john locke and personal identity immortality and bodily resurrection in 17th-century philosophy

John Locke and Personal Identity

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John Locke and Personal Identity

Immortality and Bodily Resurrection in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy

K. Joanna S. Forstrom

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Contents

Acknowledgements vi

Introduction 1Chapter 1 John Locke and the Problem of Personal Identity:

The Principium Individuationis, Personal Immortality, and Bodily Resurrection 6

Chapter 2 On Separation and Immortality: Descartes and the Nature of the Soul 29

Chapter 3 On Materialism and Immortality: Or Hobbes’ Rejection of the Natural Argument for the Immortality of the Soul 54

Chapter 4 Henry More and John Locke on the Dangers of Materialism: Immateriality, Immortality, Immorality, and Identity 76

Chapter 5 Robert Boyle: On Seeds, Cannibalism, and the Resurrection of the Body 101

Chapter 6 Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity in Its Context: A Reassessment of Classic Objections 116

Notes 132Bibliography 147Index 153

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the philosophy faculty at the University of Nebraska Lincoln and Washington University in St Louis, particularly Pauline Phemister, Pauline Kleingeld, Richard Watson, Harry Ide, and J. Claude Evans.

The initial work on this book was done during my dissertation, supported by a fellowship from Washington University Graduate College of Arts and Sciences in 1998–99. The work was further refi ned in parts through partici-pation in the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar “Descartes and His Contemporaries” in Summer 2000 directed by Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber, as well as in the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute “The Intersection of Philosophy, Science and Theology in the Seventeenth Century” chaired by Steve Nadler and Donald Rutherford. I benefi ted from the many presentations and discussions with other participants and visiting scholars.

I thank Spring Hill College for research support during two summers and in the spring of 2008 made possible in part by a Teagle Foundation grant to Spring Hill College. The Delta Gamma Fraternity National Faculty Teaching Award allowed the purchase of materials germane to this project.

The Librarians at Washington University in St Louis, Virginia Tech, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Tulane University and Spring Hill College are also acknowledged for their assistance in procuring the materials that I used in the research and writing of the text.

The support of my husband, family, friends, colleagues, and students enabled me to fi nish the project despite hurricanes and serious health problems. While I doubt this work will make a difference in the great scheme of things, it does make a small difference in my life. Thank you.

Introduction

John Locke’s formulation of and position on the problem of personal identity are among the most commonly studied and dissected by philoso-phers. It is studied not only by historians of philosophy, but also by philo-sophers who specialize in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and ethics. Frequently discussed in introductions to philosophy as well as in graduate seminars and faculty colloquia it is only fair to say that it is one of the most enduring problems in philosophy.

This book positions Locke’s famous problem in relation to four distinct philosophical approaches taken in the seventeenth century to the issues of personal immortality, bodily resurrection, and the afterlife. In his treat-ment of identity, Locke considers four philosophical accounts of personal immortality and bodily resurrection, namely Cartesian dualism, Hobbesian materialism, Cambridge Platonism, and Boyles’ corpuscularian mechanism. After developing each position and Locke’s response to it in detail, I argue in the fi nal chapter that by presenting Locke’s analysis of personal identity in relation to these discussions, his theory exhibits new resources which can be drawn on to answer common classic objections made to it.

This project of looking at the context of the problem of personal identity is in accord with recent trends in both Locke scholarship and the history of philosophy.1 Increasingly, understanding the broader philosophical, theological, and scientifi c context within which a philosopher works is seen as contributing to our understanding of the philosopher’s positions and arguments. In Lockean studies there has been a resurgence of interest in Locke’s context and its infl uence on his thought. For example, John Marshall provides a book-length treatment of the development of Locke’s political, religious, and social thought found in John Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility. Other authors have looked at Locke’s relation to those who followed him as well as whom he responds to, for example, John Yolton in his classic John Locke and the Way of Ideas. And Roger Woolhouse’s Locke: A Biography reminds Locke scholars and philosophers of the importance of his life and context to the formulation and articulation

2 John Locke and Personal Identity

of his philosophy. Other philosophers have also focused on the context in which Locke develops his analysis of personal identity and the way in which he responds to prior philosophical thinkers who grapple with the problem, most notably David Behan, Edwin Curley, Ben Mijuskovic, Kenneth Winkler, and Michael Ayers. This work is an extension and deepening of the approach of those works, as the context not only of Locke is discussed, but also that of those to whom he is responding.

The fi rst chapter sets the stage for the project by focusing on the philosophical milieu of the fi rst edition of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. It begins with an examination of William Molyneux’s request to Locke to elaborate in the second edition of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding on two topics of interest to the scholastics at Oxford: the principium individuationis and the doctrine of eternal truths. Molyneux hopes that in so doing Locke’s work will be more readily accepted. The passages which Molyneux references from the fi rst edition are those where Locke raises concerns with other philosophers’ accounts of the soul and its interactions with the body before and after death. The tension for philosophers and theologians between the analyses of personal immortality of the soul and bodily resurrection is explored and Locke’s early work on the tension and problem, as found in his journals and the fi rst edition of the Essay, is discussed. The position that he develops in the second and subsequent editions is carefully laid out. Finally Locke’s more mature understanding of the resurrection of the body is portrayed by highlighting his work on the epistles of St. Paul from A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul.

What emerges in this initial analysis of Locke is an engagement with other philosophers of his time who were being used by theologians or were themselves theologians. He is not writing about personhood or iden-tity in isolation but rather in a context. Four main philosophical approaches with which Locke engages highlight different aspects of the seventeenth-century concern with the topic of personal immortality and its relation to our understanding of the world. Each philosopher discussed in this book has a signifi cant engagement with not only the philosophy of the time but also the science and theology of the time. Each sees himself as working to replace the scholastic Aristotelianism that dominated the schools of the day. And each was quite familiar to Locke.

Rene Descartes, often called the father of modern philosophy, presents an analysis of personal immortality in his Meditations on First Philosophy that invokes and claims to be in conformity with the fi fth Lateran Council’s decrees of 1512. This attempt at conformity constrains his analysis in

Introduction 3

interesting ways. As will be seen in Chapter 2, the Lateran Council specifi es two groups of problematic Aristotelians who needed to be responded to by Catholic thinkers: the Averroists and the Alexandrians. While Descartes’ own personal orthodoxy might be suspect, it is clear that he hoped his philosophy would be acceptable to Catholics and used in their schools. Of course, his analysis and the restrained nature of some of his claims may indicate that he hoped his philosophy would prove acceptable to non-Catholics as well. But by choosing to focus on the immortality of the soul in his Meditations, he sets the stage for the discussion of immortality and identity of the soul in accordance with Catholic tradition and thus for iden-tity of the person before and after death. His response to the heresies condemned by the council lead to a focus on the question of memory and what the soul remembers after death. In Chapter 2, Descartes’ arguments are schematized and used to show how he articulates the possibility that the soul is immortal and that its individuation continues after the death of the body. He ultimately does not claim that his arguments demonstrate that the soul must be immortal, only that it is possible, which is a response to the Aristotelians and others who doubted that possibility.

Thomas Hobbes, one of the most vilifi ed philosophers of his time, rejects Descartes’ arguments and indeed all accounts of immaterial substance. He fi nds the concept of “immaterial substance” to be a logical contradiction. But interestingly he does develop an account in Leviathan of what happens after the death of the body that coheres not only with his philosophical account of perception but also his interpretation of scripture. While Hobbes is clearly not an orthodox theological thinker, he nonetheless evinces a somewhat consistent interpretation of scripture to support his rejection of immaterial substance. He methodically goes through passages from the old and new testaments to show that a materialistic explanation is possible for each passage usually used in support of an immaterialist understanding of angels and souls. Often ignored by philosophers, Hobbes’ writings on theology in Leviathan refl ect his scientifi c approach to vision as well as his understanding of basic materialistic metaphysics. His discussion of philoso-phy, science, politics, and theology is framed to show that the science of the day—with a focus on perception in particular—does not need to use immaterial substances. Hobbes is happy to jettison a Catholic view of the afterlife, particularly given that he thinks that such accounts are the very ones that have constrained thinkers and kept them from progressing in science as well as other areas. The rejection of immaterial substance as well as his mortalist account of death and what follows is explored in Chapter 3, as is Locke’s response.


Henry More, the Cambridge Platonist, falls in and out of love with Descartes’ treatment of the soul during his career. He initially fi nds himself responding enthusiastically to Descartes’ emphasis on the immateriality of the soul, as it seems to cohere well with his own Neoplatonism. More’s initial understanding of the preexistence and immortality of the soul is explored using passages from his early metaphysical poetry. This poetry is written in Spenserian allegorical style. But as More’s position matures and he comes to better understand Descartes’ position, as well as that of other Cartesians, he rejects Descartes and the Cartesians. More also reads and responds quite negatively to Thomas Hobbes as he sees materialism and those theories that might seem materialistic as being particularly threat-ening to public morality and to his understanding of science. It should be noted that More is not concerned to endorse a public morality like that of the Puritans. He rejects predestination while he endorses the preexistence of the soul. He does so as it allows an account to be given that emphasizes the goodness and mercy of God. More’s understanding of the immortality of the soul is discussed in detail in Chapter 4. His understanding of God’s presence in the world is infl uential on Newton and others. And his use, or what others might call misuse of science and experimental observations, is also infl uential on other thinkers, such as Robert Boyle. His infl uence on Locke is discussed as well as is Locke’s response.

Robert Boyle, Locke’s friend and senior colleague, is quite infl uential on Locke. Boyle rejects More and Hobbes, entering into public criticism of both. Of those focused on in this study, Boyle is the one who most publicly identifi es with science and theology. As a “Christian virtuoso” he works to reconcile science and faith where such reconciliation is possible and desirable. He rejects a reading of scripture that puts revelation in con-tinual confl ict with science. But he also rejects an understanding of science that puts scripture in continual confl ict with theology and revelation. Boyle works to articulate an understanding of the relationship such that science could illuminate scripture to support the believer. His analysis of the resurrection of the body, discussed in detail in Chapter 5, shows how Boyle uses scientifi c observation, biblical interpretation, and philosophy to show the possibility of the resurrection of the body. He, like Descartes in Chapter 2, does not presume to give an account of how such mysteries must happen. Rather, he wants to show how it is possible for such to occur. In this way science and philosophy are an aid to the believer as well as a tool to use against the atheist who seeks to undermine society. This perspective is quite infl uential on Locke, as is seen at the conclusion of that chapter.

Introduction 5

All four thinkers are part of the context in which Locke writes. The discussions of immortality and bodily resurrection in each are such that it leads Locke to react to their position. Each thought to replace the Aristotelianism of the schools with something more suitable for the emerg-ing science and perhaps as well for the emerging understanding of religion and its role in society. Locke too sees his work in philosophy as supporting the new science. And so we see in Locke a move from philosophy as handmaiden of theology to perhaps that of handmaiden of science. And when we see Locke’s work at the intersection of theology and science, we see that the transition was not an easy one. While today it seems to many that the disciplines are separate and should remain so, this was not the case when Locke wrote. Locke does not reject wholesale the work of previous thinkers. Rather he wants to go beyond an analysis of “substance” and the metaphysics of substance. He wants to give an analysis of identity and of persons consistent in his understanding of human understanding in the face of divine revelation and in support of public morality.

Understanding the context of his writing about personal identity allows Locke’s theory to be reexamined. As we see in the fi nal chapter, Locke’s theory has resources with which to answer critics such as Thomas Reid and Joseph Butler. Reid’s famous problem of the forgetful soldier is used to highlight a potential concern with Locke’s account. And it shows as well some of the more interesting problems that Locke could be seen as taking a position on. For if the problem of personal identity is about what happens at death, there are problems with understanding what happens to the individual who has forgotten and then remembers but repudiates an action done long ago. Forgiveness and mercy as well as scapegoating is part of the Christian tradition, as Locke would have well been aware and his account might also serve to help us understand these themes too.

If the problem of personal identity is characterized just as the problem of a person’s identity over time, it is still an interesting problem. Yet Locke thought that problem to be not that hard to solve. Rather he wants to resolve the problem of the person’s identity over time where there might be a period of unconsciousness or death. How to do this is the real problem. He is not concerned to present an analysis where the person at birth needs to be the same as the person after death. After all, people do change. And because they change it is relevant to ask what survives the change. It need not be the same substance or material. Rather it is the self that accepts ultimate responsibility for the actions that were done. And Locke’s focus on providing an account that coheres with his understanding of scripture and science is at the core of his work on personal identity.

Chapter 1

John Locke and the Problem of Personal Identity: The Principium

Individuationis, Personal Immortality, and Bodily Resurrection

The problem of personal identity was not the reason why John Locke wrote his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, although it may be the reason that many today are introduced to his work and to the classic problem of personal identity. This chapter begins with an inquiry into some of the main reasons Locke includes a section on personal identity in the second and subsequent editions of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (here after, Essay). The suggestion made by William Molyneux and the passages he cites in correspondence with Locke is a logical place to begin. And as we examine Molyneux’s suggestion, it becomes clear that what he was asking for and what Locke provides in response is more than a treatment of a particular problem. Rather, it is an engagement with ongoing fundamental concerns about philosophy and theology in light of the new science.

I. Molyneux and the Principium Individuationis in Scholastic Philosophical and Theological Thought

Chapter 27, “Of Identity and Diversity,” is added by Locke to Book II in the second edition of the Essay at the suggestion of William Molyneux to consider subjects that would facilitate the adoption of the Essay by a largely scholastic Oxford.1 Molyneux, in correspondence with Locke, fi rst suggests that Locke write an entire treatise on the topics of traditional scholastic logic and metaphysics.2 Locke demurs and requests of Molyneux specifi c headings he might incorporate into the second edition of the Essay.3 Molyneux replies with two of the more traditional metaphysical problems with which the scholastics deal, namely eternal truths and the principium

Locke and the Problem of Personal Identity 7

individuationis4 as he thinks Locke needs but expand on the topic and those passages from the fi rst edition where Locke had already discussed these issues.

To better understand Molyneux’s suggestion and Locke’s response to it, a brief inquiry into the problem of the principium individuationis with an emphasis on understanding its relationship to some key theological controversies in scholastic thought at Oxford and elsewhere is helpful.5

The problem of the principium individuationis centers on what indivi-duates, or makes distinct, an individual from others of the same kind. For example, how or why is it that my cat, Electra, is an individual cat and dif-ferent from any other individual cat, say your cat, Bob? It is not enough to say that they just are different cats. Rather what is asked for is an account of what makes her a distinct cat from Bob. Is it that she is an individual? Is it that she is a bundle of qualities that are unique because of the location of them? Is it because she has an individual soul or life force (which may or may not have had previous experience)? An account that is given in response to these questions impacts on related questions involving identity and individuation—that is, is what makes Electra distinct from Bob the same thing that makes both a cat? And if so, what is it that makes them cats and not dogs? Is what makes her distinct now from Bob is that which will continue to make her distinct from him in a few years? And is there any way that she can become Bob?

These questions of identity and individuation for cats and dogs may seem fairly trivial. But the same types of questions can be raised about humans—and are raised about humans by philosophers and theologians. In particular there are a number of theological topics that philosophers (and scientists and theologians) of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were quite interested in that turn on an understanding of identity and individuation. For example, according to the doctrine of original sin, the sin of an individual human, Adam, is somehow transmitted to all other indi-vidual humans, as is his punishment of mortality. In the Christian mystery of the Trinity, three distinct persons are held to be but one substance. In the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, the soul of the individual is said to be individually immortal and not to lose its distinct identity after death and before the resurrection. The Christian belief in the resurrection of the body holds that one and the same body is resurrected on the Great Day of Judgment in order that each individual will receive appropriate punishment or reward in a body. For each of these, what it is to be an indi-vidual soul, person, human, or body, at one time or over time is an impor-tant and contentious element of the answer. And answering these concerns


will impact as well on the answers that can be given to account for the indi-viduation of cats—particularly in philosophers who work for a coherent and consistent theory in regards to things above and below reason.

The conjunction of two of these theological concerns leads to particu-larly interesting diffi culties. Personal immortality, part of the inheritance from Greek philosophy, and bodily resurrection, with its origins in Scripture and Jewish tradition are an uneasy synthesis.6 The resurrection of the dead is promised in Scripture, particularly in the Epistles of Paul. For traditions like those of the Protestants of the seventeenth century that place great value on the revealed truths of Scripture, this doctrine is especially signifi -cant. And Locke is clearly a member of this tradition, even if he is not orthodox in his beliefs, as we shall see.

With bodily resurrection there are at least three areas of concern. The fi rst is to give an account of how an individual who experiences bodily death can be resurrected with the same body given that bodies decay and can even become different bodies (e.g., cannibalism or being consumed by fi sh or wild animals). Second, an account of how an individual living at the time of the Second Coming will be changed “in the twinkling of an eye”7 into a state suitable to receive judgment is needed. The third concern is to give an acceptable account of what happens to an individual in the intermediate state between death and resurrection as the body is usually decaying. In these accounts, diachronic identity of the body as well as of the indivi dual receiving justice is the issue. Questions raised by Sadducee opponents of Paul about the resurrection of the body are the reason that Paul discusses it explicitly in his Epistles. It is largely in response to questions about the nature of bodily resurrection and the interpretation of Paul’s writings that work on identity and individuation of material objects is done in the Middle Ages. And Locke continues this tradition, as seen in the next section.

On the other hand, personal immortality with its emphasis on the soul, while not in complete opposition to bodily resurrection, is not clearly in harmony with the emphasis on the body either. The early church fathers draw mostly on Platonic or Aristotelian philosophy, both of which provide an account of the immortality of the soul (or could be interpreted as doing so), and castigate those Greek philosophers that could not or did not offer an appropriate account.8 The standard argument of these church fathers centers immortality in an account of the nature of the soul and generally discounts the soul’s dubious relation to the body. The nature of the soul in life is of great concern to these theologians as it indicates the type of life the soul has upon separation from the body. For example, an afterlife


of contemplation of the beatifi c vision is related to the functions that the rational soul serves in this life. The use of the nature of the soul to ground immortality is seen as serving the vital function of providing a reason for individuals to be moral (or at least law abiding). It also represents a hierar-chy within the soul such that those entities which use reason are seen as having a higher soul than those entities who cannot for it explains why and how they can be moral agents. Thus if the natural proof for immortality works for human souls, then one of the major arguments for morality is also preserved. And should the proof fail, so too might the morality of individuals and of society (especially Western society), or so was feared.

One question highlights the tension between the two theological topics: What happens to the individual during the intermediate state after bodily death but before the general resurrection? One of the responses that emerged in the Catholic tradition is “Purgatory.”9 Because Purgatory is characterized as a halfway stage, it is possible that the actions of individuals not in it could impact on the fi nal outcome of the individuals in the stage. What followed included prayers for the dead, the sale of indulgences and a number of practices rejected by most Protestant groups in the seventeenth century.10 In Purgatory’s place, Protestant theologians often put a sleep of the soul that excludes the need for an intermediate state.11 And, in so doing, remove the need for the problematic practices that they found most galling.

The uneasy relationship between these two theological commitments, one emphasizing the body and the other emphasizing and glorifying the soul, but both proffering descriptions of the afterlife, form part of the scho-lastic discussion of the principium individuationis. As such, these commit-ments are part of the backdrop to Molyneux’s suggestion and Locke’s response. And that these are what Molyneux has in mind when he suggests that Locke comment on the problem is indicated by the passages from the fi rst edition of the Essay that he cites. Molyneux cites two passages where he claims Locke already has discussed personal identity. In the fi rst passage, Locke uses a series of questions to show that the idea of identity is not innate. As Locke writes:

If Identity (to instance in that alone) be a native Impression; and conse-quently so clear and obvious to us, that we must needs know it even from our Cradles, I would gladly be resolved, by one of seven, or Seventy, Years old, Whether a Man being a Creature, consisting of soul and Body, be the same Man, when his Body is changed? Whether Euphorbus and Pythagoras, having had the same Soul, were the same Man, tho’ they lived several


Ages asunder? Nay, Whether the Cock too, which had the same Soul, were not the same with both of them?12

Given that different individuals and groups have answered these three questions in different ways, as is evident, for example in the followers of Pythagoras who explicitly endorse transmigration of the soul or metempsy-chosis, there is no innate idea of diachronic identity that everyone agrees on. If the idea of identity is innate then Locke thinks everyone would share the same idea. But it is clear that we do not. Notice as well that the questions that Locke raises to demonstrate the differences in the ideas of identity are not “bare, empty speculations,” although even if they were, they would still show that there is a problem with understanding identity as innate. Locke thinks that these questions are signifi cant. As he says:

He, that shall, with a little Attention, refl ect on the Resurrection, and consider, that divine Justice shall bring to Judgment, at the last Day, the very same persons, to be happy or miserable in the other, who did well or ill in this Life, will fi nd it, perhaps, not easie to resolve with himself, what makes the same Man, or wherein Identity consists: And will not be forward to think he, and every one, even Children themselves, have naturally a clear Idea of it.13

The concerns Locke raises about diachronic identity connect with the discussions of the Resurrection and fi nal Judgment. All three questions raise problems for accounts placing either personal or human identity in an immaterial soul. Given that a man is soul and body, if the body is changed, or resurrected as a new body, is the resurrected individual the same man who lived? If two individuals have the same soul (albeit at different times) are they the same man? Is an animal with the same soul that a human previ-ously had the same man? Would these individuals be the same person as the person who did the action and thus deserve the happiness or misery that follows judgment? These questions are undeveloped, and Locke’s answers to them are not clear here. But these cases and others like them are used and developed in his discussion of personal identity in the second edition. Here Locke is using the puzzling questions for the purpose of showing that different people have different ideas of identity and to high-light the importance of the idea of identity over time to our commitments to immortality and resurrection.

