least he himself can discover no
such simple idea continuously present in his own consciousness. Hence,
in concluding his objections in Section V (but not his argument against
the simplicity of the self) Hume announces against both the materialists
and the rationalists the inadequacy of their views in the following
terms:
But tho' ... we cannot refuse to condemn the materialists, who conjoin all
thought with extension; yet a little reflection will show us equal reason for
blaming their antagonists, who conjoin all thought with a simple and indivisible
substance. 38
This is all Hume means to challenge. He denies that consciousness
of self is constituted by either a simple or an identical idea. And I
would further argue that the section Of personal identity can be
schematized, for our purposes, in the following manner: (l) that the
rationalists are wrong in insisting that we are conscious of a simple
and identical idea of the self; but (2) that we can reflect on our own
inner states, on our own awarenesses, on our "selves"; and (3) that
more properly speaking our "selves" enjoy the same sort of identity
attributable to a commonwealth or a plant. In all this Hume again
follows the thought of his predecessor, Shaftesbury.
Thus, concerning point (1) Hume initiates the discussion on personal
identity by characterizing the camp he his preparing to attack.
There are some philosophers, who imagine we are every moment mtimately
conscious of what we call our SELF; that we feel its existence and its continuance
in existence; and are certain, beyond the evidence of a demonstration, both of
its perfect identity and simplicity. 39
36 Ibid., Part IV, Section V.
37 Ibid., Section VI.
38 Ibid., p. 239.
39 Ibid., p. 251. The hidden reasoning seems to be as follows: The self is conti-
nually conscious; to be conscious IS to be selfconscious. Therefore the self, as

In opposition Hume declares:

There is properly no simplicity in [the mind] at one time, nor identity in
different; whatever natural propension we may have to imagine that simplicity
and identity.40
Against this extreme type of rationalist, Hume has a tendency to

overstate his case.
But setting aside some such metaphysicians of this kind I may venture to
affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection
of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity,
and are in a perpetual flux and movement. 41
In regard to point (2) Hume never denies that we can reflect on our
own states of consciousness, but only that this reflective awareness is
not the basis for our notion of the self. Problematic as the account
of such acts of ordinary reflection may be, it is an undeniable fact,
for Hume, that they OCCUr. 42
In discussing point (3), namely Hume's positive conception of the
self, it is easiest to understand his theory through the influence of
Shaftesbury. Indeed in the entire section on personal identity Shaftes-
bury alone is mentioned as the philosophical precursor to Hume's
own naturalistic account of the self.
If the reader is desirous to see how a great genius may be influenced by these
seemingly trivial principles of the imagination ... let him read my Lord Shaftes-
hury's reasonings concerning the uniting principle of the universe and the
identity of plants and animals. See his Moralists or, Philosophical rhapsody.43
John Laird, in his book on Hume, believes Hume to be criticizing
rather than commending Shaftesbury, in this footnote passage of the
Treatise. Thus, according to Laird, he would have us believe Hume
to be saying that "when the action of a soul seemed over-bold, as
with the 'identity' of plants, we imagined some mysterious 'sympathy'
selfconsclOus thought (which is immaterial, unextended, and simple) is continuously

aware of its own simplicity.
40 IbId., p. 253; italics his.
41 Treatise, p. 252. Hume's use of the term "metaphysicians" echoes Shaftesbury's;
see Characteristics, I, p. 275.

42 See Treatise, I, p. 252; II, pp. 317, 329, 354; Appendix, p. 634.
43 Ibid., p. 254, footnote. Shaftesbury is also cited by Hume, in connection with
his moral sense doctrine, in An InqUiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (Library
of Liberal Arts, 1957), p. 4. The reference is undoubtedly to Shaftesbury's An Inquiry
Concerning Virtue or Merit. Furthermore that Hume was strongly influenced by
Shaftesbury's writings within the Treatise is obvious from even a cursory reading of
internal evidence provided by comparison of certain passages in Hume and Shaftesbury.
Consult, for example, Treatise, II, p. 361, with Characteristics, Vol. I, pp. 3\0-315.
In the Preface to the Treatise Hume gives a very general acknowledgement of
Shaftesbury (p. xxi).
in its stead and ranted about it like my Lord Shaftesbury in his
Moralists. "44 But a careful reading of the footnote will show that
Hume refers to the "seemingly trivial principles of the imagination,"
in connection with personal identity. And if anything, Hume certainly
does not think that the principles of the imagination, on which he
bases his entire positive philosophy, are trivial. Furthermore, Hume,
like Shaftesbury, believes that personal identity can be, in fact,
"successfully explain'd" on the model of the "identity of plants, and
animals, and ships, and houses, and of all the compounded and
changeable productions either of art or nature. "45 And finally, on
page 257 of the Treatise (first two paragraphs), Hume not only does
not imply that Shaftesbury was "ranting" in The Moralists, but instead
explicitly agrees that the imagination grounds identity in "a sympathy
of parts," in "a common end," pursued by the "same" object. 46
I think that what has misled Laird is Hume's reference to "something
mysterious and unknown" (T., p. 254). Laird takes this to be an
allusion to Shaftesbury's "sympathizing of parts," found in plants
and vegetables. I, on the other hand, interpret the terms as referring
to what Hume has just been saying concerning "soul, and self, and
substance," namely that we have a tendency, in these cases, to ascribe
to such ideas "a perfect identity" and to regard them "as invariable
and uninterrupted. "4 7 The "something unknown and mysterious,"
as Hume says, is something added to souls and substances "beside
their relation." It is to this addition, this illicit fiction that Hume
directs his criticism. And, as Hume shows, the identity we ascribe to
plants, animals, ships, houses, and "the mind of man," although also
fictitious, are natural fictions.48 In other words Hume is distinguishing
two sorts of fictions: (a) metaphysical fictions and (b) natural tictions.
The first class (a) are false and mysterious because they claim to point
to something which is in fact undiscoverable and non-existent, e.g.,
a simple and identical, invariable, and uninterrupted impression or
idea of the self. The second class of fictions (b), the natural fictions
(although perhaps not "true") are useful and beneficial, as for example,
in connections establishing a sufficient basis for personal identity,
an identity stable enough in which to ground imputations of moral
praise and blame. This second class of fictions, as Hume just said,
is based on relations, namely those of resemblance, contiguity, and
44 John Laird, Hume's Philosophy of Human Nature (Dutton, 1931), p. 160.
4S Treatise, I, p. 261.
46 This view itself, In both Shaftesbury and Hume, is once again but a reaffir-
mation of the identity Locke allows to be attributed to plant, animal, and human
organisms (Essay, II, xxvii).
47 Treatise, I, p. 254.
48 Ibid., p. 259.
causation. And these, as he has been concerned to show in the

preceding 250 pages of the Treatise, unlike the metaphysical fictions,
do have a basis in concrete impressions; and even though they are
not identical to impressions, Hume still believes he has conclusively
shown that they are inseparably related to antecedent impressions.
I would conclude, therefore, that Laird's interpretation of Hume's
reference to Shaftesbury is incorrect, and that Hume is praising
Shaftesbury.49
Hume's positive explanation of the self follows:
We now proceed to explain the nature of personal identity, which has become
so great a question in philosophy, especially of late years in England... And
here 'tis evident, the same method of reasoning must be continu'd which has so
successfully explain'd the identity of plants and animals, and ships, and houses,
and of all the compounded and changeable productions either of art or nature.
The identity, which we ascribe to the mind of men, is only a fictitious one,
and of a like kind with that which we ascribe to vegetables and animal
bodies. 50
[This identity is established when the imagination produces1 a reference of
the parts to each other, and a combination to some common end or purpose.
A ship, of which a considerable part has been chang'd by frequent reparations,
is still considered as the same; nor does the difference of the materials hinder
us from ascribing an identity to it. The common end, in which the parts conspire,
is the same under all their variations ...
But this is still more remarkable, when we add a sympathy of parts to their
common end, and suppose that they bear to each other, the reciprocal relation
of cause and effect in all their actions and operations. This is the case with
all animals and vegetables; where not only the several parts have a reference
to some general purpose; but also a mutual dependance on, connexion with
each other. The effect of so strong a relation is, that tho' every one must allow
that in a very few years both vegetables and animals endure a total change,
yet we still attribute identity to them, while their form, size, and substance are
entirely alter'd... An infant becomes a man... without any change in his
identityY
In this respect I cannot compare the soul [Hume uses the term "soul,"
"mind," and "self' interchangeably1 more properly to any thing than to a
republic or commonwealth, in which the several members are united by the
reciprocal ties of government and subordination, and give rise to other persons,
who propagate the same republic in the incessant changes of its parts. And as
the same individual republic may not only change its members, but also its
laws and constitutions: in like manner the same person may vary his character
and disposition, as well as his impressions and ideas, without losing his
identity ...
As memory [qua reflection] alone acquaints us with the continuance and
extent of this succession of perceptions, 'tis to be consider'd upon that account
chiefly, as the source of personal identity. 52
49 cr. Stanley Grean, Shaftesbury's Philosophy of Religion and Ethics (Ohio, 1967),
p. x.
50 Treatise, I, p. 259.
51 Ibid., p. 257. I have inverted the spatial location or these two passages in
order to give Hume's exposition a more argumentative tone.
52 Treatise, I, p. 261. Italics mine. Hume usually says that it is the imagination
Furthermore, it may be pointed out that memory always and

