CHAPTER V. 



PERSONAL IDENTITY. 



" STRANGE difficulties have been raised by some," says 

 Bishop Butler, " concerning personal identity, or the 

 sameness of living agents as implied in the notion of 

 our existing now and hereafter, or indeed in any two 

 consecutive moments." But in truth it is not easy to 

 see the strangeness of the difficulty, if the words either 

 " personal " or " identity " are used in any strictness. 



Personality is one of those ideas with which we are 

 so familiar that we have lost sight of the foundations 

 upon which it rests. We regard our personality as a 

 simple definite whole ; as a plain, palpable, individual 

 thing, which can be seen going about the streets or 

 sitting indoors at home, which lasts us our lifetime, 

 and about the confines of which no doubt can exist 

 in the minds of reasonable people. But in truth this 

 " we," which looks so simple and definite, is a nebulous 

 and indefinable aggregation of many component parts 

 which war not a little among themselves, our per- 

 ception of our existence at all being perhaps due to 

 this very clash of warfare, as our sense of sound 

 and light is due to the jarring of vibrations. 