The second place Molyneux cites is in Book II, chapter 1, pp. 11–12 where Locke raises a problem for the Cartesian doctrine that the soul always


thinks, and the implications of this for the individual’s concern with future happiness. Locke grants that the soul of an individual who is awake is “never without thought,” but questions if this is the case for a sleeping person:

Or if it be possible, that the Soul can, whilst the Body is sleeping, have its Thinking, Enjoyments, and Concerns, its Pleasure or Pain apart, which the Man is not conscious of, nor partakes in, It is certain, that Socrates asleep, and Socrates awake, is not the same person; but his Soul when he sleeps, and Socrates the Man consisting of Body and Soul when he is waking, are two Persons: Since waking Socrates, has no Knowledge of, or concernment for that Happiness, or Misery of his Soul, which it enjoys alone by it self whilst he sleeps, without perceiving any thing of it, no more than he has for the Happiness, or Misery of a Man in the Indies, whom he knows not. For if we take wholly away all consciousness of our Actions and Sensations, especially of Pleasure and Pain, and the concernment that accompanies it, it will be hard to know wherein to place personal Identity.14

Locke continues in this vein and raises the problem of Castor and Pollux, who share one soul but do not share perceptions. Locke claims that as a result of not sharing perceptions they do not share the concern with pleasure or pain of the other, or with the happiness or misery of the soul. Thus, Castor and Pollux are different persons. Neither Castor nor Pollux is concerned with the soul in itself, rather each is concerned with the plea-sure and pain that he alone will perceive in due course. As a result, Locke concludes that it is diffi cult to know wherein to place personal identity if the soul is not conscious.

Locke does consider a possible response on behalf of the Cartesians to his problem of sleep and lack of consciousness in the fi rst edition. This response is that when we are sleeping we are thinking but do not remember our thoughts upon later refl ection. Locke does not think this to be adequate.

If it [the soul] has no memory of its own Thoughts, if it cannot record them for its use, and be able to recall them upon any occasion; if it can-not refl ect upon what is past, and make use of its former Experiences, Reasonings, and Contemplations, to what purpose does it think? They who make the Soul a thinking Thing, at this rate will not make it a much more noble Being, than those do, whom they condemn for allowing it to be nothing but the subtilest parts of Matter. Characters drawn on Dust,


that the fi rst breath of wind effaces; or Impressions made on a heap of Atoms, or animal Spirits, are altogether useful, and render the Subject as noble, as the Thoughts of a Soul that perish in thinking; that once out of sight, are gone for ever, and leave no memory of themselves behind them.15

This passage shows an awareness of not only the Cartesian doctrine, but also other views, such as Epicureanism and Hobbesian materialism, about the nature of thinking and how it may rely on the soul and body. Locke suggests that the Cartesians are not offering an account of the soul that is “more noble” than that offered by the materialists or others working on the same problem. As he points out, if thinking continues but the indi-vidual does not have access to memories of that time so as to learn from experience, then what is the point of the thinking? Locke is highlighting a problem for Descartes and others not only about the nature of thinking while asleep, but also about the state of the soul after bodily death. The focus on or concern with memory is one which will come to signify Locke’s own work on the soul. And this criticism of the Cartesians and others mark in part the move from a metaphysical response/analysis of the problem to one that is characterized as an epistemological one.

Two things stand out about the fi rst edition passages cited by Molyneux. First, they reveal what it is about the problem of the principium individua-tionis that Molyneux thought Locke to have already touched on: the con-cerns about identity in bodily resurrection and personal immortality. Second, they reveal that Locke is aware of and engaged with other philosophical movements concerned with these issues. Both of these are further developed in Locke’s work on personal identity.

Thus when Molyneux requests that Locke address the Scholastic problem of the principium individuationis, and points to two passages where Locke already discusses identity, he is asking him to develop his position on controversial issues that touch on the theologically and philosophically charged topics of the Resurrection and immortality. And in so doing to enter into a discussion with other non-Aristotelian philosophers who were undertaking the challenge of dealing with these complicated issues with mixed success. It is against this backdrop of the principium individuationis in part that Locke’s analysis of identity can be placed.

The above passages are not the only ones indicative of Locke’s views on personal identity and immortality prior to the writing of chapter 27 for the second edition. In a journal entry made in 1682 after reading the Cambridge Platonist John Smith’s Select Discourses16 and Ralph Cudworth’s


True Intellectual System of the Universe,17 Locke makes some of the same obser-vations about immortality. There he draws much more pointed conclusions about the issue of bodily resurrection and personal immortality and the use of the nature of the soul. He begins by characterizing the usual argument given for the natural immorality of the soul:

The usuall physicall proofe (as I may soe call it) of the immortality of the soule is this, Matter cannot thinke ergo the soule is immateriall, noe thing can naturally destroy an immateriall thing ergo the soule is naturally immortall.18

This argument neatly captures an argument found in other philosophers’ work, including Descartes’ Meditations, as will be discussed in Chapter 2. Locke continues:

But methinks if I may be permitted to say so neither of these speaks to the point in question and perfectly mistake immortality whereby is not meant a state of bare substantiall existence and duration but a state of sensibility.19

Locke goes on to consider why the natural proof for the immortality of the soul fails to provide the state of sensibility he thinks necessary for our concern with Heaven and Hell. He uses the example of the experience of a sound sleep.

If they say as some doe that the soule dureing a sound quiet sleep perceives and thinkes but remembers it not, one may with as much cer-tainty and evidence say that the beds post thinkes and perceives to all the while but remembers it not for I aske whether dureing this profound sleepe the soule has any sense of happynesse or misery, and if the soule should continue in that state to eternity (with all that sense about it whereof it hath no consciousnesse noe memory) whether there could be any such destinct states of heaven or hell as we suppose to belong to soules after this life, and for which only we are concerned for and inquisi-tive after its immortality and to this I leave every man to answer to his owne self, viz if he should continue to eternity in the same sound sleepe he has sometimes been in whether he would be ever a jot more happy or miserable dureing that eternity then the bedstead he lay on. Since then Experience of what we fi nde dayly in sleepe and frequently in swounings and Apoplexys &c. puts it past doubt that the soule may subsist in a state


of insensibility without partakeing in the least degree of happynesse misery or any perception whatsoever (and whether death (which the Scripture calls sleepe) may not put the soules of some men at least into such a condition I leave those who have well considerd the story of Lazarus &c. to conjecture) whatsoever shall establish the existence of the soule will not therefor prove its being in a state of happynesse or misery, since tis evident that perception is noe more necessary to its being then motion is to the being of body.20

Locke connects immortality, sensibility, perception, and happiness and misery to accounts of substance. The problem he sees is that immaterial substance, while immortal, may not be sensible during the time after death any more than material substance that is also immortal is sensible. Thus, even if immaterial substance is established, it may not provide the assur-ances of the afterlife that are needed because it is continued or reawakened sensibility that gives us the concern for future happiness and misery. The individual’s concern for his or her own future happiness and misery is what most are looking for in an account of immortality. Locke’s concern is with personal immortality and the denial of the effi cacy of the “usual physical proof” for it supports the brief analysis of personal identity in the fi rst edition. It too reveals an awareness of the issue of personal immortality and its relation to philosophical discussions of the nature of immaterial substance. Locke develops this connection in his mature work on personal identity.

The account also leads to questions about the nature of animal souls—Are animal souls, like human souls immaterial and thus immortal? Descartes answers “No” to this inquiry by the Cambridge Platonist Henry More. The debate over Descartes’ treatment of animals and the implications for immortality is quite intense in the seventeenth century.21 And it is to this controversy over the status of animal souls that Locke refers to next in his journal, a controversy which will briefl y be discussed in Chapter 4.

One other journal entry is of interest. On Tuesday, June 5, 1683, Locke writes:

Identity of persons lies not in having the same numericall body made up of the same particles, nor if the minde consists of corporeal spirits in their being the same, but in the memory and knolwedg of ones past self and actions continued on under the consciousnesse of being the same person wherby every man ownes himself.22


In this short entry, Locke presents a sketch of the theory that will be found in his mature work. He rejects an analysis of personal identity that locates it in the numerical sameness of the body. And his rejection is, as Michael Ayers suggests, in the context of the discussion about bodily resurrection taking place at this time.23 This early account fi ts with Locke’s mature account of bodily resurrection, as will be discussed in the next section. Before examining Locke’s philosophical work on personal identity and its relation to the principium individuationis and the debates about the nature of the soul, I consider explicitly Locke’s treatment of the theological problems of immortality and resurrection.

II. Locke’s Explicitly Theological Views

Locke’s theological views on bodily resurrection and immortality are available to us because he writes and publishes on the Epistles of St. Paul and in his unpublished essay “Resurrectio et Quae Sequuntur.” The Paraphrase of the Epistles of St. Paul was written after the fi rst edition of the Essay, but during the time when Locke was still working on the subsequent editions of the Essay.

The format of a paraphrase is to give the standard translation of a passage and then to present the passage in language that makes it easier to under-stand. There is a tradition of doing this for Scripture with the King James translation as the preferred English translation. Locke differs from other paraphrases of Scripture at this time in that he does not follow consistently the King James chapter markers, preferring to paraphrase by passages that go naturally together. Locke also adds notes to clarify his interpretation and to show how his paraphrase stands in relation to other interpretations of the text.24

The main source for the belief in bodily resurrection for Christians is 1 Cor. ch. 15, vv. 1–58. Locke summarizes the contents of this chapter:

After St. Paul (who had taught them another doctrine) had left Corinth some among them denyed the Resurrection of the dead. This he confutes by Christs resurrection, which the number of witnesses yet remaining that had seen him put past question besides the constant inculcateing of it by all the Apostles every where. From the resurrection of Christ thus established he infers the resurrection of the dead, Shews the order they shall rise in and what Sort of bodys they shall have.25


In his paraphrase of the relevant part of the chapter, Locke indicates what he takes the resurrection of the dead to be and the bodies that the dead shall have.

And as in the animal corruptible mortal state we were born in we have been like him that was earthy soe also shall we who at the resurrection partake of a spiritual life from Christ be made like him the Lord from heaven heavenly. i e live as the spirits in heaven doe without the need of food or nourishment to support it, and without infi rmitys decay and death. Injoying a fi xed stable unfl eeting life. This I say to you Brethren to satisfi e those that aske with what bodys the dead shall come, that we shall not at the resurrection have such bodys as we have now For fl esh and blood cannot enter into the kingdom which the saints shall inherit in heaven: Nor are such fl eeting corruptible things as our present body are fi tted to that state of immutable incorruptibility. To which let me adde what has not been hitherto discovered. Viz that we shall not all die but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkleing of an eye at the sound-ing of the last trumpet. For the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall rise, and as many of us believers as are then alive shall be changed.26

In his notes on verse 35, “But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?” Locke claims that Paul is concerned with two questions in his response:

1 How comes it to pass that dead men are raised to life again would it not be better they should live on; why doe they die to live again? 2 With what bodys shall they return to life? To both these he distinctly answers viz that those who are raised to an heavenly state shall have other bodys; and next that it is fi t that men should die, death being noe improper way to attaining other bodys This he shews there is soe plain and common an instance of in the sowing of all seeds that he thinks it a foolish thing to make a diffi culty of it: and then proceeds to declare that as they shall have other so they shall have better bodys than they had before viz spiritual and incorruptible.27

Locke interprets the passages of this chapter as showing the order of the Resurrection. The Resurrection begins with Christ’s resurrection. Christ is seen as the “fi rst fruits.” The “fi rst fruit” of a sacrifi ce is that part of an offer-ing which sanctifi es what follows, as Locke notes.28 After the resurrection of Christ, the people of Christ’s church at the Second Coming are resurrected.


On the day of judgment, every human is resurrected and then judged. At this point, the mortality of humans ceases, and immortality for some will occur. Thus, Locke believes that humans are not immortal until after the Resurrection and fi nal judgment.

Locke explicitly develops his views on the order of resurrection in a brief unpublished essay “Resurrection et Quae Sequuntur.”29 In this essay, Locke makes clear that he is not committed to every human becoming immortal. In his account, the wicked are resurrected after the just but they are not given an incorruptible body. They are cast into the fi res of Hell after judg-ment. But the wicked shall not live forever in Hell because the mortal body will eventually burn out and thus the verse “the wages of sin is death” is shown to be correct. In contrast, the reward for the righteous is everlasting life. And so the individuals after judgment who will reside in Heaven shall become immortal and have eternal life. And in this heavenly life they shall not have the bodies that they had while alive on earth. Instead they shall have incorruptible bodies, with their corruptible bodies being trans-formed. The emphasis on transformation or transubstantiation is an impor-tant element of Locke’s problem. For it requires that an account be given that allows identity to not depend on sameness of material substance, but of something else that can survive a change of material substance.

These commitments to both personal immortality and bodily resurrection are very important to Locke. His treatment of them is somewhat unusual, but in keeping with the move in the seventeenth century away from an emphasis on eternal damnation and painful hell fi re.30 Locke’s interpreta-tion of the Epistle and the accounts of the afterlife and personal immortality is knowingly different from others of the time, as he was obviously quite familiar with other theological views and with their philosophical under-pinnings in his discussion of scripture.

I turn now to Locke’s mature analysis of personal identity. I begin with a discussion of Locke’s general theory of identity and the link to the princi-pium individuationis.

III. Locke’s General Theory of Identity and the Principium Individuationis

Locke adds his treatment of identity and the principium individuationis to chapter 27 of the second edition of the Essay. The chapter remains con-sistent in subsequent editions with few changes of note, for example the introduction of new examples and the alteration of the phrasing of certain


passages.31 Locke places the chapter after his treatment of other relations such as time and place and cause and effect. He uses the same strategy to explain the relation of identity as he does with other relations, that is, he focuses on the simple ideas that give rise to the idea of the relation of iden-tity. But the focus of the chapter is not a thorough exploration of the origin of our idea of identity rather it is a sustained treatment of consciousness as making the identity of a person over time and of the principium individua-tionis. After introducing the relation of identity, Locke uses it to segue into a discussion of the principium individuationis. He begins the chapter:

Another occasion the mind often takes of comparing, is the very Being of things, when, considering anything as existing at a determined time and place, we compare it with itself existing at another time, and thereon form the Ideas of Identity and Diversity.32

He says that identity consists in this, that “when the Ideas it is attributed to vary not at all from what they were that moment, wherin we consider their former existence, and to which we compare the present.”33 “Identity” is the result of a comparison in the mind of an idea of a thing that exists at a particular time and place, that is, my cat Electra sitting on a chair in my study at 4 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, with the idea of a thing that exists at a different time in a particular time and place, that is, say my cat Electra sitting on a chair in my study at 4:15 p.m. Tuesday afternoon. I compare the “very being of things,” which I take in this case to mean that I compare “Electra the cat” with “Electra the cat.” If the two ideas of “Electra the cat” do not vary in a signifi cant way, then Electra at 4:15 is said to be the same cat as Electra at 4:00. According to Locke, because we cannot conceive it as possible that two things of the same kind exist in the same place at the same time, we conclude that “whatever exists any where at any time, excludes all of the same kind, and is there it self alone”. As Locke points out, this implies that a thing cannot have two beginnings of existence or two things share one beginning.

Locke discusses the ideas of the three sorts of substances we have: God, fi nite intelligences, and bodies. And then how the identity of each sort is determined. Because God is without beginning, eternal, unalterable, and everywhere, there can be no doubt as to His identity (at any time). Finite spirits (such as souls or angels) each have a determinate time and place of beginning to exist, and the relation to that time and place will always determine to each of them its identity as long as it exists. Locke seems to be making a claim not about how we determine identity epistemically, but


about what constitutes or determines the identity of a fi nite spirit ontologi-cally, which is in keeping with the main scholastic problem. It is the third sort of substance that is most developed by Locke.

The individuation of each particle of matter is the same as with fi nite intelligences. There is a determinate time and place of the beginning of existence. As long as no addition or subtraction of matter is made, the particle remains the same. Everything else that is said to be identical (such as oak trees or cats) are modes or relations that terminate in the three substances and the identity is determined in the same way, that is, by refer-ence to the determinate time and place of the beginning of existence. From this discussion, Locke concludes that the principium individuationis “‘tis plain is Existence itself, which determines a Being of any sort to a particular time and place incommunicable to two beings of the same kind.”34 One thing to note about this claim is that it is not a new anti-Aristotelian solution to the problem.35

Locke claims that the principium individuationis seems easier to conceive in simple substances and modes, but it is not more diffi cult to conceive in compounded modes. Locke methodically deals with this point, and rein-troduces the idea of identity to the discussion, which makes the passages somewhat confusing. One of the relations between the topics is that identity (generally an epistemic notion) is determined by the principium individuationis (generally an ontological notion), which is sortal or relative to the kind of thing that a thing is. The principium individuationis of a being is existence of a unique being of a certain kind. Existence is what deter-mines a being of any sort to a particular time and place and is incommuni-cable to two beings of the same kind. This seems to be consistent with the claim that an entity can be conceived of as multiple kinds and can perhaps have different sorts of existence, that is, as an oak tree and as a mass of matter. The relation between the ontological and the epistemic emerges more clearly in the examples Locke gives. We say that two things are identi-cal if each has the same determined beginning, or perhaps from the fi rst moment we notice it. We compare subsequent ideas of a thing to the fi rst idea that we have. How “existence” is the principium individuationis of a thing seems to differ according to what kind of thing it is, that is, the principium individuationis of an oak tree is not the same thing as the principium indivi-duationis of a mass of matter. And yet, an oak tree can be considered by us as a mass of matter and as an oak tree. So we can compare the idea of oak tree at t1 with the idea of oak tree at t2 and see that they are the same. But if we compare the idea of oak tree at t1 with the idea of mass of matter at t2, we see that they are not the same. They are different ideas.


As Locke says in his discussion with atoms:

Let us suppose an Atom, i.e. a continued body under one immutable Superfi cies, existing in a determined time and place: ‘tis evident, that considered in any instant of its Existence, it is, in that instant, the same with it self. For being, at that instant, what it is, and nothing else, it is the same, and so must continue, as long as its Existence is continued: for so long it will be the same, and no other.36

Locke then expands to consider the identity of masses of matter:

In like manner, if two or more Atoms be joined together into the same mass, every one of those atoms will be the same, by the Foregoing Rule: And whilst they exist united together, the Mass, consisting of the same Atoms, must be the same Mass, or the same Body, let the parts be ever so differently jumbled. But if one of these Atoms be taken away, or one new one added, it is no longer the same Mass or the same Body.37

Thus a statue made of clay that is smashed and remade into a differently shaped statue remains the same mass of matter as long as no additional atoms of clay are added or any taken away. When we compare the idea of the statue qua mass of matter at t1 with the idea of the statue qua mass of matter at t2, it is the same mass of matter as long as the same particles exist united together. Considered qua mass of matter, a tree then is not the same tree when an acorn and when a mature oak for atoms of matter have been added to it. However, it is still the same tree qua a living thing.

Trees and other living creatures’ identities depend not on the continued existence of the same particles, but on something else. Identity is applied not to the masses of matter but to the organization of a common life. Locke considers how masses of matter and living creatures are different. He says:

We must therefore consider wherein an Oak differs from a Mass of Matter, and that seems to me to be this, that the one is only the Cohesion of Particles of Matter any how united, the other such a disposition of them as constitutes the parts of an Oak; and such an Organization of those parts as is fi t to receive and distribute nourishment, so as to con-tinue and frame the Wood, Bark, and Leaves, etc., of an Oak in which consists the vegetable Life. That being then one Plant which has such an Organization of Parts in one coherent Body, partaking of one Common Life, it continues to be the same Plant as long as it partakes of the same


life, though that life be communicated to new particles of matter vitally united to the living plant, in a like continued Organization conformable to that sort of plants. For this Organization, being at any one instant in any one Collection of Matter, is in that particular concrete distinguished from all other, and is that individual Life, which existing constantly from that moment both forwards and backwards, in the same continuity of insensibly succeeding Parts united to the living Body of the Plant, it has that Identity which makes the same Plant, during all the time that they exist united in that continued Organization which is fi t to convey that Common Life to all the Parts so united.38

The principium individuationis of plants and parts of plants is that they exist united in a continued organization fi t to convey life to all parts of the plant. What constitutes an individual oak tree is that it exists in a particular way as an oak tree. It is the continuation of the individual life that makes the oak tree the same. Consider this case: I plant a sprouting acorn in the yard at time t1. Many years later, at time t2 I compare my idea of an oak tree in the yard with the idea of the acorn I planted at t1. At time t2, I say that the oak tree is the same as the sprouting acorn. What I compare is the beginning of existence as an oak tree with the continued existence as an oak tree. Part of my idea of an oak tree is that it is a living entity and grows through stages.

Notice how this differs from this example: I cut down the oak tree at t3 and fi ve years later turn the stump of the tree into a very interesting coffee table/conversation piece. When asked about it, I reply, speaking loosely as a non-philosopher, that it is the oak tree I planted as an acorn as a child. I am not claiming here that it is the same tree (as a table is not the same thing as a tree), rather I am claiming that the wood is the same. I compare my idea of the trunk of the tree (with a very distinctive knot) with the idea of the coffee table (with a very distinctive knot on one leg). The sameness is in the material and not in the continued living organization of the wood. What I count as being a tree does not include coffee tables.