essentially relates a present impression to one "believed" as "past,"
and that this relational quality of memory thus manifestly opposes
it to any simple or identical or single impression of the self.
Finally, like Shaftesbury, Hume maintains that a person may alter
his principles and yet remain the same self.
In conclusion, then, I have tried to show that Hume, following
Shaftesbury, seeks: (a) to deny the rationalist account of the self;
(b) to formulate a positive description of the self, in terms analogous
to those previously used in explanation of plant and animal identities
(although Hume even extends it as well to artificial products which
conspire in function to one end); and finally (c) to insist, as Shaftesbury
does, that this naturalistic explanation of identity is thoroughly
consistent, in principle, with an available, constant, reflective awareness
of the self.
I have, of course, not reconciled the above conception of the self
with the self which Hume offers in the Appendix. That self, I am
convinced, is a thoroughly epistemological one, quite sceptical in its
which effects personal identity, for it is through the agency of the imaginatIOn
that we feel the identity of the self (1, pp. 259-260); although at other times he
summons memory as the principle of continuity.
Further, it is clear from the cited passage that Hume believes that his analYSIS of
personal identity is parallel to his diSCUSSIOn concernmg causality. In both analyses,
it is custom, or imagination (sometimes memory), which accomplishes the needed
tranSition between essentially distinct Ideas; it IS not the understanding, I e., reason
Again, Hume, in the section Of personal Identity, is just as optimistic that the
imagination can secure a fictional identity as he was previously confident that the
"causal inference" rests on custom and not reason. (Similarly, throughout Book II,
it is the imagination that serves as the suffusing force which establishes personal
identity).
No doubt this optimism was m large part due to Shaftesbury's analysis of the self,
which Hume adopted prior to the time he wrote the AppendiX. I say he tempo-
rarily abandoned his positive view of the self because he seems to have undergone a
crise pyrrhonienne, concerning the principle of identity underlying the self, a sceptical
impasse which he later chose or managed to avoid. Thus, the chronology of his
reflections seems to be as follows: In Book I of the Treatise (1739) he posits a pOSitive
view of the self; in the Appendix (and in the Abstract, both published in 1740),
he denies any possible prinCiple as sufficient to establish self identity; then, in the
first Enquiry (\ 748), in the Advertisement, he disavows the philosophic opinions of
his earlier work as immature and he entirely omits the section Of personal Identity
in the Enquiry, while maintaining a discreet silence on the self throughout the
composition; and finally, in the Dissertation on the Passions (1757), he returns to-and
assumes-a constant self.
Consequently, I would argue that Hume is willing to entertain his "atomistic"
principle concerning the identity of the self, in the section Of persnal identity in the
Treatise, but that he thinks it can be readily resolved by a Shaftesburean account
of the self, wherein memory and consciousness are regarded as non-problematic.
self-regarding attitude. Again, that self, I would admit, is necessarily

at odds with the conception of a "passional" or psychological, moral,
and social self, which Hume espouses throughout the rest of the
Treatise. To this sceptical self, Hume never returned in his later
writings. It may be noted, however, that Hume's ultimate scepticism
concerning the self is, paradoxically enough, based on the reflexive
character of thought, on selfconsciousness.
I have gone into a detailed analysis of Hume's debt to Shaftesbury
because I think it exhibits most clearly the background of the historical
issues involved in understanding the section on personal identity in
the Treatise. Such considerations are important in placing in proper
perspective what the philosophers themselves, in the 17th and 18th
centuries, conceived to be at issue. Questions concerning proofs for
the immortality of the soul; whether senseless matter could possibly
think; the principle of moral individuation; all these key issues were
living problems to Hume and vitally occupied his thinking while he
was in the process of writing the Treatise. And unless the historian of
philosophy understands these concerns and sees them through Hume's
eyes, selfconsciously reenacts Hume's thoughts, as Collingwood liked
to put it, any historically-oriented interpretation of Hume will tend
to be incomplete. It mayor may not be good philosophy, but it won't
be Hume. Thus, for example, in the last three chapters I have tried
to show how the inquiries initiated by the Cambridge Platonists
affected, say, Locke and Shaftesbury and how they then, in turn, were
transmitted to thinkers like Hume. But this relationship, which I have
developed more at length in this chapter, is by no means an isolated
one. And I hope that this sort of conceptual reconstruction in the
history of ideas, which I have attempted with Shaftesbury and Hume,
indicates the kind of study required in order to begin to historically
appreciate the philosophical arguments of the major figures of the
17th and 18th centuries.
We have seen how Hume's fairly elementary criticism of the
simplicity argument leads to his rival positivistic and naturalistic
account of the self. And indeed, Hume does not so much attack the
argument itself as offer what he regards to be a more plausible account
of the foundations for our conception of personal identity. The
importance of this, however, is that in English letters at least, Hume's
Treatise criticisms of the simplicity argument - as developed through
reflections from Cudworth to Clarke (and, in a qualified sense, to
Berkeley) - symbolize an attitude which ends the proofs influence
in British thought. For Hume not only challenges the rationalist
account of personal identity but, more importantly, he offers an
alternate explanation, one which is able to serve as a substitute theory
of the self. Furthermore, Hume's views appeal to the growing
sympathetic attitude of the 18th century toward science, by stressing
both (a) the principle of the association of ideas and (b) the model of
biological identity, through his positive theory of the self. It may be
argued, of course, that Hume's Treatise, in point of historical fact,
had little influence on his more immediate contemporaries. Nevertheless,
Hume's position represents at least the conceptual culmination of a
train of ideas whose progress we have endeavored to trace from
Withers through Hobbes, Locke, and Shaftesbury. (Even the later
conceptions of Joseph Priestly, in English philosophy, are but a
reiteration of these earlier views.) And it is in this respect that the British
version of the argument ends with Hume.
On the continent the situation is quite the reverse. The philosophies
of Leibniz and Wolff, which, until the time of Kant, dominate the
German schools of thought, seem to collect their entire force in
Mendelssohn's masterful tribute to the Platonic tradition, the Phaedon.
In the dialogue, the German Socrates urges that his views are directed
toward convincing his 18th-century audience of the current validity
of the principles expounded within the work.
Bearing this in mind, we are now in a position to outline the
"last ditch" developments of the simplicity argument and to see how
Mendelssohn's utilization of the proof, within the context of an
argument for personal identity, serves to elicit criticisms from Kant
and in what manner Kant's objections, as opposed to Hume's, more
clearly go to the heart of the matter. For, again, Kant's objections are
developed from "within" the context of the argument itself, so to
speak. Thus, Kant's own arguments, against the rationalists, themselves
depend - as do those of his opponents - on a priori demonstrations;
and they are intended: (l) to destroy the simplicity argument by using
the identical means as those of his adversaries; and (2) to show that
no empirical conclusions can ever, in principle, be grounded in pure
a priori concepts, premises, or inferences.
Mendelssohn, in his arguments for immortality and the unity of
consciousness in the Phaedon, had also insisted that unless conscious-
ness were an immaterial and unified simple, we could not even be the
same person that we were a moment ago, and hence the entire basis
of our personal identity would collapse (Phaedon, p. 213). This
underlying single substance had to be simple or unextended "because
what is extended is divisible, and the divisible is not simple" (ibid.,
pp. 213-214). According to Mendelssohn, then, 'There is therefore
in our body at least a single substance, which is neither extended,
nor compounded, but simple; which has a representative force
and which reunifies in itself all our ideas, our desires, our penchants.
And well, what prevents us from giving to this substance the
name of soul?" (ibid., translation mine). Kant unquestionably
pursued this reasoning with interest in his reflections on his friend's

masterpiece,53 for, as a close reading of Kant's third paralogism, Of
personality, shows, Kant presents the dogmatists' argument for personal
identity as grounded in the unity of consciousness, and, although Kant
does not say so, it is like the preceding fallacy, actually ultimately
based on the argument for the alleged simplicity of the soul. 54 But to
have explicitly stated this would have involved Kant in necessarily
abandoning his distinction of four separate illusions in the Paralogisms,
which conforms to the architectonic structure of the Critique and
which he wishes to preserve. For then the principle of the third
paralogism would be reducible to that of the second and there could
be no plausible basis for a separation between the two.
Kant's refutation of the rationalists' contention is ingenious.
According to Kant, we know what it is like for a material object,
such as an elastic ball, say a billiard ball, to communicate its entire
motion to a second ball which it strikes. Next, arguing by analogy,
it is conceivable that separate and distinct souls operate in the very
same fashion as billiard balls, and that our consciousness of a serial
identity is merely an illusion, when in fact the reality is that the
"motion," i.e., our whole thought, has been transmitted through an
external and distinct agent.
If, then, in analogy with such [elastic material] bodies, we postulate [immaterial]
substances such that the one communicates to the other representations together
with the consciousness of them, we can conceive a whole series of substances
of which the first transmits its state together with its consciousness to the
second, the second its own state with that of the preceding substance to the
third, and this in turn the states of all the preceding substances together with
its own consciousness and with their consciousness to another. The last substance
would then be conscious of all the states of the previously changed substances,
as being its own states, because they would have been transferred to it together
with the consciousness of them. And yet it would not have been one and the
same person in all these states. 5 5
53 Possibly Kant also may have had some knowledge of Hume's Treatise section
on personal identity through verbal discussions with his close companion Johann
Hammann (1730-1788), who owned a copy of it and had avidly studied Hume.
54 Kant makes this point most explicit at A 672, A 682, and B 409.
55 A 363, note a. William James, in The Principles of Psychology (Dover, 1950),
extends this explanation of selfconsciousess in his section dealing with Personal Identity.
In describmg the unity of consciousness (p. 336), James presents the following illus-
tratlOn: "Each pulse of cognttive consciousness, each Thought, dies away and is
replaced by another ... Each later Thought, knowing and including thus the Thoughts
which went before, is the final receptacle-and appropriating them is the final owner-
of all that they contain and own. Each Thought is thus born an owner, and dies
owned, transmlttmg whatever It realized as its Self to its own later proprietor.
As Kant says, It is as if elastic balls were to have not only motion but knowledge
of it, and a first ball were to transmit both its motion and its consciousness to
Nevertheless, Kant stresses that although we can not prove in an

a priori fashion the identity of the self, the concept is yet a necessary
one for practical, i.e., moral, employment (A 365). In other words,
we must assume an identical personality as a necessary condition for
the possibility of practical judgments, imputing praise and blame to
an agent.
In Chapter II, we indicated how Kant contended against the
rationalists that if they insisted on proceeding by pure rational concepts
alone, deducing the immortality of the soul as following from its
immaterial nature, then, given their own methods, they could never
deny to an opponent that it was likewise just as conceivable (on the
same grounds) to argue that the soul might disappear gradually, by
elanguescence. The cause of the rationalists' impotence in this regard
lay in the very principle of their own argument, to wit its a priori
character. The dogmatist champions of immortality having completely
abandoned the criterion of experience in order to prosecute their proof,
were thereby self-barred from denying to Kant the purely a priori
conceptual possibility that the soul might vanish by diminishing degrees.
In this manner Kant exhibited the weakness of their proof by showing
its dialectical, sophistical (one might say its antinomial) nature. And
by maintaining that diametrically opposite conclusions might be
reached by using the same methods, Kant most forcefully reaffirmed
his own point that the touchstone of knowledge is experience. Similarly,
we witnessed how Kant in criticizing the rationalist argument for the
unity of consciousness developed the antithetical possibility that matter
in-itself could be simple, and hence capable of thought (A 359). And
finally, in the foregoing discussion, we observed how Kant again
opposed pure a priori reasoning by showing how personal identity
might be merely the result of a transmission accomplished by material
objects. Consequently, the force of the argument from immateriality,
in relation to its proposed use in the establishment of personal identity,
once more ends with Kant because the very principles which are
historically invoked to protect it are so turned as to betray it. And
after the Critique, it never again becomes a serious influence in moral
speculations.
By all of these means Kant effectively criticized transcendent
metaphysics. For not only did he reject the metaphysicians' reasoning
and point out the equivocal fallacy executed in the dogmatists'
syllogisms, but he further offered them unacceptable conclusions
a second, which took both up into Its consciousness and passed them to a third,
until the last ball held all that the other balls had held, and reahzed it as its own"
(quoted by Kemp SmIth, Commentary, p. 278 n.; see also: p. 461 n.)
drawn from their own premises. And, finally, most important of all,
Kant developed his own critical position, concerning an immanent,
transcendental metaphysic of experience, which totally excludes the
mental vagaries and illusions of his speculative predecessors, as a
complete answer to rationalist, transcendent metaphysics.
CHAPTER V
THE SIMPLICITY ARGUMENT AND ITS POSSIBLE

