Criticism of Locke
That Personality is not a permanent, but a transient thing: That it lives and dies, begins and ends, continually: That no one can any more remain one and the same person two Moments together, than two successive Moments can be one and the same Moment: that our Substance is indeed continually changing; but whether this be so or not, is, it seems, nothing to the purpose; since it is not Substance, but Consciousness alone, which constitutes Personality; which Consciousness, being successive, cannot be the same in any two Moments, nor consequently the personality constituted by it." And from hence it must follow, that it is a Fallacy upon Ourselves, to charge our present Selves with any thing we did, or to imagine our present Selves interested in any thing which befell us, yesterday, or that our present Self will be interested in what will befall us to morrow; since our present Self is not, in Reality, the same with the Self of Yesterday, but another like Self or Person coming in its Room, and mistaken for it; to which another Self will succeed to morrow.
Read more about this topic: Joseph Butler
Famous quotes containing the words criticism and/or locke:
“Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world—though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst—the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“When we consider the vast distance of the known and visible parts of the world, and the reasons we have to think, that what lies within our ken is but a small part of the universe, we shall then discover an huge abyss of ignorance.”
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