The treatment of plants is similar to the treatment of the identity of animals. As Locke explains:

The Case is not so much different in Brutes but that any one may hence see what makes an Animal and continues it the same. Something we have like this in Machines, and may serve to illustrate it. For example, what is a Watch? ’Tis plain ‘tis nothing but a fi t Organization, or Construction of Parts, to a certain end, which, when a suffi cient force is added to it, it is capable to attain. If we would suppose this Machine one continued Body,


all whose organized Parts were repair’d, increas’d, or diminish’d by a constant Addition or Separation of insensible Parts, with one Common Life, we should have something very much like the Body of an Animal, with this difference, That in an Animal the fi tness of the Organization and the Motion wherein Life consists, begin together, the Motion coming from within; but in Machines the force coming sensibly from without, is often away when the Organ is in order, and well fi tted to receive it.39

The principium individuationis of animals is the existence of an organized, common life. This motion or common life originates from within the indi-vidual. What makes an animal and continues it as the same animal is that organization of its parts existing in such a way as to convey the common life. For example, when I compare the idea of Electra as a kitten with the idea of Electra as an adult cat, I see that she is the same animal because the life and organization (which make her a cat) when compared do not vary. That which makes her distinct from other cats, like your Bob, when I fi rst noticed her and formed an idea of her, namely, that she was a cat at that time and place with a particular set of markings and distinctive personality, is what we compare our current notice of her to, and to our current notice of Bob. They are different ideas, thus Bob and Electra are different individuals although they are both cats. Notice however that the discussion here gets a bit fuzzy—for the ontological notion of individuation as existence seems different from my ideas of Electra. I was not present at her birth, but only at a time later on in her life span. My idea then seems to take her existence in time and space from the time that I fi rst formed an idea of her. But having done so, I know that she is unique and that there is at that moment not another cat like her.

Locke introduces the discussion of personal identity as the fi nal part of the discussion of complex modes. The passages in this discussion most closely match the discussions of identity that Molyneux highlights in the fi rst edition and Locke’s journal entry. I turn now to Locke’s complex discussion of personal identity.

IV. Locke’s Discussion of Personal Identity in the Second Edition and Beyond

In this section, I offer a brief overview of Locke’s theory of personal identity. I stress the relationship between identity and the principium indi-viduationis, then develop briefl y the distinctions that Locke makes between


human and personal identity that turns on the difference between the ideas “man” and “person.” I stress the forensic character of person and the connection that this has with Locke’s discussion of the afterlife, and I note where Locke explicitly makes this connection.

Before entering into a discussion of personal identity, Locke discusses human identity. He points to problems not unlike those he uses in the fi rst edition to show the problem with “identity” taken as an innate idea. For example, the problem of metempsychosis is raised to show that the identity of man cannot be placed in something that does not involve the sameness of an organized body, as animal identity does. From this problem, Locke concludes that human identity is not determined by unity of substance:

Tis not therefore Unity of Substance that comprehends all sorts of Identity or will determine it in every Case: But to conceive, and judge of it aright, we must consider what Idea the Word it is applied to stands for: It being one thing to be the same Substance, another the same Man, and a third the same Person, if Person, Man, and Substance, are three Names standing for three different Ideas; for such as is the Idea belonging to that Name, such must be the Identity: which if it had been a little more carefully attended to, would possibly have prevented a great deal of that Confu-sion, which often occurs about this Matter, with no small seeming Diffi -culties; especially concerning Personal Identity, which therefore we shall in the next place a little consider.40

Instead of using unity of substance to determine identity, the ideas that we compare must be made clear. Locke spends the rest of the chapter con-sidering and developing the distinctions between our ideas of “person,” “man,” and “substance,” and the corresponding identity of each. In doing so, Locke is responding to “that Confusion” about personal identity. It is this “Confusion” that is the focus of the next chapters.

Locke fi rst focuses on the idea “man.” There are three accounts of the idea that Locke considers: the materialist, the dualist, and the immaterial-ist. Locke quickly dismisses the immaterialist, but he maintains a distinction between the materialist and dualist defi nition throughout the chapter. He holds that regardless of the explanation used to explain “man,” the idea “man” is different from the idea “person” and as such has a different iden-tity attached to it. He supposes that “man” involves an idea of a body of a certain form. In the fourth edition, he adds the famous example of Prince Maurice and the parrot. In this example, Locke suggests that were a parrot to speak rationally no one would consider the parrot a man. Thus our idea


of man includes the idea of more than a rational soul. Locke takes the principium individuationis for an individual human to be similar to that of an animal, the participation in the same continued life vitally united to the same organized body. One important difference may well be that humans have a “higher” life than do animals. This is traditionally thought of as the rational soul which organizes not the body, but rather the mind.

Locke says that a person is a thinking intelligent Being, that has reason and refl ection, and can consider it self as it self, the same thinking thing in different times and places; which it does only by that consciousness, which is inseparable from thinking, and as it seems to me essential to it: It being impossible for anyone to perceive, without perceiving, that he does perceive. When we see, hear, smell, taste, feel, meditate, or will any thing, we know that we do so. Thus it is always to our present Sensations and Perceptions: And by this every one is himself that which he calls self: It not being considered in this case, whether the same self be continued in the same, or divers Substances. For since consciousness always accom-panies thinking, and ‘tis that, that makes everyone to be, what he calls self; and thereby distinguishes himself from all other thinking things, in this alone consists personal Identity, i.e. the sameness of a rational Being: And as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past Action or Thought, so far reaches the Identity of that Person; it is the same self now as it was then; and ‘tis by the same self with this present one that now refl ects on it, that the Action was done.41

This is a very rich passage, and one that is often cited in the Locke litera-ture. The principium individuationis of a person is that by which an individual person is distinguished from all other persons. The principium individua-tionis for all things is existence as a kind of thing. For persons, this existence is exemplifi ed by consciousness. In short, the existence of a person is the existence of a consciousness, and the continued existence of that person is the continued existence of that consciousness. It follows that personal identity, or the identity of the self, is determined by and constituted by consciousness (and not substance, material or immaterial). When I ask myself “Am I the same person as I was yesterday?” the answer comes from a comparison of my idea of self now at t2 with my idea of self yesterday at t1. If I am the same person today as yesterday, then I am the same person who did the actions of yesterday and so am responsible for those actions today. This is an important point for Locke, and it is developed in the fi nal chapter.


Locke considers alternative accounts of determining personal identity and fi nds fl aws, many of which relate to providing an account of the indi-vidual in the afterlife. If personal identity is determined by comparing the continuity or the unity of the body (i.e., if person were treated as a vegeta-ble) or the continuity of the immaterial substance (or the same continued life), serious problems could result. As Locke says after introducing the problem of an individual who has a “used” soul:

So that this consciousness not reaching to any of the Actions of either of those Men, he is no more one self with either of them, than if the Soul or immaterial Spirit, that now informs him, had been created, and began to exist, when it began to inform his present Body, though it were never so true, that the same Spirit that informed Nestor’s or Thersites’s Body were numerically the same that informs his. For this would no more make him the same Person with Nestor, than if some of the Particles of Matter, that were once a part of Nestor, were now a part of this Man, the same immate-rial Substance without the same consciousness, no more making the same Person by being united to any Body, than the same Particle of Matter without consciousness united to any Body, makes the same Person. But let him once fi nd himself conscious of any of the Actions of Nestor, he then fi nds himself the same Person with Nestor.42

If we used an immaterial body to determine personhood, then we would hold the above individual accountable for actions he cannot appropriate or remember, and that most people would agree he did not do. Thus, if personal identity is determined by the numerical sameness of the immate-rial substance, then there is the potential for a serious problem regarding moral responsibility.

Another problem with using the sameness of substance to determine identity is that we would hold the wrong person accountable for actions, as Locke’s day person and night person example purports to show. According to this thought experiment, found also in the fi rst edition passage cited by Molyneux, there could be two persons per immaterial substance. It would be wrong to hold the day person accountable for the night person’s actions because the day person cannot “extend his consciousness” to them. But were we to use body or immaterial substance as the idea we compare to determine personal identity, this is exactly what we would do.

One upshot of the discussion of the immaterial soul and material body is that Locke thinks that it shows how a person might receive a new body at the Resurrection or shortly after it. Because personal identity is determined


by the extension of consciousness, it matters not what body the person has for judgment as long as the consciousness can be extended back to include the actions that that person did. As Locke says:

And thus we may be able, without any diffi culty, to conceive the same Person at the Resurrection, though in a Body not exactly in make or parts the same which he had here, the same consciousness going along with the Soul that inhabits it.43

This passage is immediately followed by the prince and the cobbler thought experiment. This thought experiment illustrates that human identity is not determined by the same thing as personal identity. Locke claims that the prince and the cobbler would be the same men (because human identity is about body and continued life and not rational soul), but different persons after the switch of souls. Of interest is that if the account holds, it is consis-tent with the resurrection of someone else’s body (or a completely new body) with my soul and consciousness attached to it, being the same person as me. It is also consistent with the human body being resurrected, but the person being transformed.

The problems Locke locates with the various competing suggestions about person and man and their respective identities relate to just punish-ment and reward. This is because “person” is a forensic term. To justify punishment and reward, one needs to be the same person who did the action.

The punishment with which Locke is concerned is not limited to tempo-ral justice. Rather, Locke is, I suggest, concerned with offering an account of person which explains divine justice and the afterlife. This suggestion comes partly as a natural result of the interest Locke himself shows in the chapter with the problem of resurrection and divine judgment as con-trasted with human judgment. This is shown clearly in Locke’s discussion of the accountability of the drunken man or sleepwalker. As he says:

But is not a Man Drunk and Sober the same Person, why else is he punish’d for the Fact he commits when Drunk, though he be never afterwards conscious of it? Just as much the same Person, as a Man that walks, and does other things in his sleep, is the same Person, and is answerable for any mischief he shall do in it. Humane Laws punish both with a Justice suitable to their way of Knowledge: Because in these cases, they cannot distinguish certainly what is real, what counterfeit; and so the


ignorance in Drunkenness or Sleep is not admitted as a plea. For though punishment be annexed to personality, and personality to consciousness, and the Drunkard perhaps be not conscious of what he did; yet Humane Judicatures justly punish him; because the Fact is proved against him, but want of consciousness cannot be proved for him. But in the great Day, wherein the Secrets of all Hearts shall be laid open, it may be reasonable to think, no one shall be made to answer for what he knows nothing of; but shall receive his Doom, his Conscience accusing or excusing him.44

Punishment is annexed to personality, and personality to consciousness. On the Great Day of the Resurrection, your own conscience shall accuse or excuse you of the actions for which you are responsible. There will be no secrets hidden from you. The actions which you have done will come home to roost and the memories of the actions will be restored if they have faded. All the actions you appropriate to yourself are those actions for which you are responsible and for which you shall receive your doom.

This is contrasted with how human judicatures punish people. If “the Fact is proved” against the drunk in court, the drunk is punished.45 If the fact is proved against the sleepwalker, the sleepwalker is punished.46 Why? Because consciousness is not something that courts can assess with certainty. Instead, they focus on the observable.

The concern with the morality of the punishment of the person is reiterated in section 26:

And therefore whatever past Actions it cannot reconcile or appropriate to that present self by consciousness, it can no more be concerned in, than if they had never been done: And to receive Pleasure or Pain; i.e. Reward or Punishment, on the account of any such Action, is all one, as to be made happy or miserable in its fi rst being, without any demerit at all. For supposing a Man punish’d now, for what he had done in another Life, whereof he could be made to have no consciousness at all, what difference is there between that Punishment, and being created miser-able: And therefore conformable to this, the Apostle tells us, that at the Great Day, when every one shall receive according to his doing, the secrets of all Hearts shall be laid open.* The Sentence shall be justifi ed by the con-sciousness all Persons shall have, that they themselves in what Bodies soever they appear, or what Substances soever that consciousness adheres to, are the same, that committed those Actions, and deserve that Punishment for them. *cf. I Cor. 14:25 and 2 Cor. 5:10.47


This passage again shows Locke’s concern with explaining how an indivi-dual will be responsible for his or her actions here on earth after death. Consciousness is the focus, and the appropriation of past actions to itself. If an action is appropriated then the punishment or reward is merited. If the action is not appropriated, then the punishment is not merited.

Thus Locke does do what Molyneux suggests he do: He discusses the problem of the principium individuationis of the scholastics by developing an analysis of identity that is in accord with his understanding of bodily resurrection and personal identity. Locke is directly considering personal identity as it relates to certain aspects of the classic problem of the princi-pium individuationis. Locke also seems concerned to clear up “that confu-sion” over the issue of personal identity and in doing so to show how rightly to view this problem.

I turn now to a deeper examination of Locke’s rejection of other philo-sophical treatments of the problem of personal immortality. As I argue in the next four chapters, Locke was aware of other philosophers who addressed the problem of the philosophical underpinning of personal immortality in their work. Why look at others? The plan that Molyneux suggests draws upon the philosophical tradition. Others besides Locke were trying to replace the scholasticism of Oxford, and of the schools in general, and in doing so were responding to the same problem. For example, Rene Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, and Henry More, among others, discuss in some detail the immortality of the soul. Each discusses immortality and substance in ways that are infl uential on each other and on Robert Boyle and Locke. I consider the arguments of each and their infl uence on Locke in the next four chapters. In the fi nal chapter, I return to offer a specifi c analysis of Locke’s work on personal identity. There I argue that Locke’s theory once juxtaposed to these other theories has resources with which to respond to the classic objections made to his theory.

Chapter 2

On Separation and Immortality: Descartes and the Nature of the Soul

At fi rst it may seem odd to see Rene Descartes as relevant to John Locke on the issue of personal identity, as Descartes is generally interpreted as not having been particularly concerned with those issues that seem to make up the standard characterization of Locke’s concern in his discussion of personal identity, that is, the defi nition of person, the individuation of consciousness, the role or memory, and the criterion of identity.1 However, when modifying the standard account of Locke on personal identity into the problematic of personal immortality and bodily resurrection (as was done in the previous chapter), altered as well is what is relevant to a discus-sion of Descartes and his infl uence on Locke. The question is not how well Descartes deals explicitly with the issues of twentieth-century personal identity currently studied in the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and metaphysics, but the extent to which he addresses individuation, intellec-tual soul, personal immortality, and bodily resurrection (among other issues) within his philosophical and Catholic framework. And as seen in the fi rst part of this chapter, Descartes does develop a consistent position that is both interesting and infl uential on Locke and the philosophers of his time.

Descartes’ analysis is framed in the fi rst part of this chapter in relation to the Fifth Lateran Council, particularly the decree that was issued in the Eighth session. The three arguments for the immortality of the soul sum-marized by Descartes in the Synopsis to his Meditations on First Philosophy are developed with the centrality of Descartes’ understanding of substance to each emphasized. His depiction of the rational soul and the reaction others had to it, including a very brief discussion of the debate about the souls of animals is at the end of the discourse. Highlighted is Descartes’ theory of memory and the role that it plays in his account of the afterlife (or lack thereof for animals) for two reasons. First it can be seen as a developed response to the Council’s concerns about the Aristotelian heresies and


second it helps us to understand Locke’s own treatment of and emphasis on memory as related to personal identity.

In the second part of the chapter, I consider how familiar Locke would likely have been with Descartes’ position and supporting arguments by looking at Locke’s general level of familiarity with Descartes and the Carte-sians. I briefl y discuss key passages in the Essay Concerning Human Under-standing that pinpoint Locke’s familiarity with and analysis of Descartes’ treatment of personal immortality. I suggest that Locke’s analysis is infl u-enced by Hobbes’ treatment of Descartes, but explore this point in the next chapter. I consider in the fi nal section how the rejection of the Cartesian analysis of real distinction, substance, and memory specifi cally impacts on the discussion of personal identity in Locke.

I. Personal Immortality in Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy

Descartes’ position is profi tably seen as a direct response to the Fifth Lateran Council’s decrees against the Alexandrian and Averroist heretical interpretations of Aristotle. I focus on the three arguments Descartes summarizes for the separability of the soul from the body “from which immortality follows.”2 I examine as well Descartes’ analysis of the rational soul and the implications for animals, transubstantiation, and the afterlife.

A brief account of Rene Descartes’ (1596–1650) life story starts with his schooling at La Fleche, a Jesuit Catholic school.3 There he is educated in the standard Jesuit curriculum dictated by the Ratio Studiorum with a focus on scholastic philosophy, among other subjects. He then studies law, taking a law degree from Poitier, before becoming a soldier in the Dutch military. He encounters Isaac Beeckman in 1618 and as a result becomes interested in the study of mathematics and the new physics. A series of dreams lead him to work on philosophy and the foundations of the sciences. Well read and well connected to other intellectuals through his friend Father Mersenne, Descartes initially lives in Paris when not traveling. He moves to Holland in 1628. There he does his major work in philosophy, mathe-matics, and physiology. He maintains an active correspondence with many other major thinkers from all over Europe, often facilitated by Mersenne. His scientifi c work on optics, geometry, and meteorology is published in 1637 as is his Discourse on Method. His work in geometry brought together geometry and algebra in such a way as to establish the foundation of mod-ern analytical geometry. His Discourse is also quite infl uential as it outlined

On Separation and Immortality 31

a methodology for scientists to use. Robert Boyle, among others, adopted aspects of it in his practice, as will be discussed in the fi fth chapter.

Descartes’ most famous work, Meditations on First Philosophy, published in 1640, is an enlargement and recasting of the metaphysical issues of the Discourse. He writes them in a style designed to invite non-scientists and philosophers, including women, to engage in the deliberations about the foundations of human knowledge, God, and the world. In them, Descartes attempts to show that his work in metaphysics is such that believers should embrace it as it does not threaten their faith. And the work that is done there is the foundation of his work in the sciences. Because of his decision to solicit objections to the Meditations and to reply to them when he fi rst publishes the work, Descartes engages with a number of key thinkers from a variety of backgrounds. These include some who saw him as a fellow scientist and anti-Aristotelian such as Pierre Gassendi and Thomas Hobbes (as will be discussed in Chapter 3). And it includes others who raised ques-tions about his position in relation to the Catholic Church teachings such as Caterus, Arnauld, and Mersenne.

Descartes’ philosophical work in his correspondence is also quite signifi -cant. For example, he engages in correspondence with Henry More about the status of animal souls, and his correspondence with Princess Elizabeth highlights some of the common questions that learned individuals had with his theories, primarily the relationship between the soul and the body. His correspondence with her and others leads him to explore the relation-ship in The Passions of the Soul (a work which is infl uential on Henry More, as we see in Chapter 4). Descartes dies in Sweden in 1650 while serving as court philosopher to Queen Christina.

While scholars differ on his personal piety, it is clear from his work that Descartes wanted to at least be in accord with the Catholic Church on key doctrinal issues. His work is not dominated by scripture or scriptural refer-ences, but rather by what he takes to be the established position. And he emphasizes the use of natural reason in support of these positions, rather than relying on revelation. And his analysis of personal immortality is not an exception. Descartes’ analysis of personal immortality can be seen as a direct response to the Lateran Council’s decree against the Alexandrian and Averroist heretical interpretations of Aristotle. The emphasis that Descartes places on the separability of the soul from the body helps to establish this as there are three arguments about the separability of the soul “from which immortality follows.”

Rene Descartes wants his philosophy to replace that of the Aristotelians in the schools in the areas of both science and religion. His arrogance is of


thinking of himself not as a Thomas Aquinas, but rather as a modern Aristotle.4 To accomplish this goal, Descartes, in his Meditations needs to convince the theologians at the Sorbonne (and elsewhere) of the consis-tency of his philosophy with the teachings of the Catholic Church, if not the direct support of the teachings. He saw it as desirable for his theory to be used by Counter-Reformers in defense of the Catholic Church, but for the most part the details of the theological issues he is willing and indeed hoping to leave to others.5 The specifi c hope of showing conformity with the church perhaps as an enticement to a more adept theologian is one context in which Descartes’ discussion of immortality can be placed. The larger hope may well have been that of showing his science and philosophy as currently acceptable to be taught in the Catholic schools of France and elsewhere in place of the philosophy and science of Aristotle. These hopes constrain the formation and presentation of his philosophy in interesting ways even though they will ultimately fail to be realized.

In the dedicatory letter of the Meditations to the Doctors at the Sorbonne Descartes writes:

I have always thought that two topics—namely God and the soul—are prime examples of subjects where demonstrative proofs ought to be given with the aid of philosophy rather than theology. For us who are believers, it is enough to accept on faith that the human soul does not die with the body, and that God exists; but in the case of unbelievers, it seems that there is no religion, and practically no moral virtue, that they can be persuaded to adopt until these two truths are proved to them by natu-ral reason. And since in this life the rewards offered to vice are often greater than the rewards of virtue, few people would prefer what is right to what is expedient if they did not fear God or have the expectation of an after-life.6

Descartes claims that in the Meditations he has demonstrated that the soul does not die with the body. Note that this is a claim weaker than a demon-stration of the personal immortality of the soul, but is still one that is of potential interest to theologians. And it is a stronger claim than that of a demonstration of the possible personal identity of the soul. So if it is suc-cessful, it might convince some unbelievers (at least those whose disbelief is based on the impossibility of personal identity). As Descartes points out in correspondence, what is needed to make the stronger assertion of actual personal immortality is the belief that God does not annihilate the soul


after the death of the body, although He could do so.7 The passage also shows an awareness of some of what is at stake in the discussion of personal immortality: personal and public morality. By showing that the soul need not die with the body, Descartes implies that individuals should behave virtuously.8 That public chaos and immorality follows the rejection of per-sonal immortality is a concern to many during this time, as is more clearly discussed in relation to Henry More in Chapter 4. And it makes clear that faith is enough to convince the believer—and that his work is to demon-strate for the unbeliever the possibility. It is also possible that if he had made the stronger claim of certainty in so doing he would alienate some of the theologians who worked in this area and thus undermine his project.

Later in the letter Descartes focuses explicitly on the nature of the soul and its perishability:

And as for the soul, many have believed that it is not easy to understand its nature, and some have even dared to say that human reasoning would convince us that it perishes with the body, and that faith alone can teach us the contrary. Nevertheless, as the Lateran council, held under Leo X, Session 8, condemns these persons, and expressly orders Christian phi-losophers to refute their arguments and to employ all their intellectual abilities to make the truth known, I have decided to make the attempt in this work.

