Page:An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding - Locke (1690).djvu/44

RV 28 (Chap IV.) ty, Years old, Whether a Man, being a Creature, consisting of Soul and Body, be the same Man, when his Body is changed? Whether Euphorbus and Pythagoras, having had the same Soul, were the same Man, tho' they lived several Ages asunder? Nay, Whether the Cock too, which had the same Soul, were not the same with both of them? Whereby, perhaps, it will appear, that our Idea of sameness, is not so setled and clear, as to deserve to be thought innate in us. For if those innate Idea's, are not clear and distinct, so as to be universally known, and naturally agreed on, they cannot be the Subjects of universal, and undoubted Truths; but will be the unavoidable Occasion of perpetual Uncertainty. For, I suppose, every ones Idea of Identity, will not be the same, that Pythagoras, and Thousands others of his Followers, have: And which then shall be the true? Which innate? Or are there two different Idea's of Identity, both innate?

§. 5. Nor let any one think, that the Questions, I have here proposed, about the Identity of Man, are bare, empty Speculations; which if they were, would be enough to shew, That there was in the Understandings of Men no innate Idea of Identity. He, that shall, with a little Attention, reflect on the Resurrection, and consider, that Divine Justice shall bring to Judgment, at the last Day, the very same Persons, to be happy or miserable in the other, who did well or ill in this Life, will find it, perhaps, not easie to resolve with himself, what makes the same Man, or wherein Identity consists: And will not be forward to think he, and every one, even Children themselves, have naturally a clear Idea of it.

§. 6. Let us examine that Principle of Mathematicks, viz. That the whole is bigger than a part. This, I take it, is reckon'd amongst innate Principles. I am sure it has as good a Title as any, to be thought so; which yet, no Body can think it to be, when he considers the Idea's it comprehends in it, Whole and Part, are perfectly Relative; but the Positive Idea's, to which they properly and immediately belong, are Extension and Number, of which alone, Whole and Part, are, Relations. So that if Whole and Part are innate Idea's, Extension and Number must be so too, it being impossible to have an Idea of a Relation, without having any at all of the thing to which it belongs, and in which it is founded. Now, Whether the Minds of Men have naturally imprinted on them the Idea's of Extension and Number, I leave to be considered by those, who are the Patrons of innate Principles.

§. 7. That God is to be worshipped, is, without doubt, as great a Truth as any can enter into the mind of Man, and deserves the first place amongst all practical Principles. But yet, it can by no means be thought innate, unless the Idea's of God, and Worship, are innate. That the Idea, the Term Worship stands for, is not in the Understanding of Children, and a Character stamped on the Mind in its first Original, I think, will be easily granted, by any one, that considers how few there be, amongst grown Men, who have a clear and distinct Notion of it. And, I suppose, there cannot be any thing more ridiculous, than to say, that Children have this practical Principle innate, That God is to be worshipped; and yet, that they know not what that Worship of God is, which is their Duty. But to pass by this.

§. 8. If any Idea can be imagin'd innate, the Idea of God may, of all others, for many Reasons, be thought so; since it is hard to conceive, how there should be innate, Moral Principles, without an innate Idea of a Deity: Without a Notion of a Law-maker, it is impossible to have a Notion of a Law, and an Obligation to observe it. Besides the Atheists, taken notice