ROLE IN THE HISTORY OF IDEALISM
I would like to offer as a hypothesis a fourth and final use which

the argument from simplicity may have in the 17th and 18th
centuries - and perhaps, at an unconscious level, in certain cases, even
into our own time. The possible role I am suggesting is that the
inextension argument may playa part in the formation of philosophic
idealisms - both epistemological and metaphysical (or ontological)
ones. There are, of course, several possible sources of argumentation
underlying the origins of idealism. Thus, for instance, two major
arguments are the following. First there is the claim that since all we
can immediately apprehend are our own ideas, it follows that all we
can know are ideas; and hence judgments concerning an external
world are intrinsically problematic and inferential. This indirect path
to an "external" reality through the "way of ideas" is in great part
anticipated in Montaigne's Apology for Raymond Sebond. According
to Montaigne:
Our conception is not itself applied to foreign objects, but is conceived
through the mediation of the senses; and the senses do not comprehend the
foreign object, but only their own impressions. And thus the conception and
semblance we form is not of the object, but only of the impression and effect
made on the sense; which impression and the object are different things.
Wherefore whoever judges by appearances judges by something other than the
object.
And as for saying that the impressions of the senses convey to the soul the
quality of the foreign objects by resemblance, how can the soul and understanding
make sure of this resemblance, having of itself no communication with foreign
objects? Just as a man who does not know Socrates, seeing his portrait, cannot
say that it resembles him. I
This is an argument and assuredly it is a philosophic argument.
It contends that if the knowing mind can only know phenomena,
appearances of objects, as mediated by the powers of apprehension,
1 The Complete Essays of Montaigne, trans. by Donald M. Frame (Stanford:

Stanford University Press, 1968), p. 454.
120 THE SIMPLICITY ARGUMENT
to wit through our own sensations or conceptions or ideas, it then

necessarily follows that the mind cannot know the external world as
it really is in itself but rather that each of us is trapped in this "way
of ideas" and that all one may directly cognize is one's own mental
states. Hence, if we define epistemological idealism as the thesis that
all knowledge is about mental states (i.e., about ideas), then clearly
the above is an enunciation - whether consciously intended or not -
by Montaigne of epistemological idealism.
A second exploitable argument for idealism can be traced back to
Simon Foucher's reduction of the primary qualities to the same status
as those of secondary properties. 2 By this reasoning, if qualities, such
as colors, are acknowledged to be subjective and mental, i.e., existing
nowhere except "in" the mind, it follows that the alleged primary
qualities are no more substantial since they themselves can only exist
through the secondary ones - e.g., all appearance of extension must
have some color - and are thereby similarly mind-dependent.3 This,
once more, is an argument; like the precedent reasoning it proceeds
from a premise to a conclusion. In this case the assumption depends
on reducing (or identifying) primary qualities to mentalistic secondary
ones and then inferring that idealism follows as a necessary conclusion.
Two other important arguments for idealism are (a) Arthur Collier's
contention that since an external, material, and spatial world can be
proved by reason to be both finite and infinite - thereby inherently
self-contradictory - no such world can in fact exist; and (b) Berkeley's
dictum that since to be is to be perceived, it follows that all existence
is equated with perceived ideas.
In a corresponding fashion, what I now wish to explore is the
possible function the simplicity proof may have assumed in arguments
for idealism. In what ultimately may be traced back to "Platonic,"
"Aristotelian," "Neoplatonic," or "Cartesian" sources, the principle
that both thoughts and minds are unextended seems to lead philo-
sophically to a conclusion which states that whatever "appears in" or
"belongs to" the mind also must be thereby necessarily unextended.
For in whatever fashion we contrast or distinguish thoughts and minds
(and term the former the attributes or accidents and the latter the
substances, or if we identify the two) the important consideration
revolves around the recognition of the essentially unextended nature of
2 See R. H. Popkin, "L'Abbe Foucher et Ie probleme des quahtes premieres,"
Dix-Septieme Siecle, No. 33 (1957), pp. 633-647; "The Sceptical Crisis and the Rise
of Modem Philosophy, III," Review of Metaphysics, VII (1953-1954), pp. 499-510;
and R. A. Watson, The Downfall of Cartesianism (Nijhoff, 1966), pp. 37-38 and
passim.
3 In saying this, I am not saying that Foucher himself was an idealist, but only
that his view served toward an idealist conclusion.
THE SIMPLICITY ARGUMENT 121
thoughts and minds. And if both thoughts and minds are incorporeal,
and the immaterial is identified with the unextended (disregarding for
the present the possibility of Henry More's view that the immaterial may
yet be extended), then it follows that everything which is cognitively
apprehended by the mind must likewise be essentially unextended. And
indeed, even the common man - who may be tempted to say figuratively
that a thought is deep in meaning or that his cares weigh him down -
would find it literally meaningless to speak of an idea two feet deep
or a pound in weight. The premise underlying the philosophical
impropriety of such language, I think, becomes most clear in the 17th
and 18th centuries. Thus, in what follows, I wish to suggest that the
problem concerning the ontological status of an independently existing
external world and the denial of the existence of material substances,
may in certain cases depend on the development of the implications
involved in the simplicity principle and that the simplicity inference
may, in this respect, be involved in arguments promoting idealism.
I have tried to show that the argument from simplicity has been
transmitted in a variety of ways from one author to the next. But
whether or not I have succeeded in documenting these connections
historically, they always remain secondary to the primary purpose of
this study, which is to establish the general influences of the argument
in the 17th and 18th centuries. By general, I mean that the argument
has a pervasive status, that it enjoys a position of familiarity in the
time which undoubtedly is not restricted to a small group of scholars
involved in a technical language but rather that it constitutes a
philosophically popular view, bandied about in the correspondences
known as the Republic of Letters, discussed in personal intellectual
encounters, and even alluded to in the sermons of ministers, adressing
a common audience. Thus, if one begins with the notion, explicit or
implicit, that thoughts or minds are simple, unextended, indivisible, then
it seems·to be an inevitable step before thinkers connect the principle
of an unextended, immaterial soul with the impossibility of any
knowledge of an extended, material, external world. Once philosophy
had suggested, and later effectively severed, two distinct realms, it
becomes an "insoluble" problem how an immaterial mind could be
affected by a physical body. If minds are not in space how can the
spatial touch or affect them?
The major difficulty in trying to cite the immateriality argument
as one of the conceptual sources of idealism is that the connection
is seldom explicitly made. Thus, whereas it has been easy enough to
document numerous instances of the argument in proofs concluding
fop the immortality of the soul; the unity of consciousness; and the
establishment of personal identity, it is conversely difficult to provide
unambiguous passages indicating the argument's uses in idealism.
Nevertheless I shall try to forge such a connection by appealing to

various texts which I believe will produce such a chain of conceptual
continuity.
Although Descartes presents the most difficulty, I shall commence
with him because: (a) he temporally precedes the other authors to
whom I will appeal; (b) there are indications that Descartes did
express some confidence in the argument; and (c) it is Descartes's
principle that minds are unextended which is exploited by subsequent
thinkers.
If one defines "subjective idealism" as the thesis that all reality
stems from the thinking characteristics of a self or ego, then it seems that
Descartes certainly cannot be classed as an idealist, since he clearly
believes and argues for a God who creates and conserves an inde-
pendently existing external world and other minds. Nevertheless, if
certain elements of Descartes's view are emphasized, and the rest
ignored, an interpretation can result that amounts to what has been
taken as subjective idealism.
The German idealists, Kant and Hegel, are themselves in great part
responsible for the promotion of this exegetical tradition of Cartesian
"idealism." Kant, for instance, refers to Descartes as a "sceptical
idealist" (Critique of Pure Reason, A 377); a "problematic idealist"
(B 274-B 275); and an "empirical idealist" (Prolegomena, Sect. 13,
Note III), because Descartes theorized that the existence of an external
world can only be inferred and never directly apprehended. Similarly
- and this is specifically relevant to the simplicity proof and its relation
to idealism - Hegel, in the Lectures on the History of Philosophy,
makes it plain that modern philosophy begins with the "subjective"
(and "false" or un mediated) idealism of Descartes, whose weakness
is the result of his failure to overcome and reconcile (mediate, preserve
by destruction) the opposition of "matter, extended substances [which]
stand over against the thinking substances which are simple."4 Even
a far less prejudicially "idealist" interpretation as A. B. Gibson's,
however, declares that Descartes only manages to save himself "from
Idealism by an arbitrary invocation of the real God to prove that He
is not simply an essence or object of thought"; and that Descartes
repeatedly depends on the existence of God "in order to escape from
an otherwise inevitably idealistic conclusion" which denies the existence
of an independent material world. 5 Such interpretations, I would
suggest, are founded in part on the Cartesian distinction that the mind
is immaterial and simple while the material is extended and divisible
4 Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy (London: Routledge and Kegan