Descartes here explicitly ties the Meditations to the negative and positive projects established by the Lateran Council. This indicates an apparent compliance with and submission to the consular tradition, which might well have been amenable to the theologians at the Sorbonne and elsewhere. Given Descartes’ express interest in the Lateran Council, it is justifi able to characterize Descartes’ discussion of personal immortality in the Medita-tions as a response to the Lateran Council.

On December 19, 1513, during the eighth session of the Fifth Lateran Council, the papal bull Apostolici Regiminis was published. The portion relevant to Descartes’ project begins:

Since in our days (which we endure with sorrow) the sower of cockle, the ancient enemy of the human race, has dared to scatter and multiply in the Lord’s fi eld some extremely pernicious errors, which have always been rejected by the faithful, especially on the nature of the rational soul, with the claim that it is mortal, or only one among all human beings,


playing the philosopher without due care, assert that this proposition is true at least according to philosophy.9

Note that the errors with which the council is concerned are about the nature of the rational soul. At the time the council was promulgating the above, one prominent understanding of the human soul was that it is “divided” into three souls: the intellective (or rational), the sensitive, and the vegetative.10 This division and the status of the faculties (such as those of imagination and memory) are contentious issues, and there is much disagreement about how these faculties and the soul are to be understood particularly in regard to the theological doctrine of immortality. The neoplatonists and the Aristotelians are not in agreement about the issues. But the neoplatonists have the upper hand during the council session, as is refl ected in the errors condemned and the formulation of the orthodox position. The errors mentioned above in the decree are those of two related schools of Aristotelian interpretation: the Latin Averroists and Alexandrian mortalists.

The origin of the problems about immortality, the nature of the mind and perception, can be credited to Aristotle’s discussion of the active and passive intellect in De Anima 3.5:

Since in the whole of nature there is something which is matter to each kind of thing (and this is what is potentially all of them), while on the other hand there is something else which is their cause and is productive by producing them all—these being related as an art to its material—so there must also be these differences in the soul. And there is an intellect which is of this kind by becoming all things, and there is another which is so by producing all things, as a kind of disposition, like light, does; for in a way light too makes colours which are potential into actual colours. And this intellect is distinct, unaffected, and unmixed, being in essence activity.

For that which acts is always superior to that which is affected, and the fi rst principle to the matter. Actual knowledge is identical with its object; but potential knowledge is prior in time in the individual but not prior even in time in general; and it is not the case that it is whereas the passive intellect is perishable, and without this thinks nothing. Sometimes thinks and at other times not. In separation it is just what it is, and this alone is immortal and eternal. (But we do not remember because this is unaffected,)11


This less than crystal clear passage leads to a number of disagreements among Aristotelians about the immortality of an individual’s soul, as well as other conundrums about the passive and active intellect and its role in perception. While I cannot go into these problems for the Aristotelians in great depth, a summary of two interpretations of the passage and the issue of personal immortality helps us to understand the reaction of the council to them.

The Latin Averroists, based partly on a misreading of Averroes,12 believe the intellect is not individual, but one and the same for all individual humans. So individual humans do not each have a unique individual intel-lect. Knowledge is not something that an individual has unique from all other individuals, rather the knowledge is the same for all as the intellect is common to all. Perhaps put too simply, the idea is that when an individual knows X, that X is the same as what any other would know when he or she knows X. There is no special individual way of knowing X. And what “X” is could be the mundane, that two plus two is four or quite profound, that God is eternal. If X is knowable, it is knowable by the universal intellect. And this universal intellect is immortal as it depends not on an individual human for its existence. There is thus immortality for the species man, but not for an individual human. The reasoning is that after death, the active intellect cannot remember its previous life because memory depends on the passive intellect which is individuated by being part of an individual material human. Roughly, no memory (or individuating matter), no indi-viduation. If no individuation, then immortality for the individual person as an individual intellect is not possible.13 Clearly this is not an understanding of immortality suitable to the Catholic Church or most Christians.

The Alexandrians, such as Pomponazzi, follow Alexander of Aphrodisias’s interpretation of Aristotle. They believe that the passive intellect is mere potentiality that does not survive the death of the body. The reasoning seems to be that the active intellect is identifi ed with God. The imagination is part of the passive intellect. The formerly individual active intellect will not have access to the imagination after death. Thinking without images is impossible. Thus the individual human soul, which is seen as composed of both the active and the passive intellects, does not survive the death of the body. The soul is mortal and dies with the body as the soul as the form of the body cannot exist separately from the body. The emphasis for the Alexandrians is on the inseparability of the necessary portions of the intel-lect from the body both in life and in death.14 The Alexandrian emphasis and consequence of it renders their account of immortality unsuitable to


the Catholic Church, although perhaps not to other Christians (as we shall see in our discussion of Hobbes).

The third error mentioned in the Council decree, the doctrine of double truth, is associated with the Averroists. Somewhat oversimplifi ed, this doctrine is that there are two kinds of truth, theological and philosophical. Some-thing may be true in theology but false in philosophy and vice versa. For the Averroists, the two things are not actually in confl ict, as they are different types of truths. Each type of truth depends on the listener, and not every-one should have access to all truths. This doctrine as related to a policy of philosophical exclusiveness has a history of being problematic (at least since the time of William of Ockham) in the eyes of the church.15

The council does more than identify the errors above. They outline steps to be taken in response and state the correct doctrine. The decree thus continues:

For the soul not only truly exists of itself and essentially as the form of the human body, as is said in the canon of our predecessor of happy memory, pope Clement V, promulgated in the general council of Vienne, but it is also immortal; and further, for the enormous number of bodies into which it is infused individually, it can and ought to be and is multiplied.16

The council begins its response to the Averroists and Alexandrians by reprobating and condemning those who hold the errors. It then states and gives appropriate support for the orthodox position that the intellec-tual, or rational soul, is immortal. The council does not evince concern about the vegetative or sensitive soul’s immortality. The council invokes scripture in support of the immortality, separateness, and distinctness of the intellectual soul. It also refers to a previous council decision to support the position it takes.17 And it moves to establish the position by using passages from the New Testament. It cites John 12, Mathew 25 and fi rst Corinthians. These scriptures emphasize the importance of eternal punish-ment and reward to a Christian eschatology, a concern which Descartes also shares. The scripture from Corinthians is one commonly mentioned in relation to the resurrection of the body, as it is where the details seem to be given. And so it is a scripture that we saw Locke focusing on as well in the last chapter.

A fi nal point about the formulation of the doctrine is that it is Neoplatonic rather than Aristotelian in character. Neoplatonists formed an alliance with the church in the sixteenth century and had a signifi cant impact on


Renaissance psychology.18 During the sixteenth century many versions of the new psychology fl ourished and were taught widely providing a common vocabulary for the discussion of the soul and thinking. And it is this vocabu-lary that Descartes would have been taught as a student at La Fleche.

The Lateran council continues in its responses to the errors so as to make sure that they do not spread further:

And since truth cannot contradict truth, we defi ne that every statement contrary to the enlightened truth of the faith is totally false and we strictly forbid teaching otherwise to be permitted. We decree that all those who cling to erroneous statements of this kind, thus sowing heresies which are wholly condemned, should be avoided in every way and punished as detestable and odious heretics and infi dels who are undermining the catholic faith. Moreover we strictly enjoin on each and every philosopher who teaches publicly in the universities or elsewhere, that when they explain or address to their audiences the principles or conclusions of philosophers, where they are known to deviate from the true faith—as in the assertion of the soul’s mortality or of there being only one soul or of the eternity of the world and other topics of this kind—they are obliged to devote their every effort to clarify for their listeners the truth of the Christian religion, to teach it by convincing arguments, so far as this is possible, and to apply themselves to the full extent of the energies to refuting and disposing of the philosophers’ opposing arguments, since all the solutions are available.19

Note that these responses require the Catholic schools themselves to change. The professors of philosophy are asked to demonstrate the error of the Alexandrians and the Averroists, as well as to teach and demonstrate the truth. The council also clearly states that philosophy and theology are to be in harmony, rejecting the philosophical exclu-sionism of some of the Aristotelians. The council continues its decree by requiring that everyone who studies philosophy must also study theology, because “it does not suffi ce occasionally to clip the roots of the brambles, if the ground is not dug deeply so as to check them beginning again to multiply.”20

Descartes’ discussion of immortality in the Meditations can and ought to be placed in relation to the council’s decrees. As quoted above, Descartes claims that in the Meditations he has undertaken the (anti-Aristotelian) project enjoined by the Lateran Council. This entails that he present the intellectual or rational soul in such a way that its nature is demonstrated to


be separate, individual, and immortal. He has to preserve the idea of the soul as form of the body in the Neoplatonic sense. And he has to be careful to maintain that the truths discovered in philosophy (and science) are such that they do not contradict what is true in theology. Descartes needs to support the true position as well as show why and how the false positions are false to claim legitimate conformity with the decree and to win supporters for his philosophy.

Thus, in support of the council decree, Descartes takes one of his projects in the Meditations to be that of showing the real distinction between the soul and the body, such that when the body dies the soul need not die with it. In so doing he is responding to the Alexandrians. In his analysis of the nature of the mind or soul, he shows that it retains its individuation after the death of the body, that is, that it does not depend on the body for its continued identity. He gives two arguments to establish that the soul does not die with the body in the Meditations, and sketches a third analysis of immortality as a kind of promissory note in the Synopsis to the Meditations. I now turn to these arguments to develop in detail the above project.

Descartes’ Synopsis can be used to structure a discussion of his views on immortality, as found in the Meditations. The Synopsis is an abstract of the Meditations placed at the beginning of the work. As it is written by Descartes after the Meditations are composed and after an exchange with Mersenne on the topic of immortality,21 it seems reasonable to assume that the Synopsis contains the fi nal word as to what Descartes thinks he has successfully accomplished in the Meditations, or at least what he wants his reviewers and the general public to conclude he had successfully accomplished regarding immortality in the Meditations. The key analysis of immortality is in his discussion of the Second Meditation:

In the Second Meditation, the mind uses its own freedom and supposes the non-existence of all the things about whose existence it can have even the slightest doubt; and in so doing the mind notices that it is impos-sible that it should not itself exist during this time. This exercise is also of the greatest benefi t, since it enables the mind to distinguish without diffi culty what belongs to itself, i.e. to an intellectual nature, from what belongs to the body. But since some people may perhaps expect argu-ments for the immortality of the soul in this section, I think they should be warned here and now that I have tried not to put down anything which I could not precisely demonstrate. Hence the only order which I could follow was that normally employed by geometers, namely to set


out all the premises on which a desired proposition depends, before drawing any conclusions about it.22

The emphasis on differentiating between what belongs to the mind and what belongs to the body sets the stage for his analysis. And with the caveat about demonstrations made, Descartes summarizes how in the Medi-tations he demonstrates geometrically that the soul does not die with the body. He points to where each step of the proof is to be found in the Meditations:

Now the fi rst and most important prerequisite for knowledge of the immortality of the soul is for us to form a concept of the soul which is as clear as possible and is also quite distinct from every concept of body; and that is just what has been done in this section. A further requirement is that we should know that everything that we clearly and distinctly understand is true in a way which corresponds exactly to our under-standing of it; but it was not possible to prove this before the Fourth Meditation. In addition we need to have a distinct concept of corporeal nature, and this is developed partly in the Second Meditation itself, and partly in the Fifth and Sixth Meditations. The inference to be drawn from these results is that all the things that we clearly and distinctly conceive of as different substances (as we do in the case of mind and body) are in fact substances which are really distinct one from the other; and this conclusion is drawn in the Sixth Meditation.23

This clearly outlines Descartes’ strategy to demonstrate the immortality of the soul by establishing that the mind or soul is a distinct substance from the body. This argument from real distinction can be formulated thus:

1. We have a clear and distinct concept of the soul distinct from every concept of the body.

2. We know that everything we clearly and distinctly understand is true in a way that corresponds exactly to our understanding of it.

3. We have a distinct concept of corporeal nature distinct from every concept of the soul.

4. All things we clearly and distinctly conceive of as different substances are in fact substances that are really distinct from one another.

5. We clearly and distinctly conceive of the soul and the corporeal bodies as different substances.


6. Thus, the mind and the body are in fact substances that are really distinct from one another.

7. Thus we can know with certainty that the mind and body are really distinct from one another.

This argument is among the major arguments of the Meditations, and among the most controversial. The argument culminates in the Sixth Meditation and depends for its soundness on the most controversial aspects of the Meditations: the essence of the mind as known clearly and distinctly, the essence of the body, the defi nition of substance, and the reliance on God’s concurrence. Because of this, it is not surprising that the argument is gener-ally thought not to be a sound proof as one or more of the premises is considered to be quite problematic.24 Even in Descartes’ day, objections were drawn to the argument as a whole, and to specifi c aspects of the argument, as is evident in the Objections and Replies section of the Meditations.

And yet, the argument for real distinction does indicate how Descartes’ metaphysics can be used to demonstrate the conclusion that the soul need not die with the body, which is the conclusion Descartes consistently claims to argue for in the Meditations. Even if the argument does not work given our modern appraisals, it is productive to see how he thought it to work. Descartes tries to establish that the mind and body are distinct substances. Because a substance, according to his defi nition, does not depend on anything else for its continued existence, if mind and body are indeed separate substances, the mind does not depend on the body for its continued existence before or after death. So if you accept his system, as was his goal in writing and publishing the Meditations, then it can be plausibly used to support the Catholic Church’s doctrine. And perhaps by other Christian churches too in support of their eschatologies.

Descartes summarizes in the Synopsis a second argument for the conclu-sion that the mind and body are separate substances and thus that the mind can continue to exist even after the body is dead:

This conclusion is confi rmed in the same Meditation by the fact that we cannot understand a body except as being divisible, while by contrast we cannot understand a mind except as being indivisible. For we cannot conceive of half of a mind, while we can always conceive of half of a body, however small; and this leads us to recognize that the natures of mind and body are not only different, but in some way opposite.25


This argument too is not generally thought to be effective in securing per-sonal immortality. However, as shown above, what Descartes argues is that by using reason he can demonstrate that the soul need not die with the body. The argument is taken to support this aim because it proceeds from the simplicity of the soul or mind to its indivisibility. This argument can be schematized:

1. We cannot understand a mind except as being indivisible for we cannot conceive of half of a mind.

2. We cannot understand a body except as being divisible, for we can always conceive of half of a body, however small.

3. The natures of mind and body are not only different, but in some way opposite.

4. Thus the mind and the body are distinct substances.26

From this argument follows the possibility of the survival of the rational soul upon the death of the body. The argument recapitulated in the Synop-sis is found in the Sixth Meditation. It follows there a discussion of dropsy. Dropsy is a disease where what the mind thinks the body craves (water) is actually what will cause the body to die. It is a clear example of the mind and the body being at odds about the health of the united entity. Because the natures of mind and body are so different, it is not surprising that we err occasionally about the interaction between the two. And indeed it is perhaps surprising that given the quantity of interactions that we do not err more frequently.

The argument is based on the same strategy as the real distinction argument. Because we can conceive the natures of the mind and body as different, it follows that they really are distinct. The fi rst premise that the mind or rational soul is not composed of parts is in keeping with the senti-ments of the Catholic church at this time. Given that the soul is simple, or not composed of parts, it follows that it is incorruptible and thus is able to survive the death of the body.27 Descartes’ version of the argument rests upon the second premise that the mind can always conceive of a piece of corporeal matter as divisible. This is a somewhat contentious assertion among philosophers and scientists and is a premise with which Locke disagrees, as we will see in the next section.

Descartes offers a third analysis of immortality. He closes his summary on the topic by proffering a sketch of what a complete proof for immortality would look like. He does not think that he needs to offer such a proof in the


Meditations, as he is but trying to show that the “decay of the body does not imply the destruction of the mind” and thus to give individuals “the hope of an afterlife.” To give a complete proof would require the physics themselves, rather than just the foundations:

This is required for two reasons. First, we need to know that absolutely all substances, or things which must be created by God in order to exist, are by their nature incorruptible and cannot ever cease to exist unless they are reduced to nothingness by God’s denying his concurrence to them. Secondly, we need to recognize that body, taken in the general sense, is a substance, so that it too never perishes. But the human body, in so far as it differs from other bodies, is simply made up of a certain con-fi guration of limbs and other accidents of this sort; whereas the human mind is not made up of any accidents in this way, but is pure substance. For even if all the accidents of the mind change, so that it has different objects of the understanding and different desires and sensations, it does not on that account become a different mind; whereas a human body loses its identity merely as a result of a change in the shape of some of its parts. And it follows from this while the body can very easily perish, the mind is immortal by its very nature.28

In this passage, Descartes sketches the outlines of a complete proof for the immortality of the soul. This proof is not to be found in the Meditations, as the Meditations are about the metaphysical foundations of his physics, and the proof requires the physics themselves. The discussion of the identity of bodies versus that of minds in this passage is of particular interest as Descartes explicitly invokes identity of substance. He claims that strictly speaking the identity of bodies change when their accidents change, but that the mind’s identity does not change even though the accidents or thoughts of the mind do change. This difference in identity conditions helps him to distinguish, yet again, between the mind and the body.

Descartes’ arguments for immortality did not go unquestioned in the Objections to the Meditations. For example Mersenne reiterates a point he had made in correspondence29 and which sparked Descartes’ writing of the Synopsis:

Seventhly, you say not one word about the immortality of the human mind. Yet this is something you should have taken special care to prove and demonstrate, to counter those people, themselves unworthy of immortality, who utterly deny and even perhaps despise it. What is more,


you do not yet appear to have provided an adequate proof of the fact that the mind is distinct from every kind of body, as we mentioned under point one. We now make the additional point that it does not seem to follow from the fact that the mind is distinct from the body that it is incorruptible or immortal. What if its nature were limited by the duration of the life of the body, and God had endowed it with just so much strength and existence as to ensure that it came to an end with the death of the body?30

Descartes’ response to this is essentially the same in both the correspon-dence31 and Replies:

Seventhly, as to why I wrote nothing concerning the immortality of the soul, I did already explain this in the Synopsis of my Meditations. And, as I have shown above, I did provide an adequate proof of the fact that the soul is distinct from every body. However, you go on to say that it does not follow from the fact that the soul is distinct from the body that it is immortal, since it could still be claimed that God gave it such a nature that its duration comes to an end simultaneously with the end of the body’s life. Here I admit that I cannot refute what you say, For I do not take it upon myself to try to use the power of human reason to settle any of those matters which depend on the free will of God. Our natural knowledge tells us that the mind is distinct from the body, and that it is a substance.32

At this point in the reply, Descartes reiterates that he is dealing only with the distinction of the mind from the body. He is not claiming to have demonstrated immortality, as the soul’s immortality ultimately depends on the free will of God. Descartes is showing that he limits what philosophy (and science) can claim in religious matters, as he goes on to point out explicitly. He continues in the reply to discuss how an analysis of the death of the body differs from an analysis of the death of the mind:

But in the case of the human body, the difference between it and other bodies consists merely in the arrangement of the limbs and other acci-dents of this sort; and the fi nal death of the body depends solely on a division or change of shape. Now we have no convincing evidence or precedent to suggest that the death or annihilation of a substance like the mind must result from such a trivial cause as a change in shape, for this is simply a mode, and what is more not a mode of the mind, but a


mode of the body which is really distinct from the mind. Indeed, we do not even have any convincing evidence or precedent to suggest that any substance can perish. And this entitles us to conclude that the mind, in so far as it can be known by natural philosophy, is immortal.33

Descartes suggests that we are entitled to conclude that mind is immortal as far as philosophy can tell us. Why not make a more sweeping claim? He replies to Mersenne:

But if your question concerns the absolute power of God, and you are asking whether he may have decreed that human souls cease to exist precisely when the bodies which he joined them to are destroyed, then it is for God alone to give the answer. And since God himself has revealed to us that this will not occur, there remains not even the slightest room for doubt on this point.34

Thus the true status of the soul depends on God, and as he has revealed to humans that he does not destroy the souls, we can conclude that the soul is immortal. This dependence on God not destroying the mind after death is consistent with Descartes’ defi nition of substance as able to exist without dependence on any other substance except God. Also, the sub-mission to revelation as playing a key role in the discussion of immortality is in keeping with the rejection of the doctrine of double truth and so can be seen as part of the project of submitting his work to be used by the Schools.

As Rodis-Lewis points out in her biography of Descartes, all three arguments for the immortality of the soul are quite carefully nuanced.35 Descartes is carefully trying to claim that his method can contribute to a philosophical discussion of immortality but that within this discussion remains a place for traditional theology. Some commentators on Descartes, such as Prendergast, are unsure exactly why Descartes argued in the Medita-tions as he did on this subject.36 As I suggested earlier, it is possibly because of the goal of adoption of his work by the Sorbonne (and other schools) that leads Descartes to treat this issue in particular rather carefully. The goal constrained what was politic for him to say. He needed to show a clear place for revelation in his scheme to satisfy the theologians and at the same time to show respect for and conformity with Catholic tradition and eschatology. He thus wrote in the Synopsis to emphasize his conformity, and to deemphasize the potentially problematic parts of the Meditations to the theologians.


Descartes’ discussion of the immortality of the soul revolves around the possibility of the separability of the rational soul from the body at death. The reason that is given is that the rational soul is a separate substance from the body. Substance, by defi nition for Descartes, can exist without needing to rely on anything except God. Descartes’ arguments for immor-tality are thus ultimately grounded in his dualistic substance ontology. It is this ontology that Locke and others attack.

