PERSONAL IDENTITY. 95 



in calling death. The branching out from it at differ- 

 ent times of new centres of thought and action, has 

 commonly as little appreciable effect upon the parent- 

 stock as the fall of an apple full of ripe seeds has upon 

 an apple-tree ; and though the life of the parent, from 

 the date of the branching off of such personalities, is 

 more truly continued in these than in the residuum of 

 its own life, we should find ourselves involved in a 

 good deal of trouble if we were commonly to take 

 this view of the matter. The residuum has generally 

 the upper hand. He has more money, and can eat 

 up his new life more easily than his new life him. A 

 moral residuum will therefore prefer to see the re- 

 mainder of his life in his own person, than in that of 

 his descendants, and will act accordingly. Hence we, 

 in common with most other living beings, ignore the 

 offspring as forming part of the personality of the 

 parent, except in so far as that we make the father 

 liable for its support and for its extravagances (than 

 which no greater proof need be wished that the law is 

 at heart a philosopher, and perceives the completeness 

 of the personal identity between father and son) for 

 twenty- one years from birth. In other respects we 

 are accustomed, probably rather from considerations of 

 practical convenience than as the result of pure reason, 

 to ignore the identity between parent and offspring as 

 completely as we ignore personality before birth. 

 With these exceptions, however, the common opinion 

 concerning personal identity is reasonable enough, and 

 is found to consist neither in consciousness of such 

 identity, nor yet in the power of recollecting its 