Paul, 1968), III, p. 241; italic mine. See also: II, pp. 42-43; III, pp. 161,363.
S A. B. Gibson, op. Cit., pp. 140, 141; see also: pp. 2, 102, and 216-217.
To what extent Descartes is actually.influenced by the proof from
simplicity, it is difficult to determine. He only invokes it in order to
contend for the soul's immortality while he disregards its other
possible uses. On the other hand, if one were to identify Descartes's
insistence that the mind is unextended with the simplicity thesis, then
one can see how Descartes could be influenced by the proof and how
he could be led to idealism as a consequence. In what follows, I
propose to offer such a tentative reconstruction of Descartes's meta-
physics based on his possible dependence on the argument from
simplicity.
Descartes is credited with having firmly established the method
of separating mind and matter, unextended thoughts and extended
objects, although the thesis that thoughts are immaterial obviously
goes back to Plato. The sword that severs the Gordian knot is the
principle that what is conceptually distinct is ontologically separable
and therefore independent. In addition, Descartes's search for a
criterion of certainty leads him to the self, a self whose essential nature
it is to continually think. But if this is all he is certain of, his own
thought, and thought is unextended, then whatever appears to thought
must itself be in reality unextended, despite its apparent "spatial"
character. From this it immediately follows that a problem is engendered
concerning our knowledge of an "external" world. This reasoning, or
something very much like it, I believe, underlies Descartes's meta-
physical speculation; and thus it is that in the First Meditation he
writes that the fire before which he appears to sit, the red and
yellow flames that cast dark and light shadows, all that appears as
spatially extended may be but dreams or figments of his imagination,
created and entertained solely by his mind; the illusion of a spread-
out world of colors and lines, when in reality there is nothing beyond
unextended or simple spirit.
1 have long had fixed in my mind the belief that an all-powerful God
existed by whom 1 have been created such as 1 am. But how do I know that He
has not brought it to pass that there is no earth, no heaven, no extended body,
no magnitude, no place, and that nevertheless [I possess the perceptions of all
these things and that] they seem to me to exist just exactly as 1 now see them?
... [Suppose some evil genius] not less powerful than deceitful, has employed
his whole energies in deceiving me; I shall consider that the heavens, the earth,
colors, figures, sound and all other external things are nought but the illusions
and dreams of which this genius has availed himself in order to lay traps for
my credulity; 1 shall consider myself as having no hands, no eyes, no flesh,
no blood, nor any senses, yet falsely believing myself to possess all these
things ... 6
6 Descartes, Medllation I. See Malebranche, Entretiens sur fa Metaphysique et sur
fa ReligIOn suivi des Entretlens sur fa Mort (Paris, 1961), I, pp. 63 ff; originally
published 1674-1675.
In light of the foregoing, I wish to propose that Descartes, who

neglects to avail himself of the simplicity argument for the purposes of
maintaining the unity of consciousness or establishing personal identity,
and only half-heartedly summons it in connection with a proof for
immortality (Synopsis), nevertheless depends on it in putting forth his
sceptical doubts concerning an external world. Such a universe,
Descartes reflects, may be but a dream, produced by an unextended
mind. 7 Had Descartes persisted along these lines he would have
reached thoroughly idealistic conclusions rather than the dualistic
ones he did in fact sustain. As it is, the goodness of God assures him
that a physical world really exists without, i.e., external to mind,
and that it truly exists as spatially extended.
Later, Malebranche, who shares Descartes's basic principle, concurs
that since the soul is unextended it cannot be influenced by material
objects or substances. Furthermore, Malebranche theorizes that it is
impossible to prove the existence of an external world. All this is
entailed by Malebranche's premise that the mind and the mental do
not occupy space.
C'est que ces grands espaces que vous voiez, ne sont que des espaces intelligible
qui ne remplissent aucun lieu. Car les espaces que vous voiez sont bien differens
des espace materiels que vous regardez. II ne faut pas confondre les idees des
choses avec les chose memes. Souvenez-vous quon ne voit point les corps en
euxmemes, et que ce n'est que par leurs idees qu'ils sont visible. Souvent on
en voit, quoiqu'il n'y en ait point: preuve certaine que ceux qu'on voit sont
intelligible et bien differens de ceux quon regarde. 8
This - at least as far as it goes - I take to be a position which
implies idealism. For if all we perceive are our ideas; and ideas appear
to minds which do not occupy space; it both follows (a) that our
ideas, and our ideas of "things," are not extended in space; and
(b) that the ontological reality of a separately existing world becomes
problematic. 9 Simply put, all reality may be - and actually is on the
7 Descartes's most explicit statement that "the mind is entirely indivisible" occurs
in Meditation VI, HR, I, p. 196; AT, 7, pp. 85-86; 9:1, p. 68. My own guess
is that the terms "unextended," "simple," and "indivisible" were taken to be
philosophically and technically synonymous in the 17th and 18th centuries.
8 Entretiens sur la Metaphysique, IV, x, p. 137. For Descartes as well, of course,
the clear and distinct conception, the simple nature or idea of extension is itself purely
mental and intelligible. It is not an imaged patch of color or a spread-out expanse
of shade.
9 See Leibniz's "Remarks on the Opinion of Malebranche that We See All Things
in God, with reference to Locke's Examination of It." Leibniz there comments that
Malebranche "claims... to explain why material beings could not be united with
the soul as is demanded; this is because these bemgs being extended and the soul
not being so, there is no similarity [proportion] between them."
Malebranche himself was convinced that we exhibit a natural belief in an external
above principle - completely mental. Again, this reading of Malebranche,

however, is hardly peculiar to myself (or Leibniz) and the point is
important enough to bear documented emphasis. Thus, Hegel, in
discussing De la recherche de la verite, says the Oratorian holds that:
"The essence of the soul is in thought, just as that of matter is in
extension. All else, such as sensation, imagination and will, are
modifications of thought."lo According to Hegel, Malebranche thus
begins with two ontological entities, "between which he sets an absolute
chasm" (ibid.). What next follows is
[Malebranche's] main point [namely] that "the soul cannot attain to its concep-
tions and notions from external things." For when I and the thing are clearly
independent of one another and have nothing in common, the two can certainly
not enter into relation with one another nor be for one another... But how
then comes extension, the manifold, into the simple, into the spirit, since it is
the reverse of the simple, namely the diverse?ll
This problem regarding the relation of thought and extension is

always a vital one in philosophy, so Hegel informs us (ibid.). (It is one
which Malebranche solves through his Augustinian thesis that we see
all things in God.) And it is this relation which I intend to explore.
In doing so, I wish to stress that I am not denying, nor do I wish to
minimize, the sceptical influence of (a) the "way of ideas"; (b) the
postulation that all may be but a dream; or (c) the reduction or
identification of primary and secondary qualities on idealism; etc.;
all of which indeed have genuinely contributed to idealism. Rather
what I desire to show is that this may not be the whole story and I try
to do so by indicating how a Platonic factor, the inference from
simplicity, may have effectively contributed to the conceptual history
of idealism.
In 1678 a work appeared which, if not from the pen of one of the
Cambridge Platonists, nevertheless came from a hand directly indebted
to them.12 Concerning Richard Burthogge (ca. 1638-ca. 1698), ex-
tremely little is biographically known. Like others with whom I
have dealt, his significance is to be measured not in terms of his
individual contribution to intellectual history but in relation to
his participation in the stream of a particular consciousness that
courses through Western thought, a current which offers its waters
to the great and the small, and whose depth and direction I have
world, and that we are assured this conviction is not in vain by the opening passages
of the Book of Genesis.
10 Hegel, History of Philosophy, III, p. 291; italic mine.
11 Ibid., III, p. 291; italics mine.
12 See The Philosophical Writings of Richard Burthogge. ed. Margaret W. Landes
(Open Court, 1921), pp. xiii-xv.

undertaken to chart. Like Locke, he was a doctor, although unlike

Locke he practiced his profession for a livelihood. And like Locke, by
whom he was later influenced, after the appearance of the Essay,
he pursued both theological and philosophical interests, publishing
some eight or nine religious essays and three philosophical works
between 1671-1702. The value of his work, to such historians of ideas
as Arthur O. Lovejoy and George Boas, lies in Burthogge's clear
enunciation of idealist and phenomenalist epistemological principles,
principles which are taken to have anticipated Kant by almost a
century.13 In his novice philosophical undertaking, the Organun Vetus
& Novum, written in 1678 (twelve years before Locke's Essay),
Burthogge contends:
That to us men, things are nothing, but as they stand in our analogie;
that is, are nothing to us but as they are known by us; and they are not known
by us but as they are in the sense, imagination, or minds; in a word, as they
are in our faculties; and they are in our faculties not in their realities as they be
without them, no nor so much as by picture and proper representation, but
onely by certain appearances and phaenomena, which their impressions on the
faculties do either cause or occasion in them.
... So that all the immediate objects of humane cogitation... are entia
cogitationis, all appearances; which are not properly and formally in the things
themselves conceived under them, and consequently conceiv'd as if they had
them, but so onely in the cogitative faculties. No such things as colour but in the
eye, nor as sound but in the ear, nor as notion, sense, or meaning, but in the
mind. These, though they seem in the objects, and without the cogitative powers,
yet are no more in them than the image that seemeth in the glass is there indeed.
So that all immediately cogitable beings (that is, all immediate objects of
humane cogitation) are either entities of sense, as the immediate objects of
sense, colour, sound & c. or of imagination, as the images therein, the idols it
frames; or of reason and understanding, mental entities, the meanings or notions
under which the understanding apprehends its object; which (notions) though
they seem to the understanding to be without it, and to be in the things
understood, yet... are no more without it or in the things themselves, than
colours are without the eye, or sounds without the ear, or sapours without
the tongue, although they seem so to sense. 14
What are the presuppositions for such a theory of knowledge?
The reasoning, I believe, is the following. Burthogge defines sensation
or apprehension as the "immediate object of the minde" (§ 7); it is
that of which the mind is directly aware. These idea-sensations are
mental and, as such, they "color" or transform all that the mind
apprehends. It is, so the persuasive analogy has it, as if we were born
with a pair of blue glasses, which we cannot remove. Then everything
we "see" would appear blue. But if all we "see" are our own ideas,
13 Ibid., p. xvi. See also: Encyclopedia of Philosophy, article on Burthogge, authored
by Boas, Vol. J, p. 432.