In correspondence consoling his friend Huygens on the death of his wife, Descartes explicitly discusses the afterlife. In this letter he uses the intellectual memory to provide grounds for our memory of the past in the afterlife.37 This claim—that the soul has intellectual memory—is a con-sistent conservative response to the Averroists’ claim that the soul lacks memory after death. The question, though, is whether the memory that we have after death—which appears to be a memory of universals and not of particulars—is suffi cient to the purpose of providing individuation of the soul. Descartes is certainly claiming that it is suffi cient for the purpose, whether or not he has established it. The use of intellectual memory and its links to the corporeal memory are hard to understand in part because Descartes does not offer a systematic explanation of memory in the Medita-tions. Descartes’ dualism comes under scrutiny not only because of his use of it to ground personal immortality but also because it provides the basis for his examination of the issue of transubstantiation and animal immortality. These two issues lead Descartes into the controversies that eventually sink the chances of his philosophy being accepted and used by the schools.

On the issue of transubstantiation, Descartes gives three different des-criptions or accounts.38 In one of them he suggests that the reason the host is the body of Christ is because it is informed by the soul of Christ. The soul thus provides the individuation and identity for the body. Extending this suggestion, Descartes could easily claim that we will have the same body on the day of resurrection because the “same body” just means having a body joined in union with a soul. It is interesting to note that Descartes’ accounts of transubstantiation did not have the desired effect. While he offers them to show that his new system supported Church mysteries they were still rejected. And indeed Denis Mesland, the Jesuit he had hoped to work with becomes instead a missionary.39

Descartes claims that animals do not have rational souls. As Descartes argues that only rational souls are immortal, it follows that animals are not immortal. This conclusion is not problematic. Very few people at that time took seriously the idea of an afterlife for animals. What is problematic for other philosophers is that the capacities Descartes assigns the rational soul


include the feeling of pain, previously thought to be the province of the sensitive soul and shared by animals. Without a rational soul, an entity cannot feel pain. This leads to unpleasant consequences, as it would follow that animals do not feel pain. This conclusion is and was ridiculed by many. This aspect of Cartesianism and its reception is discussed further in the fourth chapter on Henry More, as it is in the correspondence with More that Descartes’ views are made explicit.

In this section, I motivated Descartes’ discussion of immortality and pre-sented his three arguments. I looked very briefl y at his dualistic ontology and the implications for theological topics other than immortality. I turn now to the philosophical reaction of Locke to Descartes’ work in this area.

II. Locke’s Relation to Descartes: The Rejection of Cartesianism

Most commentators agree that John Locke rejects Descartes and Carte sianism in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, citing as examples Locke’s treatment of innate ideas, his denial of knowledge of the nature of substance, and his analysis of Cartesian thinking. This section begins with a brief discussion of Locke’s acquaintance with Descartes’ works. I turn then to select criticisms that Locke makes of Descartes in the Essay generally and develop some of the arguments briefl y. Finally, I focus on the criticisms of Descartes found in chapter 27 of the Essay.

After writing the fi rst drafts of the Essay, from 1675 to 1678 Locke lives in and travels about France. He interacts with a number of French intell-ectuals of the major non-Aristotelian camps, the Cartesians including Le Clerc and the Gassendists including Bernier. While Locke does not move in the highest intellectual circles, he does interact with other men of learning. He is aware of the currents of thought of the time and notes in his journal in 1676 that “the new philosophy of Des Cartes is prohibited to be taught in universities, schools, and academies.”40 He returns from France to Oxford, but is not happy there. He eventually leaves Oxford and due to political reasons involving his relationship with Shaftesbury goes to Holland and Europe from 1683 to 1688. There he works on the Essay and other works, including a reply to Malebranche’s Recherche de la Verite. He also publishes reviews of theological works in a journal edited by his friend Le Clerc.41

From Locke’s journals and commonplace books, we know that Locke studies Descartes as well as philosophers and theologians who react to


Descartes throughout his life. For example, in the journal entry made on February 20, 1682 excerpted in part in Chapter 1, Locke considers the issue of immortality. He is quite clearly aware of and responding to issues sur-rounding Descartes and his position on the immortality of the soul and the controversy it raised in regard to animals. Available to Locke during the time when he was writing and rewriting the Essay are a number of works centering on philosophy and theology.42 The contents of Locke’s library include Descartes’ primary works, as well as secondary works on Descartes and the Cartesians. While it is true that ownership of a book does not guarantee that the owner is familiar with the contents, it is probably true that Locke had read at least some of the many books he owned on this topic, particularly those for which he wrote reviews.

So I take it as uncontroversial to assert on the basis of his private reading, his travel, and his many acquaintances that Locke is familiar with Descartes’ arguments for immortality of the soul. And further that Locke also would have been familiar with the common criticisms made of Descartes by com-peting philosophers, theologians, and scientists, including the Gassendists, Hobbists, and Cambridge Platonists.

Locke reacts to the Cartesian project in his many works other than in the Essay Book II, chapter 27. I examine some of Locke’s analyses of Descartes’ philosophy and focus on criticisms that apply to the arguments given for the non-mortality of the soul and that seem most signifi cant in Locke’s treatment of the issues of personal identity.

Four criticisms can be distinguished. First, Locke rejects the Cartesian project of demonstrating the essential nature of substances using his way of ideas to do so. In his second criticism, he attacks the arguments that the nature of the soul (even if it could be known) is that of a thinking thing. The third criticism is similar to the second, as Locke claims it is possible that God could “superadd” thinking to a material thing. Fourth, Locke attacks the view that we can have an idea that matter is infi nitely divisible, or that the essence of matter as infi nitely divisible extension.

First, Locke rejects the demonstrability of the essence of thinking sub-stance. He denies Descartes’ plan of offering a geometric demonstration of the natures of mind and body. Locke uses his way of ideas and its limitations to show that what we have knowledge of is not the essence of things. Imma-terial spirit or soul is for Locke a complex idea. Complex ideas are made up of simple ideas received from sensation or refl ection. Thus all of our knowl-edge is based on simple ideas. But do simple ideas reveal the essential nature of the soul? Locke does not think so. If we inquire into the nature of substance we “fall presently into darkness and obscurity, perplexedness


and diffi culties.”43 What we have access to is the simple ideas among which is not an idea of a substance. There is nothing about these simple ideas that provides knowledge of the essence of a substance, contra Descartes.

Second, Locke takes issue with the specifi c Cartesian doctrine that the soul always thinks. Locke takes this doctrine as being committed to the proposition that if the soul is not thinking, then it is not existing. As discussed in the fi rst chapter, Locke raises the problem of sleep for this proposition and contrasts it with the position of the materialists. In a later section, Locke rejects again the Cartesian idea:

I would be glad also to learn from these Men, who so confi dently pro-nounce, that the humane Soul, or which is all one, that man always thinks, how they come to know it; nay, how they come to know, that they themselves think, when they themselves do not perceive it. This, I am afraid, is to be sure, without proofs; and to know, withought perceiving: ‘Tis, I suspect, a confused Notion, taken up to serve an Hypothesis; and none of those clear Truths, that either their own Evidence forces us to admit, or common Experience makes it impudence to deny.44

This passage reinforces the claim that Locke specifi cally rejects Descartes’ knowledge claims regarding the essence of the mind. We cannot have knowledge that the soul is always thinking because of our experience of sleep. Thus in Locke’s estimation, experience shows that Descartes’ analysis of the mind is fatally fl awed.

Locke’s third criticism of Descartes is that he has not shown that it is a contradiction that matter could think. As seen in the previous section, Descartes’ fi rst argument for the immortality of the soul depends on our understanding that the natures of the mind and body are incompatible as well as the claim that this incompatibility can be grasped by proper use of our mental faculties. Central to the support of this is Descartes’ position that God would not deceive us when we used our mental faculties properly. This understanding of God is central to Descartes’ method. In contrast, Locke claims that it is not a contradiction to suggest that matter can think. He thinks that our limited knowledge of the natures of the mind and the body does not preclude the possibility that God could add thinking to a material entity. This superaddition does not pose a contradiction for Locke.45 Of course, Descartes limits God’s powers in a way that Locke does not. This is why there is a contradiction for Locke but not for Descartes. Locke’s claim occasioned much debate in the eighteenth century.46 Locke


expresses in the same passage dissatisfaction with the Cartesian account of the interaction between mind and body. He thinks that it is possible that God has so ordered matter that it could produce sensations in a subject. But from this rejection of dualism, it does not follow that individuals should not believe in the immateriality of the soul. Locke says:

I say not this, that I would any way lessen the belief of the soul’s immate-riality: I am not here speaking of probability, but knowledge; and I think not only, that it becomes the modesty of philosophy not to pronounce magisterially, where we want that evidence that can produce knowledge; but also, that it is of use to us to discern how far our knowledge does reach; for the state we are at present in, not being that of vision, we must, in many things, content ourselves with faith and probability; and in the present question, about the immateriality of the soul, if our faculties cannot arrive at demonstrative certainty, we need not think it strange. All the great ends of morality and religion are well enough secured, without philosophical proofs of the soul’s immateriality; since it is evident, that he who made us at the beginning to subsist here, sensible intelligent beings, and for several years continued us in such a state, can and will restore us to the like state of sensibility in another world, and make us capable there to receive the retribution he has designed to men, according to their doings in this life.47

Locke claims not to be casting doubt upon the belief of the immateriality of the soul, but only about knowledge claims regarding its immateriality. He seems willing to grant the probability that the soul is immaterial, but he will not grant knowledge. This conclusion is consistent with his general epistemological stance, according to which knowledge of the essence of a thing is not possible. However, even if we do not have knowledge of the soul’s immateriality Locke thinks that that this does not undermine morality or religion. Locke appeals to God’s ability to restore individuals to sensibility and to mete out the punishment as he has promised. He is explicitly tying the discussions of immateriality to discussions of personal immortality and public morality.

Locke discusses the two groups who have reached different conclusions about immateriality and immortality. These two groups, the materialist and immaterialists, share a concern over the nature of the mind. I show this more particularly in the next chapter where I discuss Hobbes in more detail. But it is clear that this is a concern that Locke does not share.


The fourth criticism that Locke makes is aimed at Descartes’ second argu-ment for the immortality of the soul. Locke challenges the claim that the body can always be conceived of as being divisible. Locke writes:

A pestle and mortar will as soon bring any particle of matter to indivisi-bility, as the acutest thought of a mathematician; and a surveyor may as soon with his chain measure out infi nite space, as a philosopher by the quickest fl ight of mind reach it, or by thinking comprehend it; which is to have a positive idea of it. He that thinks on a cube of an inch diameter, has a clear and positive idea of it in his mind, and so can frame one of 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, and so on till he has the idea in his thoughts of some thing very little: But yet reaches not the idea of that incomprehensible littleness which division can produce. What remains of smallness, is as far from his thoughts as when he fi rst began; and therefore he never comes at all to have a clear and positive idea of that smallness, which is consequent to infi nite divisibility.48

What does this mean in regard to immortality? Locke holds that an indi-vidual cannot have a clear and distinct idea of a substance as actually being infi nitely divisible. If Descartes’ argument is taken to depend on the idea of being able clearly and distinctly to conceive of the smallest divided piece of matter, he then has a problem. And given that Descartes does make the claim that he can always divide the idea of a body into parts, this criticism is appropriate. Locke reiterates this criticism:

In Matter, we have no clear Ideas of the smallness of Parts much beyond the smallest that occur to any of our Senses: and therefore when we talk of the divisibility of Matter in infi nitum, though we have clear Ideas of Division and Divisibility, and have also clear Ideas of parts made out of a whole by Division; yet we have but very obscure and confused Ideas of Corpuscles, or minute Bodies so to be divided, when by former Divisions they are reduced to a smallness much exceeding the perception of any of our Senses; and so all that we have clear and distinct Ideas of, is of what Division in general or abstractedly is, and the Relation of Totum and Pars: But of the bulk of the Body, to be thus infi nitely divided after certain Progressions, I think, we have no clear nor distinct Idea at all.49

Locke is clearly rejecting Descartes’ claim that we can always clearly and distinctly conceive of half a body, no matter how small. If we take seriously that matter is infi nitely divisible, then we reach a problem that after a period


of time we cannot conceive of a half of a particular body. We do not have an idea of the particular body.

We see then that Locke criticizes in some length the key moves made in Descartes’ arguments for the non-mortality of the soul in the Essay . It is not surprising then that Locke raises problems specifi cally for the Cartesian understanding of personal immortality in his discussion of personal identity.

In chapter 27 of the Essay, Locke discusses the Cartesian position in two very interesting passages. The fi rst:

But the question is, “whether if the same substance which thinks, be changed, it can be the same person; or, remaining the same, it can be different persons?”

And to this I answer: First, This can be no Question at all to those who place thought in a purely material animal Constitution, void of an immaterial Substance. For whether their Supposition be true or no, it is plain they conceive personal Identity preserved in some thing else than identity of Substance; as animal identity is preserved in Identity of Life, and not of Substance. And therefore those who place thinking in an immaterial Substance only, before they can come to deal with these Men, must shew why personal Identity cannot be preserved in the change of immaterial Substances, or variety of particular immaterial Substances, as well as animal Identity is preserved in the change of material Substances, or variety of particular Bodies: Unless they will say, it is one immaterial Spirit that makes the same Life in Brutes, as it is one immaterial Spirit that makes the same Person in Men; which the Cartesians at least will not admit, for fear of making Brutes thinking things too.50

This passage reveals a number of key things. First, it shows that Locke is continuing his assessment of the problems involving materialists and imma-terialists. He shows how both of them run into diffi culty on the issues of the afterlife. Second, it reveals an awareness of the heated debate surrounding the nature of animals and the status of animals’ souls. This debate over the beast machine is one of the reasons Cartesianism is thought to have failed, for it was widely satirized and greatly contributed to its public disap-proval.51 The discussion of animal souls is present not only in the Discourse, but is prominent in his correspondence with Henry More and so will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 4.

The second place where the Cartesian position is discussed by Locke is in section 21. Here Locke asks how we can conceive Socrates, who is an individual man, as two persons. He raises this question after offering the


thought experiment of Socrates waking and Socrates sleeping. If the waking Socrates does not have consciousness of what the sleeping Socrates thought, it would be wrong to punish the waking Socrates, even though there is but one man. Locke thinks if we inquire into what it is to be the same man, we will better understand how this is possible. He argues that even given the three different understandings of man (man as a soul, man as a body, or man as a union of a soul with a body), persons are still consciousness alone. As he says, “Now take which of these Suppositions you please, it is impossible to make personal Identity to consist in any thing but consciousness, or reach any farther than that does.” That is, if we use the Cartesian understanding of man as a union of mind and body, then con-sider Socrates in this life and after it. Socrates is the same man by having the same consciousness. Human identity on this interpretation of Descartes thus consists in the same thing as personal identity. Thus, the Cartesian analysis of man lends itself to allowing the same man to be multiple persons, which is problematic for Locke.

Locke might then accept the Cartesian analysis of “man” but reject the implications for a Cartesian analysis of person and personal identity. Locke’s critique of Descartes in the identity chapter boils down to a charac-terization of Descartes as having dealt with personal identity by making it reside in the same numerical rational soul. Because of the faculties left to the rational soul, it may not be fully conscious of past actions in the way that Locke requires. The rational soul is not the appropriate carrier of per-sonal identity. Something more is needed to ensure personal survival, immortality, and an appropriate account of the judgment on the last day.

One part of Locke’s critique of Descartes’ analysis of immortality is the epistemological problem of unknowability of substance. But there is some-thing more. The differences in what immortality means for each becomes important to the discussion. Immortality is more than identity and individu-ation, it is the continued identity of a moral agent, a person who is rightly or wrongly punished for actions done. Descartes, by arguing for personal immortality on the basis of a continuation of mental substance, does not seem to have successfully accomplished this, as Locke points out. Is the soul distinct from the body and capable of existing separated from it? Locke seems to grant for the sake of argument that it is, as exemplifi ed in some of his examples. But Locke makes the further point that Descartes’ soul is not what personhood consists in. And personhood is what is of concern in personal immortality.

Locke’s understanding of consciousness and personhood has a strong element of memory. However, this strong element is not present explicitly


in Descartes, and this is part of the problem that Locke has with Descartes’ theory. The memory criterion is not so much a criterion as an explanation of what is involved with self-consciousness: identifi cation of the moral self with the self of previous times. Descartes’ use of intellectual memory and its role in the rational soul does not satisfy Locke.

In this chapter, I developed Descartes’ arguments for the immortality of the soul, showing that his arguments are in response to the decree of the Fifth Lateran Council. He is focused on supporting the proper doctrine and responding to the Averroists and the Alexandrian mortalists. I deve-loped three distinct arguments that Descartes uses to establish the non-mortality of the soul. I then considered how Locke responds to these arguments. For the most part Locke responds to the major argument in which Descartes uses the essence of thinking as distinct from extension as the basis of his analysis of immortality. I also showed how Locke in general deals with the discussion about the immateriality of the soul. He is hoping to not become mired in it. But it is clear that by emphasizing the unknowability of substance, either material or immaterial, Locke has to say something about the issues involved if he wants to fulfi ll his own or Molyneux’s goal of having his philosophy (and the science it supports) accepted in the schools.

Chapter 3

On Materialism and Immortality: Or Hobbes’ Rejection of the Natural

Argument for the Immortality of the Soul

While John Locke does not wholeheartedly adopt Thomas Hobbes’ hostile attitude toward immaterial substance and organized religion, it is clear that he is similar to Hobbes in his discussion of person, identity, and substance. As we see in this chapter, Locke was infl uenced by Hobbes in his treatment of personal identity. This infl uence is partially seen as a response to the controversy surrounding Hobbes’ materialism and its implications for public morality, as will be discussed in the next chapter.

I begin with an overview of Hobbes’ life and works and Locke’s probable acquaintance with them. The controversy over the nature of thinking that Hobbes engaged in with Descartes is then discussed in detail as it is in reaction to Descartes and those who had infl uenced Descartes that Hobbes writes. A focus on Hobbes’ mechanistic theory of vision and its implications for thinking is the focus of the second section.

I. Hobbes’ Controversial Life

Thomas Hobbes, when he died at age 91 in 1679, was the most controversial English philosopher of his time. He engendered controversy for many reasons: partly as a result of his materialism, including the mechanistic theory of vision, partly as a result of his political theory and political con-nections, and partly as a result of his analysis of theological issues and use of scripture. Given the general outcry about him, we can be quite certain that Locke was familiar with at least the general tenets of many of Hobbes’ works, if not specifi c passages.

Hobbes comes relatively late to philosophy.1 After graduating from Oxford, he is employed as a tutor to the Cavendish family and accompanies the future Earl of Devonshire for three years on a tour of Europe. He learns

On Materialism and Immortality 55

Italian and meets Galileo. After the death of the Earl, he becomes a tutor to Gervase Clifton and travels to France and Switzerland. During his stay in Geneva in 1630, Hobbes reads Euclid’s Elements and is struck by the method of reasoning employed.2 Upon his return to England, Hobbes reenters service to the Cavendish family as tutor to the third Earl. By being a member of this household, he enjoys access to a large library and circle of learned individuals as well as signifi cant time to work on his own theories.3

During the next decade, Hobbes develops a theory of optics and vision concurrently with his political philosophy. He publishes The Elements of Law at the end of the decade and has De Cive in manuscript form. He also travels to Europe for a third time, and becomes acquainted with Father Mersenne and Pierre Gassendi. He discusses intellectual issues with them and his friend Sir Kenelm Digby.4 In 1635, while in Paris, Hobbes writes of an ambition to be the fi rst person to give “good reasons for ye facultyes & passions of ye soule, such as may be expressed in playne English”5 if his friend Robert Payne6 does not do so fi rst. When Hobbes returns to England he continues his studies in optics and vision, developing a mechanistic theory of vision and account of light. Digby sends Hobbes a copy of Descartes’ Discourse soon after it is published in 1637.

In his theory of vision, Hobbes challenges the claim that the mind can be affected by the motion of objects without itself being a physical object, as is held by some Scholastics. Hobbes claims that since vision is formally and really nothing other than motion, it follows that that which sees is also formally and strictly speaking nothing other than that which is moved; for nothing other than a body can be moved. This is the core of Hobbes’ analysis of vision and the faculties and passions of the soul. In the next section, this analysis of vision is developed.

Hobbes explicitly (and apparently sincerely) expresses in his early works conformity with the Church of England on the issue of immortality.7 He believes that the truths of religion and the truths of reason are separate, a view also held by the Averroists, as was discussed in the previous chapter. This view is also one held by Pierre Gassendi. In contrast with the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England holds the immortality of the soul to be a matter of faith. And it seems that their position is partly a backlash to the fi fth Lateran Council’s decrees on the subject.8

In 1640, Hobbes fl ees to France for political reasons. While there he writes the third set of objections to Descartes’ Meditations. De Cive is pub-lished in 1642 by Sorbiere with letters from Gassendi and Mersenne at its head. Hobbes writes (but does not publish) a critique of Thomas White’s De Mundo, debates and writes on free will and necessity with Bishop Bramhill,


tutors the Prince of Wales in mathematics, and publishes Leviathan, before he returns to England in 1651. His return to England is in response to con-troversy about Leviathan and amid fears of the anti-clerical infl uence he might exercise on the Prince in France. In 1655, De Corpore is published, although Hobbes had probably begun work on it in 1643 while in France.9

The period in Paris is obviously very signifi cant for Hobbes as it provides an atmosphere in which to elaborate on his scientifi c works and to develop in more detail his political theory. This period is also of interest because he earns the enmity of Descartes. He does this in part because the similarity of Hobbes’ mechanistic theory of vision to his own strikes Descartes as plagiarism (although both clearly owe an unacknowledged debt to Galileo). It is not surprising that the two clash; both write on optics and perception and place strong emphasis on the value of the materialistic hypothesis as explanatory, and both have the ambition to replace Aristotle in the schools, either Catholic or Protestant.

