88 LIFE AND HABIT. 



a sense only as they assert — for tins they do assert — 

 that any number of persons whatever may be the same 

 person. The bare unfolding of this notion, and laying 

 it thus naked and open, seems the best confutation 

 of it." 



This fencing, for it does not deserve the name of 

 serious disputation, is rendered possible by the laxness 

 with which the words " identical " and " identity " are 

 commonly used. Bishop Butler would not seriously 

 deny that personality undergoes great changes between 

 infancy and old age, and hence that it must undergo 

 some change from moment to moment. So universally 

 is this recognised, that it is common to hear it said of 

 such and such a man that he is not at all the person 

 he was, or of such and such another that he is twice 

 the man he used to be — expressions than which none 

 nearer the truth can well be found. On the other hand, 

 those whom Bishop Butler is intending to confute 

 would be the first to admit that, though there are many 

 changes between infancy and old age, yet they come 

 about in any one individual under such circumstances 

 as we are all agreed in considering as the factors of 

 personal identity rather than as hindrances thereto — 

 that is to say, there has been no death on the part of 

 the individual between any two phases of his existence, 

 and any one phase has had a permanent though perhaps 

 imperceptible effect upon all succeeding ones. So that 

 no one ever seriously argued in the manner supposed 

 by Bishop Butler, unless with modifications and saving 

 clauses, to which it does not suit his purpose to call 

 attention. 



