I am not the same thing, but many different things. To insist on absolute simplicity of nature as essential to individuality, would be to destroy all individuality: for it would lead to the supposition of as many distinct individuals, as there are thoughts, feelings, actions, and properties in the same being. Every thought would be a separate consciousness; every organ a different system. Each thought is a distinct thing in nature; and many of my thoughts must more nearly resemble the thoughts of others than they do my own sensations, which nevertheless are considered as a part of the same being. As to the continued identity of the
are so disconnected with a number of other things as not to have the least habitual dependence upon, or influence over them, which makes them two distinct individuals. As to the other distinctions between one individual and another, namely those of number and properties, the first of these subsists as necessarily between the parts of the individual, as between one individual and another; and the second frequently subsists in a much greater degree between those parts, than between different individuals. Two distinct individuals can certainly never be the same: that is, supposing the number of parts in each individual to be as 10, 10 can never make 20. But neither can 10 ever be made into an unit; so that we should have ten individuals instead of one by insisting on the absolute distinction of numbers. When, therefore, I say, that one individual differs from another, I must be understood by implication to mean, in some way in which the parts of that individual do not differ from each other, or not by any means in the same degree. The mind is however extremely apt to fasten on the distinctions of number and properties where they co-exist with the other distinction, and almost lose sight of those distinctions between things that have a very close connection with each other. When therefore we include the distinctions of number and properties in our account of the difference between one individual and another, this can only be true in an absolute sense, and not if it be meant to imply that the same distinctions do not exist in the same individual. This account is, however, but very crude and unsatisfactory.