14 Organum Vetus et Novum, §§9-11; see also: §§ 12-13.
then it follows that all we can know are our ideas and the external
world remains unknowable in itself. In this respect, Burthogge attains
a position of epistemological idealism or, more specifically, he concludes
that consciousness is constituted by, and only by, ideas or sensation-
ideas. And all this is but a version of the "way of ideas" argument.
But having reached this position, Burthogge then could have gone on
to develop a theory of metaphysical idealism, and indeed all the
ingredients for such a view are present in his writings. Thus he holds,
in his subsequent work, An Essay upon Reason, and the Nature of
Spirits (1694) that mind "may be considered, either in it self, as it is
abstract and simple, free from all concretion and composition with
matter; or else as it is concreted or concerned therewith." But the
perfectly simple mind is, of course, God; the mind "concreted" with
matter is the human mind. Burthogge thus retains a dualism of mind
and matter,15 perhaps through the deflecting influence of Locke's
"sensationalist" views, prevalent (whether or not ultimately endorsed)
in the Essay, which Burthogge studied. Had he more closely continued
along the line he had started to trace - by accepting the simplicity
principle of the Cambridge Platonists - he would have terminated in
a metaphysical idealism. This development of the principle, however,
remains to be elaborated by the master systematizers, Leibniz and
Berkeley.
We next find, in point of time, what I consider to be one of the two
most explicit utilizations of the simplicity argument as it functions in a
theory which is fundamentally idealistic. In reply to Bayle's criticism
of his doctrine of pre-established harmony, Leibniz, who himself,
like Ficino, had been attracted in his youth by the theories of Epicurus,
attacks "the evil doctrine of those who believe, with Epicurus and
Hobbes, that the soul is material ... as if man himself were only a body
or an automaton." For these
materialists have thus extended to man as well what the Cartesians have held
regarding all other animals, having shown in fact that nothing is done by man,
with his whole reason, which is not a play of images, passions, and motions in
the body.16
Leibniz's objection to, and correction of, materialism is that "since

perception cannot be explained by figures and movements, it establishes
15 "The main reason why I do dIstinguish substance into mind and matter, as
into first original kinds, is, because ... cogitation and extenSion, that do constitute
their several ideas, are of no relation one to another, for what hath a thought to do
with a cube, or a triangle: or with length, or breadth, or depth?" (pp. 105-106).
16 Leibniz, "Reply to the Thoughts on the System of Pre-established Harmony
Continued in the Second Edition of Mr. Bayle's Critical Dictionary, Article Rorarius"
(1702), III Philosophical Papers and Letters, II, p. 939; Gerhardt ed., IV, p. 559.
[Leibniz's] hypothesis and makes us recognize an indivisible substance

in ourselves which must itself be the source of its phenomena" (II,
p. 940; G., IV, p. 560). Accordingly, Leibniz concludes that "therefore,
everything occurs in the soul as if there were no body" (II, p. 940;
IV, p. 560). Leibniz pretends in this fashion to incorporate and
mediate in his "view... what is good in the hypothesis of both
Epicurus and Plato, of both the greatest materialists and the greatest
idealists" (II, p. 940; G., IV, p. 560). Clearly, however, despite Leibniz's
uttered conviction that he is combining the best of Epicurus and
Plato in his system, the advantage manifestly belongs to idealism.
As we have seen, Leibniz defines monads as metaphysical atoms,
immaterial units without parts. As such they are simple, indivisible,
and unextended. Perception, or apperception, is the unification of a
multiplicity of distinguishable cognitions within the single consciousness
of a monad. The monad, as an indivisible center of consciousness,
thus has intensity but not extensive magnitude. In his controversy with
Samuel Clarke over the epistemological and ontological status of space,
Leibniz argued that space, or the appearance of extension, is merely
a relational construction performed by the mind, albeit a phenomena
bene fundata. Objects or bodies again only have an apparent dimen-
sionality; in actuality they are collections of indivisible monads, they
are phenomena of monads. Space then is ideal and reducible to
non-spatial, i.e., unextended, perceptions of monads. It consists in
purely ideal relations, mental constructions, between phenomena whose
ultimate reality or essence is not quantitative, and is consequently not
material, but mental or spiritual. Leibniz can therefore speak of space
as an idea. 17 Leibniz, in thus reducing all reality to the mental or
spiritual, adopts an idealist position in the strict sense of the term.18
17 The following concise summary of Leibniz's idealistic explanation of space and

related concepts is given by R. P. Wolff: "According to Leibniz, the universe
consists of an infinitude of unique, simple, immaterial substances, which he calls
monads. Each monad possesses some degree of consciousness, and the succession
of representations in its consciousness constitutes a complete point of view of the
universe. There is no causal interaction between monads, although the internal percep-
tions of each monad seem to represent such interaction. Actually, says Leibniz, the
causes of representations are to be found in preceding representations in the same
consciousness, not in other substances... Space is now defined as a set of relations
of the monads to one another. .. Bodies are explained as 'colonies of monads', and
since each monad is unextended, any body is endlessly divisible into bodies which
are themselves infinite collections of monads. Mathematically, each monad is a point
having no dimension, and represented as relations of monads" (Kant's Theory of
Mental Activity, p. 3).
18 On the relation between the simplicity principle and idealism in the philosophy
of Leibniz, see Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy, III, pp. 330ff. and
especially pages 334-335.
And his professed "Epicureanism" merely answers to the world of

appearances, not to the ultimate constituents of the universe. As the
human soul is a monad, its perceptions do not come to it from
"outside," for it really cannot be influenced by any other substance.
Hence, the monad's development, being inherently "spontaneous,"
i.e., independent of foreign causes, in all its activities, must produce
its awarenesses entirely from within itself; and the apparent interaction
of mind and body, mind and mind, etc. is regulated by the pre-
established harmony initiated by God.
Assuming that one may define (i) epistemological idealism as the
contention that all we can be aware of are our own ideas; 19 and
(ii) metaphysical or ontological idealism as the position that all reality
is either monistically spiritual or composed of a plurality of discrete
mental beings; then the philosophic plausibility of moving from thesis
(i) to Oi) depends on an adequate explanation for the appearance of
an "external," spatial world. 20 In this context Leibniz's claim that
space (and time) is a relational predicate - an argument which he
develops in his corresponcence with Clarke, and aimed against
Newton's insistence that space is an absolute, empty receptacle 21 -
is all-important to a serious defense of the position of metaphysical
idealism, toward which he at least quite clearly pointed.
I wish to treat Berkeley (like Leibniz) as an idealist. I recognize
that some will protest against this interpretation and that they can
point to passages which testify to Berkeley's "empirical realism,"
which promotes the alleged world of appearance to reality. I do not
19 This would also include, I suppose, epistemological phenomenalism or the view
that reality is a construction of mental sense-data, qualia, and that our "knowledge"
of an external world is an inference. Epistemological phenomenology, in contra-
distinction, would take the standpoint that reality is constituted by intentional meanings.
The three theories are alike in that they mutually reduce everything to the mental.
20 No doubt the reader will feel that this definition of epistemological idealism
is unduly wide, for it will include most, if not all, of the 17th and 18th century
philosophers after Locke. But when, Locke defines an idea as the immediate object
of our thoughts (Essay, I, i, 8; II, viii, 8; IV, i, I) I take him to be in fact adopting
a theory of epistemological idealism. I would not, however, nor do I think I have to,
say that Locke is an idealist, for metaphysically he holds (if he holds anything
certain at all) to a doctrine of Epicurean materialism. By the same token, although the
preponderant majority of thinkers likewise defend the "way of ideas" thesis, I am not
suggesting that they thereby can be classified as idealists; for their metaphysical
principles and arguments lead them in other directions. Two notable exceptions in
the period, who are both epistemological and metaphysical idealists, are Leibniz and
Berkeley.
21 The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, ed. H.G. Alexander (Manchester, 1965);
Gerhardt ed., VII, pp. 347 ff. See also: R. P. Wolff, op. cit., pp. 2-8; Christian Wolff,
Cosmologia generalis, # 181 ff. Christian Wolff closely follows Leibniz in his own
account of the phenomenon of space.
deny there are such passages nor that they are very important. 22
Nevertheless, Berkeley explicitly denies the existence of matter and
translates all existence into the mental and the spiritual. This trans-
formation I take to be an obvious species of idealism.
Berkeley uses two important gambits in order to deny the substantial
reality of a material world. The ftrst is (A) to deny the validity of the
distinction between primary and secondary qualities by reducing them
both to ideas in the mind; and the second is, like Leibniz, (B) to
explain "away" the appearance that what we see is outside of· us.
To take (A) ftrst. Just as pain and pleasure, ugliness and beauty
(tertiary qualities) do not actually exist in things but rather in the
subject which perceives them, neither do colors, sounds, tastes, and
smells. Only the primary attributes of extension, solidity, and motion
- or so it was held by Descartes and Locke, for example - possess
an existence independent of human perception; whereas the secondary
qualities are no more independent of human consciousness than the
emotions of joy and anger. In contrast to this view, Berkeley's
metaphysical position, although in many respects very similar to that
of Leibniz, but probably influenced by passages in Malebranche's
Recherche and Bayle's Dictionary, 23 argues for the assimilation of the
primary and secondary qualities. Thus, for example, Bayle, in his
article on "Pyrrho," intimated that
all the ways of suspension which destroy the reality of corporeal qualities
overthrow the reality of extension. The modern philosophers... have so well
apprehended the foundation of the epoche with relation to sounds, odours,
heat, cold, ... colours, &c. that they teach that all these qualities are perceptions
of our mind and do not exist in the objects of our senses. Why should we not
say the same of extension? If a being void of colour, yet appears to us under a
colour determined as to its species, figure, and situation, why cannot a being
without any extension be visible to us under an appearance of determinate
extension ?24
And indeed Berkeley himself reduces the primary qualities to the level
of the secondary ones in Principles, Sects. 9-15. Next, since Berkeley
defines the mind or spirit or soul as an unextended and immaterial
22 See A. A. Luce, Berkeley's Immaterialism, pp. 26-29; H. M. Bracken, "Berkeley's