After his return to England in December of 1651, Thomas Hobbes became one of the most controversial philosophers in England in the seventeenth century. During this period of his life, he publishes various works, including a Latin edition of Leviathan with its ambiguous Appendix.10 He engages in disputes with Bishop Bramhill, Wallis, and Robert Boyle on issues philosophical, mathematical, and scientifi c. In the 1660s and 1670s, Hobbes is a frequent target from the pulpit and in print for a variety of reasons.11 Yet, Hobbes retains the friendship and support of individuals such as Mersenne, Gassendi, the Cavendish family, and his former pupil, King Charles II. Hobbes dies on December 4, 1679.

Among the groups reacting to Hobbes on theological and scientifi c issues are the Cambridge Platonists. As a group they perceive the danger in his philosophy for religion and science. Indeed, one of the defi ning character-istics of the Cambridge Platonists as a school is the explicit rejection of Hobbes’ theories, although perhaps not his manner of presentation.12 What spawns the controversy with Hobbes is not primarily his political theory, but rather his materialism and its implications for theological topics such as the immortality of the soul. Although Hobbes claims that theology and philosophy are separate, in practice most of his opponents see a deeper connection between them. Or at least fear a deeper connection such that the study of philosophy and science will lead to atheism.

Scientists, such as Boyle and other members of the Royal Society, respond negatively to Hobbes because his mathematics is fl awed but also partly because of the many controversies he generates. To be tagged a “Hobbist” was to be potentially targeted in ways that distracted scientists from their


goals. Noel Malcolm conjectures that one of the reasons why Hobbes was never invited to join the Royal Society is that too many of the members were secret Hobbists and afraid of being exposed as such.13 Given that Locke was a member of the society, and a sometime member of its Council, G. A. J. Rogers suggests that perhaps Locke was against Hobbes joining because their views were too similar, and thus he too might be exposed to potential criticism.14 Hobbes’ philosophy was clearly publicly despised by a number of infl uential people, yet read by many.

It is precisely because of Hobbes’ notoriety that we can be certain the Locke was familiar with at least the basic tenets of his philosophy if not many of its details. Even though Locke does not refer explicitly to Hobbes positively in his published work, this is not evidence that he did not read him or others who cite him. As Rogers argues, given the nature of Hobbes’ reception in England, it is not unusual that positive references to Hobbes do not abound in the works of the seventeenth century.15 To be associated with Hobbes and labeled a “Hobbist” was to be vilifi ed as an atheist and lecher. The evidence that we have that anyone read Hobbes and was posi-tively infl uenced by him comes from circumstantial evidence, rather than from direct quotes or positive paraphrases.

In the case of Locke, there is enough evidence to indicate that Locke, although he does not publicly acknowledge it, is clearly familiar with Hobbes at least in his political works, although it is unclear precisely which works Locke read.16 For example, Locke apparently loaned his copy of Leviathan to Tyrell for seventeen years. It was returned in 1691. During this time Locke may have purchased another copy or had ready access to one. The one primary work of Hobbes that we can be certain Locke read carefully is Hobbes’ set of Objections to Descartes’ Meditations. Locke also may have had access to the published correspondence between the two. It also seems likely that Locke was familiar with De Corpore, as Molyneux refers in passing to the work in correspondence.17

Perhaps most important is that Locke would also have been quite familiar with Hobbes second-hand. Because of the great reaction Hobbes provokes, his work is often discussed in print and from the pulpit. In the decades following the publication of Leviathan, at least one hundred anti-Hobbes works are written,18 and a number of these are owned by Locke. In these works extensive criticism is made of Hobbes, and a common practice is to excerpt or summarize portions of the relevant passages and then comment on them as Henry More does in the Immortality of the Soul. Thus, by second-hand means, Locke would have been acquainted with the most explosive of Hobbes’ doctrines, his materialism, and its implications for public morality.


I turn now to Hobbes’ treatment of the nature of the soul and his early ambition to explain it in plain English. We see in his treatment a rejection of Descartes’ arguments for the immortality of the soul. In the third section Hobbes’ rejection of the Catholic or Catholic-like understandings of the immortality of the body is discussed.

II. Hobbes’ Materialism and Theory of Vision

In this section, I focus on Hobbes’ rejection of immaterial substance and its relation to his theories of optics and perception, especially vision. I begin by briefl y discussing his theories and their relation to Descartes. I then look at how Hobbes criticizes Descartes’ arguments for the separability of the soul from the body in his Objections, as some of these turn on his own understanding of the role the soul plays in perception and thus knowledge.

It is agreed by most scholars that Hobbes’ research in vision and optics lead to his mechanistic materialism, the view that all natural phenomena can be reduced to local motion of material bodies.19 During the dispute with Descartes over the originality of a mechanistic theory of vision, Hobbes claims to have independently arrived at the principles in the 1630s and to have explained the system to his employers, the Cavendishes, although the principles were not then published.20

Hobbes, even if he had the general principles worked out before Descartes’ Discourses, is infl uenced by Descartes in the development of his optical theory. Richard Tuck argues the Hobbes is largely reacting to Descartes and skepticism when he develops his full system after 1637, the year in which the Discourses were published.21 Yet as mentioned above in the correspondence Hobbes had an interest in developing an account of the soul and optics that predates the Discourses and infl uences the fi nal product. Tom Sorell suggests that Hobbes is more likely infl uenced by the circle of individuals surrounding his employers than by specifi c interaction with Descartes.22

There are signifi cant similarities between Hobbes’ and Descartes’ systems of optics and accounts of vision as Jan Prins points out and develops.23 They are similar in a dismissal of the Aristotelian view. Both Hobbes and Descartes conceive light as the action of a luminous body, action that is instantaneously yet mechanically propagated through a medium. Both reject the idea that a motion in the optical nerve caused by light requires the emission of particles by the source of light. Consequently, both reject the idea of “species intenales.” Both deny that sensible qualities are real


entities, and oppose the idea that with sensory perception representation requires likeness.

There are signifi cant dissimilarities in the two theories. Descartes rejects Hobbes’ idea that all action is local motion and understands by light not an actual motion, but only an inclination to motion.24 Descartes’ theory of vision is the closest thing to an explanation of the interaction between the mind and body that is found in his published works. In Hobbes, a similar use is employed although with a different twist. Hobbes uses his theory of vision to account for the appearance of the world. Our knowledge of the world is complete without the positing of an immaterial substance or intellect. This ability to explain the phenomena without positing an imma-terial substance leads to Hobbes’ materialism. In Hobbes’ view, if there are problems with the interaction between mind and body, they are eliminated by eliminating the mind. He is thus quite content to do just this.

In his set of Objections to Descartes’ Meditations, Hobbes objects to Descartes’ conclusion that the mind is an immaterial substance. Hobbes concen-trates on the Second Meditation. He essentially questions Descartes’ claim that the mind is immaterial given the arguments presented in the second Meditation. He says:

It is quite certain the knowledge of the proposition ‘I exist’ depends on the proposition ‘I am thinking’ as the author himself has explained to us. But how do we know the proposition ‘I am thinking’? It can only be from our inability to conceive an act without its subject. We cannot conceive of jumping without a jumper, of knowing without a knower, or of thinking without a thinker.

It seems to follow from this that a thinking thing is something corporeal. For it seems that the subject of any act can be understood in terms of something corporeal or in terms of matter, as the author himself shows later on his example of the wax.

The knowledge of the proposition ‘I exist’ thus depends on the knowl-edge of the proposition ‘I am thinking’; and knowledge of the latter proposition depends on our inability to separate thought from the matter that is thinking. So it seems that the correct inference is that the thinking thing is material rather than immaterial.25

Hobbes’ argument can be summarized thus:

1. Knowledge of the proposition “I exist” depends on the knowledge of the proposition “I am thinking.”


2. Knowledge of the proposition “I am thinking” depends on our inability to separate thought from the matter that is thinking.

3. The correct inference is that the thinking thing is material rather than immaterial.

Descartes provides much support for the fi rst premise, and it is taken to be uncontroversial by him. The second premise is more controversial. How is that knowledge of the proposition “I am thinking” depends on our inability to separate thought from the matter that is thinking? And how does this lead to the conclusion that the mind is material? Hobbes’ supporting argument for this premise is:

1. We are unable to conceive an act without its subject- e.g. we cannot conceive of jumping without conceiving of a jumper.

2. The subject of any act can be understood in terms of something corporeal.

3. Thus the subject of the act thinking can be understood in terms of something corporeal.

4. Thus the mind can be understood in terms of something corporeal.

Premise 1 is plausible. It is premise 2 which draws on Hobbes’ theory of perception and knowledge. To understand an action, or indeed anything, we must use the imagination. The imagination generates corporeal images. The subject of any act can be understood in terms of something corporeal or as a corporeal image. Thus according to Hobbes, the mind can be under-stood in terms of something corporeal. Note that this conclusion is not that mind is not incorporeal, but rather that it can be understood as corporeal. Descartes’ argument for the separability of the soul from the body depends on the premise that we can understand mind and body as being distinct from one another. Hobbes thus denies this argument for the separability of the soul. The soul cannot be conceived of unless it is corporeal. And so the soul cannot be separated from the corporeal body.

Descartes in his response makes two moves. First, he dismisses the objec-tion as he claims that he has not yet argued that the mind is incorporeal. He claims that he does so in the Sixth Meditation, which Hobbes does not extensively comment on. Second, Descartes defends his defi nitions of “substance” and “subject.” The corporeal substance of the body and the substance in which perception or consciousness inhere are different conceptually.


The importance of Hobbes’ argument and Descartes’ response has been the subject of some scholarly interest. It is generally thought that Hobbes misses the point of the Second Meditation and thus criticizes Descartes ineffectively. And so Descartes is credited with correctly sidestepping Hobbes’ argument. Most think that by pointing out that in Sixth Medita-tion he has dealt with establishing the separability of the essences and the incorporeal nature of the mind, Descartes effectively answers the above argument. Edwin Curley, however, gives a different interpretation.26 Curley emphasizes the argument’s problematic relation to scholastic faculty psychology, something that Hobbes thought Descartes, as a fellow anti-Aristotelian scientist, was trying to avoid.27 Given Descartes treat-ment in the Fourth Meditation of the faculties of the soul, Hobbes thinks Descartes has fallen back on using the scholastic terminology, a termino-logy to which Hobbes vociferously objects in Leviathan. He had thought Descartes too was trying to avoid using the scholastic terminology and an apparent commitment to scholastic ontology as well in his works on vision and optics.

If Descartes does not want to use the scholastic faculty psychology, then he will be forced because of the way the mind works (with the key role of the imagination) into admitting that the mind must itself be corporeal if it can be thought about. Thus to think that I am a thinking thing requires that the imagination be involved in that thought. If this is the case, then the mind can be understood as something corporeal or material.

This move to try to link imagination to all thought has, as is briefl y dis-cussed in the previous chapter, overtones of Averroism. Does all thinking need the (corporeal) imagination? Descartes argues that it does not. Descartes posits an immaterial intellectual imagination similar to the intel-lectual memory discussed in the second chapter, a classic conservative way to deal with problems of Aristotelian faculty psychology and the com-mitment to the immortality of the soul. Hobbes rejects this move as he rejects the faculty psychology.

Hobbes’ other criticisms of Descartes are similarly based on a difference in the acquisition of ideas. As Hobbes says about the soul in his seventh objection:

We do not have an idea of the soul: we infer its existence within the human body which gives it the animal motion by means of which it has sensations and moves.28


Descartes responds to this point:

As for the further point that we do not have an idea of the soul, but ratio-nally infer its existence, this amounts to saying that although there is no image of the soul depicted in the corporeal imagination, we nevertheless do have what I call an idea of it.29

In this case, Hobbes and Descartes have different understandings of “idea” and of how ideas are related to the corporeal imagination. For Descartes, we can have ideas of things that are not depicted in the corpo-real imagination. For Hobbes, this is not the case. This criticism is built on in the ninth objection where Hobbes claims that we do not have an idea of substance. He says:

I have already frequently pointed out that we do not have an idea of God, or of the soul. I will now add that we do not have an idea of substance. For substance in so far as it is the matter which is the subject of accidental properties and of changes, is something that is established solely by reasoning; it is not something that is conceived, or that presents any idea to us.30

Hobbes thus claims that humans cannot have an idea of substance because it is not something that we can perceive. We perceive only accidents. Hobbes rejects the idea of substance by using reasoning based on our perceptual limitations.

For Hobbes, “idea” is directly related to the corporeal imagination. In Descartes however:

I have frequently pointed out that I use the term “idea” to apply to what is established by reasoning as well as anything else that is perceived in any manner whatsoever.31

The phrase “any manner whatsoever” allows perception not dependent on the corporeal imagination. Descartes claims in the wax example that the essence of the wax, extension, is perceived by the mind alone.32 This is important because it means for Descartes that the mind can continue to perceive after separation from the body, although the content may be not what we expect. This option is not open to Hobbes (and indeed given his theological leanings, discussed in the next section, is not one that he would want to take).


In the tenth objection, Hobbes criticizes what he takes to be Descartes’ understanding of innate ideas. Although the objection is not a particularly good one, it is illustrative of one way that the theory of innate ideas is understood at this time:

Moreover, when M. Descartes says that the ideas of God and of our souls are innate in us, I should like to know if the souls of people who are in a deep, dreamless sleep are thinking. If they are not, they do not have any ideas at the time. It follows that no idea is innate; for what is innate is always present.33

Descartes responds to this:

Lastly, when we say that an idea is innate in us, we do not mean that it is always there before us. This would mean that no idea was innate. We simply mean that we have within ourselves the faculty of summoning up the idea.34

This response is adequate. A commitment to innate ideas on Descartes’ theory does not require an individual to be thinking that particular idea at every particular moment. What the objection does illustrate quite well is that the theory of innate ideas is portrayed in what seems to be a naïve way by philosophers other than Descartes. Hobbes’ criticism works against a more naïve theory. Indeed, the criticism of innate ideas is similar to some of the objections Locke makes in the Essay, as was discussed in the previous chapter.

In this section, I gave an overview of Hobbes’ materialism as drawn from his theory of vision and interaction with Descartes. Because of his theory of vision, he does not posit immaterial substances. He thus attacks and rejects Descartes’ arguments for the separability of the soul. I turn now to an examination of Hobbes’ concern with the immortal nature of the soul and assorted issues in Leviathan and in De Corpore.

III. Hobbes and Immortality

Hobbes begins Leviathan with a discussion of sense perception. At this point in his career he had not yet published on optics and vision. Yet, he had already worked out his system in some detail. It is not surprising that


in Leviathan, his attack on the scholastic theory of perception is explicitly anti-Aristotelian:

But the philosophy-schools, through all the universities of Christendome, grounded upon certain texts of Aristotle, teach another doctrine, and say, for the cause of vision, that the thing seen, sendeth forth on every side a visible species (in English, a visible show, apparition, or aspect, or a being seen) the receiving whereof into the eye, is seeing. And for the cause of hearing, that the thing heard, sendeth forth an audible species, that is, an audible aspect, or audible being seen; which entering at the ear, maketh hearing. Nay for the cause of understanding also, they say the thing understood sendeth forth intelligible species, that is, an intelligible being seen; which coming into the understanding makes us Understand. I say not this, as disapproving the use of universities: but because I am to speak hereafter of their offi ce in a commonwealth, I must let you see on all occasions by the say, what things would be amended in them; amongst which the frequency of insignifi cant speech is one.35

This passage is the sixth paragraph of Leviathan. It indicates quite clearly that Hobbes thinks the scholastic theory of vision to be “insignifi cant speech.” Hobbes continues in the second chapter to attack the schools for teaching the incorrect doctrine of imagination and thus encouraging belief in witches and like nonsense. Hobbes connects theories of vision and the soul and the resulting mistaken beliefs about incorporeal substance. This connection is important as these mistaken beliefs about incorporeal substance lead to problems in understanding the Bible and theological issues like the immortality of the soul.

Throughout Leviathan, Hobbes is dismissive of immaterial substances. He also is antagonistic to the traditional understanding of the immortality of the soul. Hobbes’ cites four reasons for this antagonism. First, the immor-tality of soul is used by Roman Catholics, such as Bellarmine, to support the problematic doctrine of Purgatory. Second, the idea of the immortality and immateriality of the soul is used to explain the appearances of ghosts, which clerics use to frighten and manipulate superstitious people.36 Third, the immortality of the soul is taken to imply that the damned suffer for eternity. This fate is thought by Hobbes to be inconsistent with the mercy of God.37 Hobbes instead believes that the wicked will be resurrected from the dead and destroyed in the fi nite amount of time it takes fi re to destroy a human body. Fourth, political stability requires that people be more afraid of the sovereign than of anything else. A belief in the immortality of the


soul seems to encourage a greater fear of what happens after this life than during it, thus undermining the absolute power of the sovereign.

The problems that he sees with an immortal soul are many. Some are theologically motivated, others politically. He clearly sees the abuses the church has made of the doctrine. To resolve these problems, Hobbes’ strategy is to show that “soul” or “spirit” is not an immaterial substance and thus is not immortal. He treats “soul,” “spirit,” and “immaterial sub-stance” in different contexts. For example, Hobbes looks at how “spirit” is used in three different contexts: scientifi c,38 ordinary,39 and the uses in the bible.40 He suggests in all three contexts that “spirit” is not an immaterial substance.

For scientists, like Hobbes, “spirit” is a body that cannot be sensed because it is too fi ne to stimulate a sense organ. But because every body is material and occupies space, spirits are material and occupy space even though they are imperceptible.41 “Spirits” are thus part of the material universe. In a letter to Descartes, Hobbes alleges that Descartes’ “subtle matter”42 is like this notion of spirit, a charge Descartes vigorously denies.43

In ordinary understanding, “spirit” is not thought of as a body. Individu-als, according to Hobbes, mistakenly think of bodies as only those things that can be felt to resist a force or to hinder their clear sight of a “farther prospect.”44 This means that wind is taken usually to be a spirit and not what it really is, the movement of a body, air. Ordinary people also use the word “spirit” to refer to the causes of phenomena that mystify them, such as dreams and hallucinations representing bodies that are not there. Hobbes explains dreams and hallucinations to be the result of tumult in the brain.

The third use of “spirit” is in the Bible. Hobbes explains specifi c passages in such a way as to avoid the need for immaterial substances. For example, angels are not immaterial substances. The angel who wrestles Jacob is a material being, not an immaterial one. Hobbes interprets biblical passages such that spirits need not be immaterial. Even God is not incorporeal.45 Indeed a very interesting aspect of Leviathan is Hobbes’ intense and explicit focus on scripture.

Hobbes also dismisses incorporeal substances in Leviathan as nonsense. Hobbes argues:

The Word Body, in the most general acceptation, signifi eth that which fi lleth, or occupieth some certain room, or imagined place; and depen-deth not on the imagination, but is a real part of that we call the universe. For the universe, being the aggregate of all bodies, there is no real part therof that is not also body; nor anything properly a body, that is not also


part of (that aggregate of all bodies) the universe. The same also, because bodies are subject to change (that is to say, to variety of appearance to the sense of living creatures) is called substance (that is to say, subject to vari-ous accidents) as: sometimes to be moved, sometimes to stand still; and to seem to our senses sometimes hot, sometimes cold, sometimes of one colour, smell, taste, or sound, sometimes of another. And this diversity of seeming, (produced by the diversity of the operation of bodies, on the organs of our sense) we attribute to alterations of the bodies that operate, and call them accidents of those bodies. And according to this accepta-tion of the word, substance, and body, signify the same thing; and therefore substance incorporeall are words, which when they are joined together, destroy one another, as if a man should say, an incorporeal body.46

Body does not depend on imagination, but is part of the universe. Every-thing in the universe is body. Substances change, that is, they present a variety of appearances to living creatures. It is the alterations of bodies that produce in us different appearances. So substance and bodies are the same thing. And just as the notion of an incorporeal body is a contra-diction, so too is the notion of an incorporeal substance. Thus there are no incorporeal substances.

One part of this argument is especially important. Bodies are subject to change, but change is defi ned as a variety of appearances to the senses of living creatures. Thus they key assertion in the proof is that incorporeal substances cannot interact with the senses (given his account of percep-tion), thus it follows that there are no incorporeal substances that we can speak of.

This argument is one Henry More is particularly concerned to show incorrect, as will be discussed in Chapter 4. For now, the point is that Hobbes returns to his theory of perception to argue that we do not have ideas of incorporeal substances. And he rejects incorporeal sub stances, among other reasons, as part of his rejection of the immortality of the soul.

Hobbes looks explicitly at the immortality of the soul and the resurrec-tion of the body. He adopts a view known as mortalism, which is sometimes called soul-sleeping. Mortalism is the view that what happens at bodily death is nothing in terms of the soul. The soul “sleeps,” that is, it is basically unconscious (and thus cannot be affected by prayers or the intercession of saints) until the Day of Judgment when the body is resurrected. There is no natural immortality of the soul that preserves it in a conscious state between death and the resurrection.


This understanding or critique of the soul and immortality is not unique or original to Hobbes. Jean Calvin, for example, explicitly condemns the view, while Martin Luther endorses a version of it. In the seventeenth century, the view was reintroduced to England by Overton and Browne among others.47 That Protestants endorse the view makes sense given their rejection of the Purgatorial abuses of the Catholic Church. But with the rejection of Purgatory, Protestants needed to supply a satisfying explana-tion of what happens to the soul when the body dies.

Hobbes considers explicitly an account of hell and the afterlife. In chapter 38 of Leviathan, his mortalism is laid out and developed.

