PALEY, AND THE ARGUMENT FROM CONTRIVANCE 2,71 



sciousness, and is equivalent to intellectual or rational sameness or 

 identity ; but a moment's thought will show that this is not the case, 

 for none of us have, or know whether we ever had, consciousness 

 of our early infancy, our birth, or our embryonic history, although 

 no naturalist can admit that there is any interruption in the con- 

 tinuity of our personal existence between the fertilized ovum and old 

 age, for while birth is a notable event in the history of man and of 

 most of the familiar animals, it is no necessary or universal stage 

 in the development of organisms in general. 



Does any one who, while unconscious, has undergone a surgical 

 operation doubt whether he is personally identical with the uncon- 

 scious patient ? May not one carry to the verge of the grave the 

 physical or mental or moral effects of an accident which occurred 

 before his earliest recollection ? 



A moment's thought shows that we have the same sort of reason 

 for belief in the continued existence of every being whose acts are 

 useful to itself or to its species, as we have for belief in our own 

 persistent identity through much of our own history ; for, as Dr. 

 Butler pointed out long ago, " we should really think it self-evident 

 that consciousness of personal identity presupposes, and, therefore, 

 cannot constitute, personal identity; any more than knowledge, in 

 any other case, can constitute truth, which it presupposes." "To 

 say that consciousness of our continued existence makes personal 

 identity, or is necessary to our being the same person, is to say," as 

 Butler shows, " that a person does not exist a single moment, or 

 do one action, but what he can remember; indeed, none but what he 

 reflects upon." "Present consciousness of past actions," says Butler 

 "is not necessary to our being the same person who performed those 

 actions," and he might have added that neither is past consciousness 

 necessary ; for it is not necessary that the acts of a being should be 

 rational to prove personal identity, but only that they should be such 

 that, if accompanied by mind, they would be rational. For all we 

 know to the contrary the human ovum may be conscious, and so 

 may the tree be, or, for that matter, the stone ; but we do know that, 

 whether living beings be conscious or not, they so respond to the 

 changes which go on in the outer world that our reason approves 

 their actions ; and it is their fitness itself, not their consciousness of 

 it, which proves their continued existence. 