Realisms," in The Early Reception of Berkeley's Immaterialism, 1710-1733 (Nijhoff,
1965), pp. 85-96.
23 See A. A. Luce, Berkeley and Malebranche (Oxford, 1967), pp. [vii]-viii, 53-55;
R. H. Popkin, "Berkeley and Pyrrhonism," Review of MetaphYSICS, V (1951-1952),
223-246; and Bayle: Historical and Critical Dictionary, edited by R. H. Popkin (Bobbs-
Merrill, 1965), pp. 197-198, note 11; see also: pp. 354, 364-365 and 373.
24 Bayle, Dictionary, IV, "Pyrrho," note B. Berkeley insists that although the
mind sees blue it does not thereby follow that the mind itself is blue. It analogously
does not follow that because the mind sees extension that the mind is extended (Prm-
ciples, §49.
simple (Principles, Sect. 27), it follows that the ideas of extension and
materiality are actually simple and immaterial in themselves, although
they convey the appearance of both spatiality and solidity. Thus, in
his later work, Siris, he declares:
It passeth with many, I know not how, that mechanical principles give a
clear solution of the phenomena. The Democritic hypothesis, saith Dr. Cudworth,
doth much more handsomely and intelligibly solve the phenomena than that
of Aristotle and Plato. But, things rightly considered, perhaps it will be found
not to solve any phenomenon at all; for all phenomena are, to speak truly,
appearances in the soul or mind; and it hath never been explained, nor can it
be explained, how external [extended] bodies, figures and motions, should
produce an appearance in the [unextended] mind. 25
But, if to be is to be perceived by an unextended mind, it follows that

the perceived must be in actuality simple despite its appearance.
(B) As Luce indicates, when Berkeley "began to shape the argument
for immaterialism he was met at the outset by an obstacle that seemed
to bar further progress - we see the outside world; we see the world
outside. Therefore there is a world and it is outside." Berkeley offers
two answers, the first rather unconvincing and the second much more
philosophically sound. I give the text of the objections and his solution
in full:
it will be objected that we see things actually without or at a distance from
us, and which consequently do not exist in the mind, it being absurd that
those things which are seen at the distance of several miles, should be as near
to us as our own thoughts. In answer to this, I desire it may be considered that
in a dream we do oft perceive things as existing at a great distance off,
and yet for all that, those things are acknowledged to have their existence only
in the mind.
But for the fuller clearing of this point, it may be worth while to consider,
how it is that we perceive distance and things placed at a distance by sight.
For that we should in truth see external space, and bodies actually existing
in it, some nearer, others farther off, seem to carry with it some opposition
to what hath been said, of their existing no where without the mind. The
The consideration of this difficulty it was, that gave birth to my Essay towards
a new Theory of Vision... Wherein it is shown that distance or outness is
neither immediately of it self perceived by sight, nor yet apprehended or
judged of by lines and angles, or anything that hath a necessary connexion
with it: but it is only suggested to our thoughts, by certain visible ideas
and sensations attending vision, which in their own nature have no manner
of similitude or relation, either with distance, or things placed at a distance.
But by a connexion taught us by experience, they come to signify and suggest
them to us, after the same manner that words of any language suggest the
ideas they are made to stand for. Insomuch that a man born blind, and
afterwards made to see, would not, at first sight, think the things he saw, to be
without his mind, or at any distance from him.26
25 Siris, Sect. 251.

26 Principles, Sects. 42-43. Berkeley's Essay adopted a position of semi-materialism,
wherein the objects of touch were presented as physical while the "sensa" of sight
Berkeleyan scholarship has shown that Berkeley's immaterialism

preceeded his theory of vision, 27 even though he speaks in his work
on sight as though the objects of touch were without the mind and
only the visible objects within. In this sense, the Essay was actually
Berkeley's means of preparing his audience for the paradoxical views
that soon followed in the Principles. 28 Berkeley's main thesis, in the
Theory of Vision, is that distance, size, and situation are judged from
experience, and not directly seen (TV, Sect. 3). The appearance of
space, the idea of space, is a complex and relational construction
performed by the mind. The "material," the mental data, from which
such a construction is accomplished, are minimum sensibles, irreducible
simples or points of color. 29 Thus, in the Theory of Vision, Berkeley
deals with the "matter" of sight.
It hath been shewn there are two sorts of objects apprehended by sight;
each whereof hath its distinct magnitude, or extension. The one, properly
tangible, Le., to be perceived and measured by touch, and not immediately
falling under the sense of seeing [and therefore external and material]: The
other, properly and immediately visible [and therefore mental] by mediation
of which the former is brought in view. Each of these magnitudes are greater
or lesser, according as they contain in them more or fewer points, they being
made up of points or minimums [Le., indivisible sensible points). For, whatever
may be said of extension in abstract it is certain sensible extension is not infinitely
divisible. There is a Minimum Tangible and a Minimum Visible, beyond which
sense cannot perceive. This every one's experience will inform him.30
The atomists had claimed that the atoms themselves were indivisible.
In opposition, Descartes, on the other hand, contended that space or
matter is infinitely divisible - mathematically and in the imagination -
and that divisibility is an essential attribute of matter. Berkeley,
however, rejects the infinite divisibility of the idea or sensation of
"matter," e.g., color, because all ideas are particular existences and a
visible object cannot be constructed from indivisible, i.e., unextended,
points = colors. In this respect, Berkeley's minimum visibles are mental
atoms of color, possessing an indivisible "extension," compatible with
the principle of the simple nature of the mind.
As to the spatial "form" of the construction, Berkeley makes it clear,
in the Principles, that space (time and motion) is a relational predicate
(Principles, §§ 97-98, 110 ff.), totally dependent on the mind, and,
were characterized as mental. In the Principles both descriptions were incor-

porated into a mental language and Principle 67 specifically concluded that "all
place or extension exists only in the mind."
27 A.A. Luce, Berkeley and Malebranche (Oxford, 1968; first published 1934),
pp. 25-26 and Berkeley's Immaterialism (Nelson, 1945), p. 7.
28 See Works, I, pp. 149-150.
29 See Philosophical Commentaries, Notebook B, 70, 81, 128.

30 Theory of Vision, § 54.
as an existent, completely within the mind. Thus Berkeley concludes:
From what hath been said, it follows that the philosophic consideration of
motion doth not imply the being of an absolute space [existing independently
and without the mind], distinct from that which is perceived by sense, and
related to bodies: which that it cannot exist without the mind, is clear upon
the same principles, that demonstrate the life of all other objects of sense.
And perhaps, if we inquire narrowly, we shall fmd we cannot even frame an
idea of pure space, exclusive of all body. This I must confess seems impossible,
as being a most abstract idea. When I excite a motion in some part of my
body, if it be free or without resistance, I say there is space: but if I find a
resistance, then I say there is body: and in proportion as the resistance to motion
is lesser or greater, I say [relatively] the space is more or less pure. So that when
I speak of pure or empty space, it is not to be supposed, that the word space
stands for an idea distinct from, or conceivable without body and motion. 31
The difficult and subtle task which Berkeley set before himself, then,
was no less than to combine the simplicity argument with an idealist
metaphysic and epistemology. To what extent he succeeded, I think,
can only be reappraised after a recognition of these goals in his
philosophy - a system which he hoped had destroyed materialism and,
with it, the related theses of scepticism and atheisIl1. For as Berkeley
conceived it, only by destroying in principle, once and for all, the
specter of mechanistic materialism could he expect to vanquish the
dangerous metaphysical notion of an unknown "stupid thoughtless
somewhat" (Principle 73), a conception which had culminated in
serving to screen men from knowledge of the providence of God and
which had progressively suggested the denial of personal immortality,
through a radical reinterpretation of the soul as a material, naturally
corruptible substance. Consequently, it is in this context that the
good Bishop sought to combat the growing tendency of Epicureanism
in his day and the mounting inclination to disregard both final causes
and the immortality of the soul - both, for Berkeley, necessary
conditions of morality.
A close contemporary of Berkeley's, Arthur Collier (1680-1732)
seems to have reached the same conclusions concerning the impossibility
of the existence of matter as had the Irish clergyman. Although
Collier's work, Clavis Universalis,32 appeared three years after Berke-
ley's Principles, scholars agree that Collier composed his tract inde-
31 Principles, § 116. Of course, the reader must substitute "idea of body" whenever
the term "body" appears in the above passage. See De motu, §§ 53-55. Against Kant,
Berkeley does not believe we can imagine empty space, for we always leave something
behind, namely our own body.
32 The full title of Collier's book is Cia vis Universalis: or a new inquiry after the
truth. Being a demonstration of the non-existence, or impossibility of an external
world (London, 1713).
pendently of Berkeley, although he was influenced by the wntmgs

of Malebranche, John Norris, his neighbor, as well as Descartes. 33
Collier's major contention against the independent reality of space
and matter consists of maintaining that such a theory would lead
to inherent contradictions. For then one could demonstrate space to
be both finite and infinite; both movable and immovable. (Collier's
proof, stressing as it does the antinomial implications involved in a
realistic postulation of space, have been interpreted as an anticipation
of Kant's arguments against the conception of space as a thing-in-itself
in the Dialectic.) Space, therefore, has only an ideal existence and
cannot exist independently of mind.
But in addition to this argument Collier seems to draw on the
simplicity premise as well, although I confess the text is not as explicit
on this point as I would like. Thus Collier's second argument for
idealism depends on conceiving the mind as unextended (a premise
shared by Descartes, Malebranche, and Norris) and then maintaining
that the vast expanses of the horizons of heaven and earth could not
be encompassed within the vision of the eye, if the objects sighted
were "material or extended" (pp. 84-85; see Plotinus discussion,
Chapt. I; Sir Kenelm Digby discussion, Chap. II, ftn. 12).
The upshot of both these reductivist arguments in Collier, which
contribute in leading to an idealist conclusion, is "that matter is not,
cannot be independent, absolute, or self-existent"; and "that by not
independent, not absolutely existent, nor external, I mean and contend
for nothing less, than that all matter, body, extension, & c. exists in,
or in dependence on mind, thought, or perception, and that it is not
capable of an existence, which is not thus dependent" (p. 6).
Collier's great failure, however, in denying that an external world
exists, is to fail to explain why we think we see it; he merely contends
(as Berkeley's ftrst argument had) that we can imagine non-existent
objects, as in dreams (p. 16 ff.). But this alone is not sufficient to
account for our illusions of an external world. Something extended
appears in consciousness, but to dismiss it as merely a dream explains
nothing; for why does the dream appear in the character of exten-
dedness? I would hazard that it is because Leibniz and Berkeley
seriously grapple with the ontological status of space, and with the
possible origin of our ideas of space, that their works are considered
important and indeed are still studied, whereas Collier's book seems
to have fared as badly in his own day as it has in ours.34
33 See Clavis Universalis (Open Court, 1909), pp. [vii], 22.