The comparison between that eternal life which Adam lost, and our Saviour by his victory over death hath recovered; holdeth also in this, that as Adam lost eternal life by his sin, and yet lived after it for a time, so the faithful Christian hath recovered eternal life by Christ’s passion, though he die a natural death, and remain dead for a time (namely till the resurrection). For as death is reckoned from the condemnation of Adam, not from the execution; so life is reckoned from the absolution, not from the resurrection of them that are elected in Christ.48

A second passage from Part IV, The Kingdom of Darkness, highlights how Hobbes thinks that Scripture supports not the immortality of the soul, but rather the resurrection of the body which has slept or been dead since the death of the body. As he says:

All which doctrine is founded only on some of the obscurer places of the New Testament (which nevertheless, the whole scope of the Scripture considered, are clear enough in a different sense) and unnecessary to the Christian Faith. For supposing that when a man dies, there remaineth nothing of him but his carcass; cannot God that raised inanimated dust and clay into a living creature by his word, as easily raise a dead carcass to life again, and continue him alive for ever, or make him die again, by another word?49

Hobbes continues in the passage by discussing how “soule” is treated in Scripture, and shows that if in the passages “soule” is interpreted as mean-ing incorporeal substance, then all creatures who live also have an existence separated from the body. This is clearly an absurd result for him (and for most of his readers).


Hobbes also brings up an interesting facet of the scholastic discussion of the incorporeal soul. He says:

For the circumscription of a thing, is nothing but the determination, or defi ning of its place; and so both the terms of the distinction are the same. And in particular, of the essence of a man, which (they say) is his soule, they affi rm it, to be all of it in his little fi nger, and all of it in every other part (how small soever) of his body; and yet no more soul in the whole body, than in any one of those parts. Can any man think that God is served with such absurdities? And yet all this is necessary to believe, to those that will believe the existence of an incorporeal soul, separated from the body.50

This doctrine that the soul is as present in the smallest part of the body as in the whole is interesting. It is a passage as well that More responds to in his discussion of Hobbes, and an idea that Robert Boyle uses in his own analysis of bodily resurrection.

The most detailed studies of Hobbes on the specifi c issue of mortalism are those made by David Johnston, who begins his article with the state-ment: “To his contemporaries, Hobbes’ denial that the soul is an incorpo-real substance that survives the death of the body was one of the most salient and controversial features of his argument in Leviathan.”51 He cites Luke Fawn, Alexander Ross, and Seth Ward as focusing on this issue and he relates it to Hobbes’ political theory. He argues that in Leviathan Hobbes adopts a new strategy towards theology because of the awareness of a need to devalue the life after death to support his politics.

Johnston argues that Hobbes’ mortalism does not fl ow directly from his metaphysical materialism, although it is consistent with it. He points out that in the early chapters of The Elements of Law, in manuscript prior to 1640, Hobbes argues that belief in “the immortality of the soul” is entailed by belief “that Jesus is the Christ.” The belief “that Jesus is the Christ” is the one article of Christian faith Hobbes consistently maintains throughout his life as necessary for salvation. In De Cive, Hobbes includes that “an inte-gral part of Christ’s mission was to teach all point of faith . . ., among which Hobbes includes the doctrine ‘animam esse immortalem,’ that that the soul is immortal.”52

As Johnston says:

Hence it would be a mistake to argue that when Hobbes adopted a mortalistic view of the soul sometime after 1643 he did so simply because


he had come to realize that this view was entailed by his philosophical materialism. Hobbes consistently invoked the medieval doctrine of the separation of faith from knowledge to insulate his acceptance of the soul’s immortality from all the questions dealt with in his natural philosophy. . . Hobbes himself did not regard mortalism as a logical consequence of his materialism. He accepted the orthodox doctrine of the soul’s immortality as a truth of faith because he could see no reason not to do so.53

Johnston points out that Hobbes is apparently orthodox until 1643 when Hobbes simultaneously asserts a belief in the immortality of the soul and expounds on metaphysical materialism. The change of heart is credited by Johnston to a change in Hobbes’ political theories. But note that in 1643 Hobbes was working on De Corpore, which he put aside after the publication of Descartes’ Principles. Hobbes likely saw the connections between his materialism and the theories of immortality and identity when he replied to Descartes. Thus Johnston may be overlooking the develop-ment of Hobbes’ theory of optics that was occurring as he was developing his political theory. And a change in the climate was occurring such that the doctrine of double truth no longer had to be maintained.

However, even if Johnston is right that Hobbes is motivated not from metaphysics but from politics to deny immateriality and immortality to the soul in Leviathan, it remains that those philosophers (and scientists) who commented on Hobbes linked his mortalism to his materialism and not to his politics. Given this focus of the criticism, it is important for one to understand the connections between the rejection of immaterial substances and his mortalism.

Another important point is made in Leviathan and in De Corpore. In De Corpore and in Leviathan, Hobbes defi nes “person,” by drawing a distinc-tion between a natural person and an artifi cial one in chapter 16:

A Person, is he, whose words or actions are considered, either as his own, or as representing the words or actions of another man, or of any other thing to whom they are attributed, whether truly or by fi ction.

When they are considered as his own, then is he called a natural person: and when they are considered as representing the words and actions of an other, then is he a feigned or artifi cial person.54

This defi nition serves a number of purposes for Hobbes. For example, Martinich suggests that Hobbes uses it in examining the doctrine of


Christ’s satisfaction and to understand how the Trinity functions.55 It also supports an analysis of the collective as a person.

In De Corpore, Hobbes begins by defi ning “difference” in terms of what we say about a body, not in terms of what a body is. As he defi nes “difference”:

Two bodies are said to differ from one another, when something may be said of one of them, which cannot be said of the other at the same time.56

That Hobbes is rejecting the scholastic interpretation of identity and diversity, particularly in regard to the principium individuationis, is clear from the passage:

But the same body may at different times be compared with itself. And from hence springs a great controversy among philosophers about the beginning of individuation, namely, in what sense it may be conceived that a body is at one time the same, at another time not the same it was formerly. For example, whether a man grown old be the same man he was whilst he was young, or another man; or whether a city be in different ages the same, or another city.57

The problem Hobbes is here concerned with is how a body can change from being one thing to another. While he calls it the beginning of indi-viduation, it is clear that he is dealing with individuation over time. The problem is of determining what remains constant so that an entity retains its identity over time. Hobbes considers different ways of solving the problem:

Some place individuity in the unity of matter; others, in the unity of form; and one says it consists in the unity of the aggregate of all the accidents together. For matter, it is pleaded that a lump of wax, whether it be spheri-cal or cubical, is the same wax, because the same matter. For form, that when a man is grown from an infant to be an old man, though his matter be changed, yet he is still the same numerical man; for that identity, which cannot be attributed to the matter, ought probably to be ascribed to the form. For the aggregate of accidents, no instance can be made; but because, when any new accident is generated, a new name is commonly imposed on the thing, therefore he, that assigned this cause of individuity, thought the thing itself was also become another thing.58


Without citing individuals who hold these positions, Hobbes considers the common scholastic solutions to the problem of individuation. He undoubtedly became familiar with these during his training at Oxford. Hobbes considers the consequences of each view. The reference to the wax is perhaps a reference to Descartes (or Aristotle). What makes the wax the same wax through the changes by the fi re for Descartes is that it remained the same extension, not that it remains the same matter. Hobbes continues in his analysis of the above views:

According to the fi rst opinion, he that sins, and he that is punished, should not be the same man, by reason of the perpetual fl ux and change of man’s body; nor should the city, which makes laws in one age and abrogates them in another, be the same city; which were to confound all civil rights.

Thus Hobbes raises the problem of responsibility directly in regard to the determination of identity. If we hold that the principium individuationis of a human is the matter that makes him or her, then it follows that when the matter changes so too does the human. So too if the city were deter-mined by the matter, or laws, that make it up. Hobbes considers the second opinion:

According to the second opinion, two bodies existing both at once, would be one and the same numerical body. For if, for example, that ship of Theseus, concerning the difference wherof made by continual repara-tion in taking out the old planks and putting in new, the sophisters of Athens were wont to dispute, were, after all the planks were changed, the same numerical ship it was at the beginning; and if some man had kept the old planks as they were taken out, and by putting them after-wards together in the same order, had again made a ship of them, this, without doubt, had also been the same numerical ship with that which was at the beginning; and so there would have been two ships numerically the same, which is absurd.

If the same thing is determined by form, then the ship of Theseus problem arises. There could be two ships numerically the same, which is absurd. Hobbes considers the third opinion as equally problematic:

But, according to the third opinion, nothing would be the same it was; so that a man standing would not be the same he was sitting; nor the water,


which is in the vessel, the same with that which is poured out of it. Wherefore the beginning of individuation is not always to be taken either from matter alone, or from form alone.59

If the beginning of individuation is about the aggregate of properties a thing has, if one property changes, so too does the thing. Even if that change is one of position, generally thought not to be a necessary property.

Hobbes thus considers and rejects three different opinions about iden-tity. He thinks that identity cannot be placed in matter, form, or aggregate of properties. Hobbes proposes a method by which to determine identity. He says:

But we must consider by what name anything is called, when we inquire concerning the identity of it. For it is one thing to ask concerning Socrates, whether he be the same man, and another to ask whether he be the same body; for his body, when he is old, cannot be the same it was when he was an infant, by reason of the difference of magnitude; for one body has always one and the same magnitude; yet, nevertheless, he may be the same man. And therefore, whensoever the name, by which it is asked whether a thing be the same it was, is given it for the matter only, then, if the matter be the same, the thing also is individually the same; as the water, which was in the sea, is the same which is afterwards in the cloud; and any body is the same, whether the parts of it be put together, or dispersed; or whether it be congealed, or dissolved.60

Hobbes’ point seems clear. Whatever you take a thing to be will determine what its identity depends on. For example, if we look at a thing as matter, then it is individually the same as long as the matter is the same.

We do not know whether Locke ever read De Corpore, but Molyneux certainly did, for he refers to it in his Correspondence with Locke. And so, it may not be that much of a surprise that Locke in his treatment of identity is responding to some of the same opinions or theories taught in the schools. And indeed that he may be using similar examples to illustrate his theory.

In this section, I showed how Hobbes views the mortality of the soul. He thinks that the soul is not naturally immortal. He supports this not only with his science, but also with an inquiry into the relevant passages in Scripture. I also gave Hobbes explicit statements about identity. I turn now to Locke and how he responds to Hobbes.


IV. Locke’s Response to Hobbes

In this section, I argue Locke is infl uenced by Hobbes in his treatment of personal identity. Locke wants to advance human knowledge, to move beyond the controversies about the nature of thinking substance that we see in Hobbes and in others. It is my contention, however, that to do this, Locke adopts some of Hobbes’ moves as his own in his development of personal identity. I make this case more strongly in the next chapter, but here I highlight that much of what is taken to be signifi cant to Locke’s account is also found earlier in Hobbes.

There are three major similarities between Locke and Hobbes found in Locke’s chapter on personal identity: the treatment of substance, the defi nition of person, and the analysis of identity. I develop each point in turn. I then consider how Locke’s account of the afterlife differs from Hobbes’.

In the Objections to Descartes’ Meditations, Hobbes argues that we do not have an idea of substance, just as we have no idea of God. In Hobbes’ Objection:

I have already frequently pointed out that we do not have an idea of God, or of the soul. I will now add that we do not have an idea of sub-stance. For substance, in so far as it is the matter which is the subject of accidental properties and of changes, is something that is established solely by reasoning; it is not something that is conceived, or that presents any idea to us.61

Compare this with Locke’s treatment in the Essay:

So that if any one will examine himself concerning his Notion of pure Substance in general, he will fi nd he has no other Idea of it at all, but only a Supposition of he knows not what support of such Qualities, which are capable of producing simple Ideas in us; which Qualities are commonly called Accidents . . . The Idea then we have, to which we give the general name Substance, being nothing but the supposed, but unknown support of those Qualities we fi nd existing, which we imagine cannot subsist, sine re substante, without some thing to support them, we call that Support Substantia; which, according to the true import of the Word, is in plain English, standing under or upholding.62


Our knowledge is based on our perceptions for Locke. And these percep-tions are never of substances. So we do not have an idea of substance. Like Hobbes, Locke rejects that we perceive substance.

A second point of similarity between the two is the treatment of “person” as a moral agent. I argued in the fi rst chapter that Locke’s understanding of “person” is as a moral agent, an individual who stands responsible for actions performed. These actions are primarily those he or she will be accountable for in the afterlife. Thus, Locke is looking for a criterion he can use to establish personal identity in this theological context. But he is also concerned to understand “person” in a forensic context, as his concern about the drunkard shows. Hobbes’ defi nition of person in De Corpore and Leviathan discussed above is also meant to account for resurrection, and for responsibility under the law.

A third point of comparison is in the treatment of the principium indivi-duationis. Hobbes makes the same move that Locke does. That is, Hobbes asserts a version of “such is the name such is the identity.” Thus, the princi-pium individuationis of a man is different than that of an attribute like hair color. It is interesting to note Locke’s assertion in chapter 27: “for such as is the idea belonging to that name, such must be the identity.”63 Locke’s key insight is that “such is the idea, such is the identity.” What I took this to mean in the fi rst chapter is that we are to look at the sort of thing it is and compare it with other ideas of the same kind. If we look at a body, we look at the matter that makes it up. We do not look at its form unless we are looking to compare two forms. This is similar to Hobbes’ treatment. There are differences and Locke’s treatment is much more developed, but the insight is there in Hobbes too.

There are then points of similarity between the two thinkers. However, when it comes to personal identity, Locke does not accept the materialist position. In section twelve Locke asks:

But the Question is, whether if the same Substance, which thinks, be changed, it can be the same Person, or remaining the same, it can be different Persons.

And to this I answer, First, This can be no Question at all to those who place thought in a purely material animal Constitution, void of an immaterial Substance. For, whether their Supposition be true or no, it is plain they conceive personal Identity preserved in something else than Identity of Substance; as animal Identity is preserved in Identity of Life, and not of Substance.64


Locke continues by using the materialists to make a point against the Cartesians. If the Cartesians want to answer the materialists effectively, they will have to better develop their account of thinking in animals. Locke also responds to the materialists by rejecting the move that a person is a material substance (or composed only of material substances). If person were a material substance, then an individual would be held by God responsible for actions he could not remember. This is quite problematic for Locke as it calls into question God’s mercy and God’s justice.

Most importantly though, these passages and analysis show that Locke is aware of the controversies that Hobbes generated. To better understand these controversies, in the next chapter I examine Henry More, who responds in detail to Hobbes in a defense of the immortality of the soul. It is likely that the controversy over the soul’s nature in which Hobbes indulged and the way in which he used Boyle’s scientifi c experiments earned him the dislike and attention of Locke.

Chapter 4

Henry More and John Locke on the Dangers of Materialism: Immateriality, Immortality, Immorality, and Identity

In this chapter, I argue that John Locke is infl uenced by the Cambridge Platonists in general and Henry More in particular in his discussion of personal identity. Part of the reason for accounting for personal identity as Locke does it is to show that it can be done without resolving the question of the nature of the soul, contra the Platonists’ obsession with this subject. Henry More’s Platonism and his reaction to both Cartesianism and Hobbesian materialism are highlighted because they call attention to the controversy over the nature of the soul and its implications for immortality and immorality. Further, More’s use of memory, his account of perception, commitment to the preexistence of the soul, and use of conscience infl uence Locke in the development of his theory of personal identity.

I begin by sketching an overview of the Cambridge Platonist movement and its key fi gures. I then focus on Henry More. More’s arguments for personal immortality are considered in light of his negative appraisal fi rst of the Aristotelians and other ancients and then in light of his rejection of Descartes and Hobbes. I examine as well his positive Platonistic account of personal immortality and its relation to the science of his day. I take his account to be the best articulated one of the Cambridge Platonists and use it as a representative of the school. More focuses on experience in his analysis of immortality. He refutes or confutes the positions of those who deny the immortality of the soul by giving an account of memory to ensure individuation of the soul after death in a state suitable for the punishment earned here.

In the second part of the chapter, I turn to Locke and his treatment of the Cambridge Platonists. I focus on his reaction to their reaction to Thomas Hobbes. I begin by considering texts in which Locke refers to the arguments of the school dealing with immortality. I then focus on the

More and Locke on the Dangers of Materialism 77

similarities between Locke and More in the analysis of personal identity to explicate how and why Locke rejects the Cambridge Platonist appraisal of personal immortality and the principium individuationis in favor of his own.

I. Henry More and the Cambridge Platonists

In contemporary terms, the Cambridge Platonists are failures: no philo-sophical theory philosophers consider true or even promising is attributed to them. Even worse, they are not famously notorious philosophical failures; where they err is usually not of concern or interest to contempo-rary theorists. In short, the Cambridge Platonist movement failed to make the major canon of Western philosophy and so is rarely taught or discussed outside of specialist circles.

But this failure to make our contemporary philosophical canon does not mean that the movement was not interesting, respected, or infl uential in its time.1 And it is because of their infl uence that we need to study them and their relation to Locke. Like most philosophers of the seventeenth century, the Cambridge Platonists deal with topics in science and theology in addition to philosophy. Like others, such as Cartesians and materialists, they negatively react to the Aristotelian scholasticism still prominent in the schools—including Cambridge and Oxford.2 They also react to competing philosophical, theological, and scientifi c positions—to competitors both modern and ancient such as Descartes, Hobbes, Boyle, Spinoza, Vaughan, Calvin, Epicurus, Lucretius, Democritos, Aristotle, and the Sadducees.

The movement includes Henry More (1614–87),3 Ralph Cudworth4 (1617–88), Nathaniel Culverwell (1619–51),5 John Smith (1618–52),6 and Benjamin Whichcote (1609–83). Each was educated at Cambridge. Each draws to different degrees on the philosophy of Plato and the neo-Platonists, as interpreted by Marsilio Ficino and the Florentine school,7 rather than on Aristotle for support. Heavily infl uenced by the Renaissance tradition, they look to the ancients to support the compatibility of Christianity with philosophy.

In general, they are very tolerant in their religious outlook8 and argue that reason has a signifi cant place in religious matters.9 They decry Calvin-ism and the determinism proposed by the Puritans.10 Each argues for a via media between the extremes of Anglicanism and Puritanism in England. An integral part of their strategy is the use of innate ideas as a source of rational knowledge.11 They deny predestination and predeterminism and some affi rm the preexistence of the soul and some believe in a universal


soul in nature.12 They are staunchly opposed to atheism, materialism, and enthusiasm.

As individuals, intellectual strengths vary. The most recognizably “philo-sophical” members of the group are Henry More and Ralph Cudworth. Both are members of the Royal Society, in addition to writing on theology and philosophy. More publishes his philosophical work during the seven-teenth century with mixed success.13 Cudworth circulates drafts of his works among friends (who might have included Locke or friends of Locke) with-out publishing his main philosophical work, The True Intellectual System of the Universe, until 1678. Others of the group are more theologically oriented and infl uential in that area.14

Because More has the more immediate infl uence in philosophical circles at this time as well as somewhat clearer arguments, I focus on him in this chapter.15 The primary works to focus on include his Neoplatonic poetry collected in Philosophical Poems (1642, 1647, and 1662), his correspondence with Descartes, The Antidote against Atheism (1662), and On the Immortality of Soul (1662). These works provide a comprehensive view of the philosophi-cal approach of the Cambridge Platonist to the immortality of the soul and are found in Locke’s library. More’s discussion of personal immortality ranges over a wide variety of philosophical texts and traditions. He analyzes many of them (such as Aristotle, Hobbes, and Descartes) negatively, while putting forth a Christianized version of Plato and Plotinus in support of his own account.

In his early work, Philosophicall Poems,16 More in allegorical Spenserian stanzas gives a Neoplatonic account of the soul’s life. The full title of the main work, A Platonick Song of the Soul; Treating, of The Life of the Soul, Her Immortalitie, The Sleep of the Soul, The Unitie of Souls, and Memeorie after Death, reveals the topics that More considers in the poems. This poem is broken into four parts: Psychozoia, Psychathanasia, Antipsychopannychia, and Anti-monopsychia.17 These parts are written in 1640 and published in 1642, with notes added before publication in 1647. This dates the main poem to before More’s encounter with Descartes’ Meditations and the initiation of the celebrated correspondence with him, as well as before he encountered Hobbes’ materialism.18 In this early poem, More presents the main tenets of the position that he later puts into a much more readable format in The Immortality of the Soul.

In what follows, More’s philosophical commitments to Neoplatonism and the focus of his interest in the immortality of the soul and its meaning for public morality is emphasized. We see that More, like Descartes, focuses on memory as grounds for responding to the Averroist and Alexandrian


heresies, although unlike Descartes, he develops his analysis of memory. His commitments to the preexistence of souls, the hierarchy of souls, and the spirit of nature are explored. These themes recur in many of his works and highlight what make More’s account interesting and signifi cant in the discussion of personal identity. I also highlight More’s use of the new science in his philosophy and his interactions with Robert Boyle, although these are discussed in more detail in the next chapter.

In the fi rst book of the Song, Psychozoia, More presents an overview of the life of the soul and its place in the great chain of being in an account heavily infl uenced by Plotinus and Ficino.19 More expresses the nature of the soul in canto II, stanza 22:

Hence the souls nature we may plainly see: A beam it is of th’intellectual Sun.A ray indeed of that Aeternity;But such a ray as when it fi rst out shone,From a free light its shining date begun.And the same light when’t list can call it in;Yet that free light hath given a free wonneTo this dependent ray: Hence cometh sin;From sin dred Death and Hell these wages doth it win.20

In this passage the soul is portrayed as a beam or ray of God. It is the same soul when it is called in as when it began “shining.” God has given free will and movement to the dependent rays. If a soul lives a good life, then upon the death of the body the soul is drawn back to God. If a soul lives an evil life, however, then it is drenched in Lethe’s lake, that is, is made to forget. It cannot feel Heavens power.21 As the poem continues, it is appar-ent that Hell for More involves the loss of memory. Not only is there a loss of the memory of the actions done by the body but also of innate ideas and thus loss of all knowledge. In contrast, Heaven is the joining again with God and the attainment of higher knowledge. In typical Neoplatonic fashion, More sees the initial descent of the soul into the body as clouding and confusing the mind and death as releasing it and enabling it to attain again a higher knowledge if it has earned it. But Hell is more than a loss of memory and knowledge; it also is a place of torment. And the torment is perhaps made worse because one cannot remember the actions that were done to merit it.