34 It is true, however, that Collier's Clavis Universalis (along with Berkeley's
Dialogues) was translated into German by J. Eschenbach, under the title Sammlung der
vomehmsten Schriftsteller die die Wirklichkeit ihren eigenen Korper und den Ganzen
Nevertheless, the significance of Collier is that idealism was clearly
in the air in the 17th and 18th centuries and it seems to have been so
partly because of the philosophic assumption that the mind is
unextended and simple. But the exploitation of this principle was
insufficient to guarantee the recognition of contemporaries and pos-
terity, for unless the crucial "common sense" and scientific concept
of space were concomitantly secured, idealists could hardly expect
to persuade either the reading public or the man of science.
Kant, who studied the Leibniz-Clarke correspondence,35 endorsed
the principle of the minima sensibilia. 36 Kant's own argument is that
since the mind - composed of the pure forms of intuition and the
categorial forms of the understanding- is not in space, i.e., consciousness
is not extended, it then follows that what is "given" to the mind,
or what is "synthesized" by the mind, must therefore be itself
non-extended. But sensations, as qualities of blue, red, etc., are given
to the mind; therefore sensations or qualities are unextended. The
extensional appearance of apprehended qualities is attributable to the
a priori form of outer intuition (which .along with the form of inner
sense and the categories, conditions the possibility of human expe-
rience); but the form of outer intuition is in itself not extended,
because the form "lies" in the mind and the mind is not extended.
Thus, the form only "results in" or "produces" the appearance of
spa tiality:
by means of outer sense, a property of our mind, we represent to ourselves
objects as [if they were] outside us, and all without exception in space. 37
According to Kant, Leibniz - by holding that sensations are confused

conceptions, which exhibit varying degrees of clarity - had failed to
transcendentally distinguish in kind conceptual operations from intuitive
receptivity. Consequently, his predecessor, on Kant's jnterpretation,
had contended that space is a constructed abstraction from experience,
i.e., a relational construction from given appearances, and that
sensibility is only the distorted representation of real things-in-them-
selves. On the other hand, Newton, Kant believes, is just as wrong in
thinking that space and time are absolute "containers" in which
events occur, that they are things-in-themselves, possessing a reality
apart from human forms of sensibility.
Korperwelt leugnen (Rostock, 1756). And possibly Kant may have come across
Collier's opinions in this fashion.
3S See R. P. Wolff, op. cit., p. 2. On Kant's possible knowledge of Berkeley's
views on space, see Colin Turbayne's article in the Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 5
(1955), pp. 225-244.
36 Kant's clearest exposition of this premise is given in the Anticipations of Per-
ception. See also: Kemp Smith, Commentary, pp. 51,86-87, 101, and 105.
37 A 22=B 37.
What then are space and time? Are they real existences? Are they only
determinations or relations of things, yet such as would belong to things even
if they were not intuited? Or are space and time such that they belong only to
the form of intuition of our mind, apart from which they could not be ascribed
to anything whatsoever. 38
Kant's own view, the third view above, is conceived by him as a
compromise solution to the impasse generated by the contending
principles. With Newton, he will agree that space is given as an infinite,
absolute whole and the possibility of pure empty space is thus
guaranteed; but at the same time he will concur with Leibniz in
insisting that space is only an appearance, a subjective form of
intuitional representation. In this fashion Kant believes he has managed
to reconcile the conflict between the opposing parties. Nevertheless,
ultimately behind the compromise lies the simplicity argument with
its implication that the minima sensibilia are unextended.
As opposed to this interpretation of Kant's doctrines on space,
a number of commentators have contended that Kant's position on
the ideality of space is rather determined by the paradoxical conclusions
reached in the theses and antitheses of the mathematical antinomies. 39
Thus, the usual account of Kant's metaphysical idealism, according
to these interpreters, depends upon the consideration that in the
antinomies reason, left to itself, produces dialectical inferences "proving"
that space is both finite and infinite; or both simple and complex at
once. But, what is inherently selfcontradictory can be nothing apart
from us, i.e., in itself. It follows that space is merely the subjective
form of outer representation (appearance), a matrix of potential
possibilities of configurations, contributed solely by the human mind.
In opposition to this exegesis, I am maintaining that it is the simplicity
argument, it is the principle that the mind, as given through inner
sense, cannot be extended (and not the antinomies) which actually
and primarily determines Kant's argument that space is only an
appearance. Thus, in the first edition Critique version of the Fourth
Paralogism - Of Ideality - Kant makes it quite clear that the problem
concerning the existence of an external world rests on the assumption
that "Perception is a modification of inner sense, and the existence of
the outer object can be added to it only in thought, as being its outer
cause, and accordingly as being inferred" (A 367). But inner sense,
for the dogmatic rationalists (as for Kant), is exactly that which cannot
be spatially extended in any sense. Thus, the dogmatists had distin-
38 A 23=B 37; see also: A 26=B 42.

39 See R. P. Wolff, Kant's Theory of Mental Activity, pp. 12-14; Weldon, op. cit.,
pp. 206-207; Ewing, op. cit., p. 208; and, Lovejoy, Essays Philosophical and Psychological
in Honor of William James, pp. 269, 281-290.
guished (a) the immediate ideality of the self, established through
inner sense, from (b) the mediate ideality of the selfs relation to
"outer" objects. Those who held that external, spatial objects can
only be regarded problematically, Kant considered Cartesian idealists;
others, who had insisted that the ontological status of matter is
inherently and essentially illusory he called Berkeleyan idealists. Thus,
assuming that Descartes did in fact argue that if all the mind could
know immediately were its own states of consciousness, and conscious-
nesses were unextended, because the mind is a non-spatial entity;
then it follows that the existence of extended, external objects can
only be inferred. Kant, of course, refutes this position by maintaining
that outer sense is no less immediately given than inner intuition.
Where he differs from the rationalists is in stating that the outer form
of sensibility is likewise completely mental, mind-dependent, and
therefore non-spatial in itself, although it "produces" or accounts
for the appearance, the form of extension. This in tum leads him
to the theory of the minima sensibilia just discussed.
In analyzing the views of the above philosophers, one of the
important considerations, I believe, involves the attempt to reconcile
the adoption of the simplicity argument with explanations of the
idea of space, as, for example, in the theories of Leibniz and Berkeley;
and then to follow its final ingenious "resolution" in Kant. 40 Thus,
it is Leibniz who first conceives the possibility of elaborating an
idealist metaphysic which would perfectly harmonize with his theory
of the epistemological self-sufficiency of the individual monads, through
the principle of the internal development of perceptions immanent
to the monads themselves. But both his reflections on cognition and
on substantial reality are grounded in - and have to be made consistent
with - his ultimate principle that the monads are simple, unified,
identical, immaterial, and unextended entities (Monadology §§ 1-7).
The chief problem, however, is to offer an adequate conceptual
explanation of space, one which would satisfy the rigorous demands
40 Kemp Smith appended an interesting historical note to his discussion of the

minima sensibilia in Kant. He held that the theories of Wilhelm Wundt, Johann
Herbart, Rudolf Lotze, James and John Mill, and Alexander Bain all rested on the
assumption that "the sensations by means of which we come to form the notion of
space are themselves unextended and simply qualitative." Kemp Smith then went
on to quote Les Donneess immediates, where Henri Bergon says that the "solution
given by Kant does not seem to have been seriously disputed since his time: indeed,
it has forced itself, sometimes without their knowledge, on the majority of those
who have approached the problem anew," not being effectively called into question
before William James (Kemp Smith, Commentary, p. 86, n. 3). See also: Brentano,
Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt (Hamburg, 1955), I, Bk. II, Ch. I, §§IV-IX.
of philosophy and the natural sciences. This conceptual account,

which he undertakes in his brilliant correspondence with Clarke,
developes the notion of space as a construction of relations, resulting
from a configuration holding between monads which are themselves
postulated as simple, i.e., unextended.
Berkeley's "idealist" goals are certainly as ambitious and as daring,
in their radical explicitness, as those of Leibniz. Fully realizing that the
charge of paradox would be used against his writings, the Irish
clergyman nevertheless unfolds a full-blown, consistent system of
epistemological and ontological immaterialism, a theory which ulti-
mately derives from his initial principle that the mind is "one simple,
undivided active being" (Principle 27). One may say, then, that
Berkeley begins by reducing the status of the primary qualities to the
epistemological level of secondary ones and ends by reducing the
secondary ideas to emanations issuing from an unextended thinking
being. Again, as in Leibniz, the character of space assumes quite a
subservient role in relation to the fundamental reality given to spirits,
souls, or minds. Accordingly space becomes something which must be
accounted for after - and yet be consistent with - the overriding
demands of the soul's simplicity are first satisfied.
The genius of Kant lay in undercutting the problem of contending
with both an epistemology and a metaphysic. Kant drastically simplified
the matter by insisting that although we could not say anything about
ontological reality, we could, nevertheless, through a Copernican turn,
adequately account for the appearance of space while completely
restricting our critical inquiry to the subjective, mental modes of
apprehension. Space, then, is a form of outer intuition - lying in the
mind, ready-to-be-used in conjunction with sensation - a form
characteristic of an "unextended" (although Kant obviously would
not endorse such an adjective) ego.
But beyond the 17th and 18th centuries, perhaps the simplicity
argument continues to influence modern thinkers, although probably
unconsciously.
In this regard I believe it plays a role in the "solipsistic idealism"
of Edmund Husserl's Cartesian Meditations. Thus, for instance, in his
discussion of the unity and identity of meaning found in all acts of
intentional consciousness, Husserl insists that it is the constitutive,
structural syntheses that make possible the unification of multiplicities
into unified meanings. 41 Ultimately this unity, as all unities, is grounded
41 Perhaps Husserl's most explicit acknowledgement that meanings and ideas are
essentially non-spatial occurs in a lecture given on May 7, 1935 at the University of
Prague. In the presentation, Husserl announces the goal of European man to be
the infinite striving for rationality and idealism. Thus he declares: "Ideas, conceived
CONCLUSION 139
in the transcendental ego, the center and source of all intentional
constitution. 42 The unity of thought now becomes a unity of intention,
of meaning, for both unity and identity are intentional. 43 As for Kant,
the constitutive syntheses are rule-directed activities, generated through
structures of consciousness, and ultimately derived from the unity of
consciousness, the source of all unity. For Husserl, again, this unity
and identity is essentially intentional. 44 All this follows from Kant's
position that the transcendental ego is not itself in space. Similarly,
neither is Husserl's, the external world being bracketed out, suspended.
My suspicion is, therefore, that the simplicity argument continues
to influence modern Western philosophy, and even contemporary
thought, and its force, although not as clearly recognized as in the
17th and 18th centuries, may be, because of that, more pervasive and
far-reaching.
CONCLUSION
In this study, I have tried to show how the argument from the
alleged simplicity, unity, and identity of our thoughts and our soul
was repeatedly used in the 17th. and 18th centuries. I have maintained
that its first appearance occurs in Plato's Phaedo but that it underwent
significant changes at the hands of Aristotle and Plotinus. Thus
already, by the time of Plotinus, it served in demonstrations for - and
in discussions about - the immortality of the soul and the unity of
consciousness or selfconsciousness. After dealing with the great Neo-
within individual persons as sense (meaning)-structures that in a wonderfully new

manner secrete within themselves intentional infinities, are not in space like real things,
which latter, entering as they do into the field of human experiences, do not by
that very fact as yet signify anything for the human being as a person", "Philosophy and
the CriSIS of European Man", in Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy (Harper
Torchbook, 1965), p. 160, italics mine; see also: pp. 182-183; and The Paris Lectures
(Nijhoff, 1964), pp. 8, 17-18, and 32.
42 As Husserl himself admits, his own conception of the ego is modelled on
Leibniz's theory of the monad and Kant's transcendental concept of the unity of
apperception. In The Paris Lectures, Husserl even describes the ego in terms very
remmiscent of Plotinus' circle-consciousness analogy, where concepts and judgments
"radiate" from a center or ego-point (pp. 26, 28). See Quentin Lauer, Phenomenology:
Its Genesis and Prospect (Harper Torchbook 1965), p. 97; and "Philosophy as Rigorous
Science," in Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy, pp. 107-108.
43 Lauer, pp. 106, 138.
44 See especially, Cartesian Meditations, Second Meditation, Section 22; see Ideas:
General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, Pt. 2: "The Fundamental Phenomeno-

logical Outlook"; and Formal and Transcendental LogiC, Sects. 94-95, 104.
140 CONCLUSION
platonist, I suspect that my treatment of the history of the argument

through the Middle Ages is inadequate. However, I have not concen-
trated on the Medieval Period because I have not had sufficient
indication that the argument is used in any other way than for the
two purposes already explicitly found in Plotinus. Subsequent to
the Scholastics, however, I think it once more began to assume a
major significance when it functioned in the reaction to the growing
influence of materialism and Epicureanism, during the Italian Renais-
sance. From there it seemed to find a welcome home with the
Cambridge Platonists and it thereafter figured in influencing British
philosophy in a totally new way. I have in mind, of course, the role it
played in discussions concerned with personal or moral identity. This
I attempt to show was the result of the argument, via the Cambridge
Platonists, on Locke. And finally the argument had a fourth use,
one which, like the preceding employment, initially began in the 17th
century. For it was exploited, I believe, in arguments which were
concerned in maintaining epistemological and ontological idealism.
Exactly in what fashion this culminating use was developed is admittedly
hard to determine. In a significant way, it obviously seems to be
implied in the Cartesian principle that the mind is unextended and
that the existence of an external, material world thus depends on an
essentially dubious inference. One could just as readily, however,
seek to trace the argument for idealism through the dualistic reflections
of the Cambridge Platonists into the writings of Burthogge, Norris,
Collier, and Berkeley, the views of the latter most clearly indebted
to the philosophers of the Cambridge school. Or one could simply
credit Leibniz with the novelty when he seems to almost independently
plumb to the depths of the matter by realizing and accentuating
the opposition between Platonism and Epicureanism, between, as he
puts it, materialism and idealism. All this, I have tried to suggest,
document - by marshalling a catalog of evidence - and "argue" in
this study.
Further, although I am convinced that the above four exploitations
of the simplicity argument form an exhaustive list of its employment
during the Enlightenment, I believe it continues to be employed in the
following centuries, the 19th and the 20th - when it manifestly persists
in surfacing; in being appealed to; in being subconsciously depended
upon; as in the writings of Fichte (see esp. Book II of The Vocation
of Man), Hegel,45 the authors mentioned by Kemp Smith (above),
4S The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree (Dover, 1956), p. 17. Hegel contrasts
immaterial and unified spirit against composite, self-destructive matter. The former
he esentially relates to the Idea of Freedom, the latter to the concept of constraint
and gravity. In this sense the simplicity argument may have a possible use in arguments
CONCLUSION 141
Husserl, William James, R. L. Patterson, R. P. Wolff, and many

others - and perhaps someone will discover quite new uses for it.
Hence, although a certain aspect of its conceptual development ends
in the 17th and 18th centuries, its influence, especially on the
epistemological questions of self-consciousness and idealism, does not
by any means conclude there. Thus I expect it will continue to find
supporters among tkose who oppose the growing general 20th-century
constellation of tendencies which may be characterized as "Mechanism,"
"Positivism," "Behaviorism," "Materialism," etc. And if the history
of philosophy is any indication, the future of the argument may well
extend longer than its past for these are perennial issues in the
intellectual history of man.
The History of Ideas is often accused of irrelevancy and lifelessness.
It is repeatedly reproached for treating ideas as if they had "a life
of their own," an existence, or a Platonic essence if you prefer,
completely independent of the world and its problems, totally distinct
from men and human concerns. I have tried to avoid - whether
successfully or not, of course, I leave to the reader's verdict - this
atemporal attitude. With Gilson I would agree that arguments, good
arguments, like ideas, good ideas, "never die; they are ageless and
always ready to revive in the minds which need them, just as ancient
seeds can germinate again when they find a fertile soil."46 This does
not mean, however, that the value of important ideas and arguments
exists apart from men but rather, quite the opposite, that vital ideas
and arguments always appear in human and living contexts. Thus,
I have sought to show how, in the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as
earlier, the argument occurred in the critical human pursuits of
metaphysics, theology, religion, morality, and epistemology. And
although its role in the 20th century seems to be for the moment
primarily epistemological, I believe it will soon return to issues
concerned with values and morality. Thus I am convinced that every
ethical system ultimately "depends on" epistemological presuppositions.
And just as Kant's moral system is grounded in his epistemology,
so I suspect is HusserI's moral condemnation of the natural sciences,
in The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Pheno-
menology, dependent on his "idealist" epistemology.47 The natural
and positivistic sciences have alienated man from reason and values
which are essentially ideally constituted meanings in the moral life of
European man; and a discontinuity in the ethical heritage of man
for freedom in Hegel. See also: The Philosophy of Right, trans. T.M. Knox
(Oxford, 1969), p. 226.
46 History of ChrIStian Philosophy in the Middle Ages, p. 540.
47 See also: Philosophy and the Crisis of European Man, esp. pp. 182-192.
142 CONCLUSION
has thereby resulted which has separated him from his true moral
history, which ftrst began in Greek philosophy. And the preceeding,
I think, is a most important reason why it is worthwhile to study the
origins and implications of idealism. So, in the fmal analysis, this study
is a plea, a plea to promote the discipline of the history of ideas; and
to promote it because it has something to do with our world and
human values, our time, and human ideals. I personally do not believe
that Materialism, Determinism, Mechanism, or the other present
and dominant models of the natural sciences can, or will ever, provide
man with solutions concerning moral standards and ideals. I think
ultimately only some form of idealism can do this.
And ftnally, if the reader asks why then I have not centered my
study in the 19th and 20th centuries rather than in the 17th and 18th,
the answer is simple: the results are not in yet, the "solutions" are only
beginning to form. Husserl's epistemology is just starting to fulftll
its hidden moral implications.

Achilles of Rationalist Arguments

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THE ACHILLES

BEN LAZARE MIJUSKOVIC

THE SIMPLICITY, UNITY, AND IDENTITY OF THOUGHT AND

Directors: P. Dibon (Paris) and R. Popkin (St. Louis Univ.)

THE SIMPLICITY, UNITY, AND IDENTITY OF THOUGHT AND

BEN LAZARE MIJUSKOVIC

MARTINUS NIJHOFF /THE HAGUE/1974

ISBN·13: 978·90·247·1597·8 e·ISBN·13: 978·94·0 I0·2037-4

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION TOTHEARGUMENT AND ITS HISTORY

CHAPTER II. THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL IN THE 17TH AND

It is my pleasant duty to acknowledge the considerable debt lowe

INTRODUCTION TO THE ARGUMENT AND ITS

In the history of ideas, there is an argument that has been used

exposition is that obviously it is always the case that the historically

sources 3 (except for the Renaissance-oriented Cambridge Platonists),

show both the strengths and weaknesses of the proof - thereby

Cornford's discussion of Phaedo, 78b occurs as a parenthetical comment on Timaeus,

In other words, Taylor is contending that the soul is simple because

In the history of philosophy, this passage provides the model for

Every dissoluble entity, that has come to be by way of groupement, must

12 See Paul Henry's Introduction to Plotinus, The Enneads, trans. S. McKenna

The Epicureans also claimed that thought, or more properly speaking

Suppose the sense-object be such a unity as a face; all the points of

Consequently, against the Epicurean thesis that senseless matter

Following Plotinus, the argument seems fairly slighted throughout

16 P\otinus, Ennead, IV, 7,6; pp. 346-347.

21 Gregory of Nyssa, De anima et resurrectione; P. G., 44.

22 Cassiodorus, De Anima, 12.

23 Maximus of Chrysopolis, Ambiqua, P. G., 91.

24 John Scotus Eriugena, De divisione naturae, III, 23.

the argument in order to establish the unity of consciousness as well, in V, 2 of

27 There is similarly a strong comparison to be made between: a) the conceptIOn

of God "combining" what appear, at least to human beings, as subjectively "distinct"

case, to the argument's implications which involve a doctrine of

29 In Aquinas, man is the union of a twofold composition of (a) soul (form)

30 Lange. op. ell, connects the resurgence of materialism to the Renaissance

interest In sCience My conviction, on the other hand, is that materialism, revitalized by

Therefore, remaining entire and simple [Soul] is present to the individual

Once more, the metaphor is the same, although the argument is

35 Ficino, op. cit., III, 2. This translation is by Josephine L. Burroughs, from

the Journal of the History of Ideas (\944), V, pp. 229-230.

Nevertheless, the Church, exhausted by the internecine struggles

36 Ibid.; see also: XIV, 3.

the doctrine of personal or individual immortality should be insisted

F; Prol. Sent., 1,2.

It is in the sense of merely restricting himself to exposition, without

THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL IN THE

I now propose to present a number of authors, with supporting

3 Ibid., pp. 23-26.

Overton thus defends a position of conditional immortality. The

9 See especially, ,b,d., pp. 26-27, 59, 64-65.

it may be argued that Cudworth's attack on materialism in The True

(Manchester, 1847); I, p. 300. However, Benjamin Whichcote (1609-1683), Smith's friend,

Neoplatonist found in his writings. 19 Perhaps his finest composition

However, Smith is aware that it is not enough to maintain that

19 So much of Plotinus is found in the writings of the school at Cambridge that

Coleridge suggested renaming them the "Cambridge Plotinists".

can be perfectly grasped without any reference to material entities.

23 L. J. Beck, The MetaphYSICS of Descartes (Oxford, 1965), p. 40. Just how

If we try to reconstruct what happened, I think we would arrive

It is no surprise, then, when we find Descartes, forced to tum to the

36 Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters, ed. L. E. Loemker (Chicago, 1956),