The ray imagery highlights More’s account of the individuality of each person and each animal. Each ray or soul is created as an individual. Each


soul retains a unique status throughout its life and into the afterlife. It is also indivisible, or as he terms it “indiscerpible.” That the soul is indivisible plays a large role in his interpretation of science, and of the essence of thinking. It also is why he thought so highly of Descartes’ work initially.

That the soul preexists has the effect of saving God’s goodness. A pro-blem that More (among others) clearly sees is that some individuals are born into bodies that do not have the capacity or circumstances necessary to earn salvation. God thus seems to have unfairly given some individuals a better chance than others at salvation. More thinks that this is accounted for because given the soul’s preexistent state, the soul has done something that merits the body into which it is born. This absolves God of apparent unfairness or malevolence. It also allows Hell to be a place of torment even with no memories. As we do not have memories of our preexistence, we may not understand why we will not be saved. But God’s goodness does not require us to understand this.

More is committed to the argument that hope of the afterlife is essen-tial to both religion and public morality. As he states in the Preface to the Reader before the second part of the song, Psychathanasia, or the Immortality of the Soul:

The very nerves and sinews of Religion is hope of immortality. What greater incitement to virtue and justice then eternall happiness? What greater terrour from wickednesse, then a full perswasion of after-judgement and continuall torture of spirit?22

More offers reasons for the immortality of the soul on rational grounds drawn from his understanding of Platonism. He hopes that those who already believe in the immortality of the soul will fi nd enjoyment in his reasoning,23 and that perhaps those who are not already persuaded will be persuaded of the immortality of the soul. This hope emphasizes his rejection of the Puritan commitment to revelation alone as suffi cient for belief in theological truths. But more importantly, it also clearly indi-cates that More sees himself as a participant in a public debate about nature of the soul and its implications for immortality and public morality. He is trying to convince those who disbelieve by using reason and not Scripture.

One way that More argues for the immortality of the soul is to focus on the separability of the soul from the body. More claims that if the mind is “taken up in some higher contemplation,”24 then God could destroy the body without the soul being affected. This opens up an analysis of personal immortality that is independent of an account of bodily resurrection or the


continuation of the body following resurrection. But it is only humans and not brutes or animals who can achieve this higher contemplation. The contemplating mind is thus separable from the body and has capacities that are not dependent upon the body. This claim shows partly why More is attracted to Descartes, who similarly emphasizes separability as an argument for the immortality of the soul.

In the beginning of Psychathanasia, More names some of the positions that do not acknowledge the immortality of the soul.

From this default, the lustfull EpicureDemocrite, or th’ unthankfull Stagirite,Most men preferre’ fore holy Pythagore,Divinest Plato, and grave Epictete:But I am so infl am’d with the sweet sightAnd goodly beauty seen on Eloim bill,That maugre all mens clamours in despightI’ll praise my Platonissa with loud quill,My strong intended voice all the wide world shall fi ll.25

More positions his approach in relation to other ancient traditions that found new support in the seventeenth century. He continues in the second canto of the poem to defi ne what a soul is, and to consider how a human soul differs from the soul of a brute. What Adam lost when he listened to the “sly snake” is that which made him, and all humans, immortal, that is, the image of the highest God, which brutes cannot partake of.26 When humans are no longer in the corporeal body, they can once again contem-plate this idea because the human souls will no longer be clouded by the body and will be able to use the faculty of incorporeal imagination. This faculty is one that animals and brutes lack.

More more carefully defi nes “soul” not only for humans, but for all souls:

25Self-moving substance, that be th’ defi nitionOf souls, that long to them in generall:This well expresseth that common conditionOf every vitall centre creaturall.For why? both what hight form spermaticallHath here a share, as also that we termSoul sensitive, I’ll call’t form bestiall,


It makes a beast added to plantall sperm;Add rationall form, it makes a man as men affi rm.

26All these substances self-movable:And that we call virtue magneticall(That what’s defi n’d be irreprovable)I comprehend it is in the life plantall:Mongst trees ther’s found life Sympatheticall;Though trees have not animadversive sense.Therefore the soul’s AutokineticallAlone. What ere’s in this defi ning sense,Is soul, what ere’s not soul is driven far from hence.

27But that each soul’s Autokineticall,Is easily shown by sifting all degrees Of souls . . .27

In the neo platonic hierarchy of souls, the rational soul is higher than the soul of plants and animals. More is clearly committed to the great chain of being.28 As a vitalist, he believes everything that moves has a soul ultimately responsible for its movement. Each soul has self-movement. Each soul also has different faculties that it can use. For example, trees do not have an animadversive sense or imagination. The commitment to vitalism and its implications for his rejection of materialism is discussed later in this chapter.

Another theme in the Philosophical Poems is More’s attempt to confute the doctrine of the sleep of the soul, which he does in the third part of the Platonic Song of the Soul, Antipsychopannychia. In the preface to this poem, he characterizes part of the problem:

But the similitude of Praxiteles broken glasse is brought in, according to the apprehension of such, as make the image to vanish into nothing, the glasse being taken away: and that as there is but one face, though there be the appearances of many; so though there be the appearances of many souls, by reason of that ones working in divers bodies, yet there is but one soul; and understanding sense and motion to be acts of this one soul informing severall bodies.

This is that which both Plotinus and I endeavour to destroy, which is of great moment: For if one onely soul act in every body, whatever we are now, surely this body laid in the dust we shall be nothing.29


If all motion is the result of one soul informing all bodies, then when a human dies, there is no continuation of the individual thinker or move-ment, as was discussed previously. The individual is sometimes said to sleep or to be nothing at all. More thinks this position is very dangerous. As he puts this point in his poetry:

3Desire, fear, love, joy, sorrow, pleasure, pain,Sense, phancy, wit, forecasting providence,Delight in God, and what with sleepy brain Might sute, slight dreams, all banish’d farre from hence.nor pricking nor applauding conscienceCan wake the soul from this dull LethargiesThat twixt this sleepy state small differenceYou’ll fi nd and that men call Mortality.Plain death’s as good as such a Psychopannychie.30

After death if the soul sleeps so deeply that it cannot be pricked by con-science then it is as good as dead. More thinks mortalists are led to this because of the belief that all senses depend on the body. When a human body becomes a corpse, the senses would “dry up” and thus the soul would be as good as dead.

More disputes this:

15But if we grant, which in my former song I plainly prov’d, that the souls energiePends not on this base corpse, but that self-strongShe by her self can work, then when we fl yThe bodies commerce, no man can denyBut that there is no interruptionof life; where will puts on, there doth she hieor if she’s carried by coaction.That force yet she observes by press adversion.31

More presents in more detail an analysis of the senses commonly thought to depend on the body.

25The faculties we deem corporeall,and bound unto this earthy insturment


(So bound that they no’te operate at allWithout the body there immerse and meint)Be hearing, feeling, tasting, sight and scent.Adde lower phansie, Mundane memory:Those powers be all or more or lesse ypent In this grosse life: We’ll fi rst their property32 (Set down, and then the others contrariety.)

In the subsequent stanzas, More develops the claim that the faculties are “ypent” or penned in this life. The “phansie,” or imagination, depends on the body and thus is constrained by the body, the ears hear sounds, the nostrils “snuff perfumed wind.” The “phansie” is constrained by the body in a way that the will and intellect are not. This difference accounts for why the will and intellect are immortal. As More concludes at the end of the fi rst canto:

38Wherefore I think we safely may concludeThat Will and Intellect do not relyUpon the body, sith they are indew’dWith such apparent contrarietyOf qualities to sense and phantasie,Which plainly on the body do depend:So that departed souls may phantasms freeFu’l well exert, when they have made an endOf this vain life, nor need to Lethe Lake descend.33

Because the will and intellect do not depend on the body, they survive the death of the body. The River Lethe in Greek mythology is the river in the underworld where the soul is immersed, loses its memory, and thus can be reborn. Lethe Lake is related to this and that by the last verses More means that the soul need not lose its memory after the death of the body which is a response to the Averroists and other Aristotelians who claim differently.

In the second canto, More shows that the soul does not need a body to function. He summarizes the canto:

Bondage and freedom’s here set out By an inverted Cone:The self-form’d soul may work without Incorporation.


The psychopannychites, such as the Alexandrian mortalists discussed in Chapter 2, suggest that the soul cannot think without the phantasms that depend on the body. More disagrees. Corporeal imagination is not necessary to thinking. In this he is like Descartes.

In the fourth and fi nal part of the Song, Antimonopsychia, More confutes the unity of souls, or the Averroist position. His strategy is, as he says on the title page:

The all-devouring Unitie Of Souls I here disprove;Show how they bear their memorieWith them when they remove.

This strategy shows that like Descartes, More is concerned with showing that certain Aristotelian interpretations are mistaken about the soul. As discussed in chapter two, the Averroist concern is that because the indivi-dual memory is lost, the individual soul is lost in the unity of the souls. Thus, if it can be shown that memory does not decay, individual mortality need not result. This relates closely to the previous poem in which More argues for the non-mortalistic nature of the soul.

More takes the doctrine of the unity of the souls to be mistaken for a number of reasons. I briefl y discuss two reasons and then develop two more reasons in detail. One reason that he takes the doctrine of the unity of souls or of one universal soul to be mistaken is that the unity would suffer from the compresence of opposites. It would feel both happy and sad at the same time.34 This is impossible, and thus the notion of a unity of souls must be mistaken. A second reason is that he thinks that if there were but one soul animating all humans, for example, then we would all share the same knowledge and skills. As this is clearly not the case, it must mean that there is more than one soul.35 More thus appeals to our experience to show that the Aristotelian interpretation, as he understands it, is fl awed.

A third reason is that a soul is indivisible. As he says:

14But contradiction, can that have placeIn any soul? Plato affi rms Idees; But Aristotle with his pugnacious raceAs idle fi gments stifl y them denies.One soul in both doth thus Philosophise;Concludes at once contradictoriously


To her own self. What man can here deviseA fi t escape, if (what’s sure verity)He grant but the souls indivisibility?36

More then refers back to Psychathanasia, where he argues for the indivisi-bility of the soul. The origin of the souls is as individuals created by God, and this individuality is present both before being united to the body and after the dissolution of the corporeal body. The unity of souls is also refuted by memory, as is indicated by the title. More thus returns to a discussion of memory. He says:

31This faculty is very intimate And near the Centre, very large and free,Extends it self to whatsoever thatThe soul Peracts. There is no subtiltyof Intellect, of Will, nor Phantasie.No Sense, nor uncouth strange impressionFrom damned Night, or the blest Deity,But of all these she hath retention, And at their fresh approach their former shapes can won.

32This memoirie the very bond of lifeYou may well deem. If it were cut awayOur being truly then you might contrive Into a point of time. The former dayWere nought at all to us: when once we lay Ourselves to sleep, we should not know at mornThat e’re we were before; nor could we sayA whit of sense: so soon as off we turnOne word, that’s quite forgot. Coherence thus is torn.

33Now sith it is of such necessitie,And is the bundle of the souls duration,The watchman of the soul, lest she should fl ieOr steal from her own self, a sure fi xationAnd Centrall depth it hath, and free dilation,That it takes notice of each energie


Of phansie, Sense, or any Cogitation.wherefore this virtue no dependencieHath of this body, must be safe when it doth die.

34But if dispersed lifes collection,Which is our memory, safely survive (Which well it may, sith it depends not on The Mundane spirit) what can fi tly driveIt into action? In heaven she doth liveso full of one great light, she hath no timeto such low triles, as past fi ghts, to dive,such as she gathered up in earthly slime:foreknowledge of herself is lost in light divine.37

The above stanzas suggest that memory is not (wholly) dependent on the corporeal body. It is thus accessible to us after death. But there is a problem about the content of memory. More thinks that the soul could have memo-ries of “past fi ghts” but that the soul will not have time or inclination to think about them after death. More’s account of memory is somewhat better articulated in his treatment of Descartes in The Immortality of the Soul, as I discuss below.

More concludes the fi nal poem:

40Thus have I stoutly rescued the soulFrom centrall death or pure mortalitie,And from the listless fl ouds of Lethe dull,and from the swallow of drad Unitie.And from an all-consuming Deitie.What now remains, but since we are so sureof endlesse life, that to true pietieWe bend our minds, and make our conscience pure,Lest living Night in bitter darknesse us immure.38

This conclusion summarizes what More thinks he accomplishes in the Philo-sophicall Poems. First, More rescues the soul from a number of arguments that render it mortal, or at least no longer personally immortal. He argues primarily against accounts that rely on Aristotle, although he does consider other ancient schools. Second, the upshot of the discussion is that now that


we are convinced of the immortality of the soul, we should live in true piety. The conclusion also highlights one last aspect of the poems, that of the role of conscience in the afterlife.

What is it about the afterlife that we should fear? Each individual will be judged by his or her conscience. Conscience will prick the individuals who have been evil because their soul will not be able to escape the body completely. In contrast, individuals who have lived a good life will have access to the higher knowledge that was not available when one was trapped in a body.

More came to realize that poetry is not the most effective medium for dealing with the challenges of mechanical philosophy and the science of his day. In later works he develops his reactions to mechanical philosophy and clarifi es his positions on the above issues in prose. I turn now to his mature treatment of these issues in his appraisal of Descartes and Hobbes.

I begin with More’s correspondence with Descartes, and continue with his discussion of Descartes in other works. As Alan Gabbey points out, all of More’s mature criticisms of Descartes are found in nascent state in the correspondence.39 In his correspondence with Clerselier about publishing the correspondence between Descartes and himself, it is apparent that More thinks highly of Descartes, especially because Descartes’ philosophy can be of use to theologians. He thinks that Descartes has shown that it is not possible that the human soul is mortal. As we saw earlier, this is some-thing that More affi rms as fundamental to religion and morality. But More is also clear that he does not endorse all aspects of Descartes’ work.

More had already read the Principles of Philosophy, Dioptrics, Meteors, and the Meditations when he initiated the correspondence with Descartes. He is full of glowing praise for Descartes. But he has reservations and questions, some of which bear on the issue of the immortality of the soul. For exam-ple, More wants to know more about the status of animals, brutes, and angels. He inquires for more details about the interactions between the mind and body, asking “How is that the immaterial and the material inter-act?” And More presses Descartes on his identifi cation of the attributes of individual substances and their essences.40

Descartes responds to some of these concerns by suggesting that he will explain them in the Passions of the Soul. When More is not convinced by the explanations he fi nds there, he writes his own analysis of these issues in the Immortality of the Soul.

More is well known for his concern with Descartes’ treatment of animals. He asks, if animals do not have souls, but are only matter, then how do they move? For More matter is inert and cannot move itself. Only souls


can move. Yet animals quite clearly move themselves. More thus resists Descartes’ mechanistic treatment of the vegetative and sensitive souls. Instead, all souls are immaterial and indivisible. More’s commitment to the great chain of being shows here as he claims that were the lower souls material the great chain of being would be disrupted.

More sees Descartes as a fellow journeyman along the anti-Aristotelian anti-atheist road and embraces him as such. However, he does not accept Descartes’ philosophy wholeheartedly. Although More may have been infl u-ential in the introduction of Descartes’ work to England,41 he himself was never a Cartesian. More’s enthusiasm for Cartesian philosophy as a support for theology fades when he realizes that it leads to atheism in hands other than Descartes’.42 This position is best expressed in his mature prose work, where he turns explicitly against the Cartesian mechanistic philosophy because of its atheistic tendencies.

More’s prose works, such as The Immortality of the Soul, are much easier to follow than his poetry. The arguments are better developed and are situ-ated in the contemporary scene in opposition to Hobbes, Descartes, and Spinoza, among others. More traces the impetus of the work to his reading Descartes’ Passions of the Soul while in Luxemburg.43 In the Passions, Descartes discusses the interaction between the mind and the body more technically than he does in the Meditations. It is to some of these remarks or lines of thought that More reacts as they do not adequately respond to his previous concerns.

As with his Philosophical Poems, in The Immortality of the Soul much of the clarifi cation of More’s position comes about as a result of arguing against competing positions. Although he does formulate a positive position, there are many more pages devoted to attempting to demolish the opponent. His primary opponent in Immortality is Thomas Hobbes. A secondary opponent is the Puritans. A tertiary opponent is Descartes and the Cartesians.

In the Preface to the work, More considers some of the objections that might be raised to his position. He begins by explaining the title and taking on two types of potential critics: those who think the soul to be mortal (like Hobbes), and those who think that the soul’s immortality is grounded not in the natural life of reason but in revelation. To the fi rst, he claims that on the basis of the rational grounds he sets down, he makes the stronger case. To the second, he points out that he is offering “as clear a Proof as Natural Reason can afford us44.”45 The work is intended “to handle the matter only within the bounds of Natural Light, unassisted and unguided by any miraculous Revelation46.”47 He does not intend for his work to replace faith, but to augment it. He is, as is characteristic of the Cambridge Platonists,


sure that faith and reason should not be inconsistent and that reason has a place in theology, contra those who rely on revelation alone, such as the Puritans.

More’s strategy as laid out in the Preface is to use one of Hobbes’ own premises against him. More intends to show that Hobbes’ argument leads to the conclusion that there actually are immaterial substances in the world, contra Hobbes and his supporters.48 He will do this by focusing on alleged problems with Hobbes’ account of perception. In the Preface, More names Aristotle’s disciple, Pomponatius, as someone who denies the order of things, including demons and angels. Pomponazzi, as he is more usually known, was an Alexandrian mortalist. More claims that it is because of a lack of belief in the incorporeal vehicles for angels, demons, and soul, that there is a perceived gap in the order of nature, and thus support for the Psychopannychites or mortalists. More is thus returning to an objection and the familiar territory he considered in the Poems. As in his poetry, More refutes the heretical position by appealing to his account of memory. “For there is necessarily comprehended in Memory a sense or perception that we have had a perception or sense afore of the thing which we conceive ourselves to remember.”49 What makes a memory “mine” is that I perceive that I have had this perception before. More also returns to a strategy used in the Poems when he points out that individuals do not feel each others’ perceptions, as one would expect if we shared but one soul. In short, More claims that the Aristotelians do not save the phenomena.

The most important aspect of the work is that More in his relatively unscientifi c understanding of how things work argues that an immaterial soul is needed to explain perception. He draws on Descartes for support of this position, but argues against Descartes in other areas. More links his analysis of immortality to the faculties of the souls, as he had in his early poetry. He will use as well empirical reasons to support his position. More thinks that Cartesian philosophy is a wonderful account of some things in the world, but that its defi cits reveal the need for immaterial spirits of the sort denied by Descartes, and thus prove God.50

More rejects the mechanical solutions/accounts of memory and imagina-tion that Descartes had put forward because he does not think that the aperture of the brain is suffi cient to represent the Object for it could not represent the colors of the object, but only the fi gure of it.51 Further he rejects the apparent materialization of memory that Descartes seems committed to. As he says:

Besides, a man may bring a hundred Objects, and expose them to our view at the same distance, the Eye keeping exactly in the same posture,


insomuch that it shall be necessary for these images to take up the very same place of the Brain, and yet there shall be a distinct remembrance of all these; which is impossible, if there be no Soul in us, but all be mere Matter. The same may be said of so many Names or Words levell’d if you will out of a trunk into the Eare kept accurately in the same posture, so that the Sound shall beat perpetually upon the same parts of the Organ, yet if there be fi ve hundred of them, there may be a distinct mem-ory for every one of them; which is a power perfectly beyond the bounds of mere Matter, for there would be a necessary confusion of all.52

This problem with memory is not unique to More. How memory works, and whether the physical organ of the brain is large enough to contain all of our memories is a hot topic in the seventeenth century.53 More thus draws on contemporary accounts of perception and memory. He thinks that given the way we experience color and memories, there must be an immaterial mind.

More thinks he has discovered the nature of the soul, that it is a substance distinct from the body.54 But the question naturally arises, what about the souls of brutes? Are their souls too immortal? More refers to the Appendix to his Antidote Against Atheism, where he summarizes his conclusion there as “that they are properly no more immortal then the stupid Matter, which never perishes, and that out of a terrestrial Body they may have no more sense than it. For all these things are as it pleases the fi rst Creatour of them.”55 More thus agrees with Descartes that animals are not immortal, but it is because they will not be able to sense when their soul is separated from matter and not because they lack souls.

I turn now to More’s treatment of Thomas Hobbes.More begins a sustained response to Hobbes’ materialism in Book 1,

chapter 3 of the Immortality of the Soul. Hobbes claims in Leviathan that the notion of “incorporeal substances” is inconsistent and absurd. More sees this argument as being the root of Hobbes’ and others’ denial of the immortality of the soul. Thus it is one of the major claims that More fi nds necessary to confute in order to establish his position and to save morality.

More focuses on the argument Hobbes gives in Leviathan, discussed earlier in Chapter 3 that the soul is material. More defi nes “Spirit” as a penetrable substance that is indiscerpible. Bodies are substances that are inpenetrable and discerpible:

I will defi ne therefore a Spirit in generall thus, A substance penetrable and indiscerpible. The fi tness of which Defi nition will be the better understood,


if we divide Substance in generall into these fi rst kindes, viz. Body and Spirit, and then defi ne Body to be A Substance impenetrable and discerpible. Whence the contrary kind to this is fi tly defi ned, A Substance penetrable and indiscerpible.56

What does More mean by this? For something to be discerpible is for it to be capable of being divided. For something to be indiscerpible is for it to be incapable of being divided. Spirits thus are indivisible and are penetrable. Bodies are divisible but impenetrable. “Penetrable” is not the same thing as Descartes’ “extension” as spirits can be penetrated by matter within their extension. More continues:

2. Now I appeal to any man that can set aside prejudice, and has the free use of has Faculties, whether every term in the Defi nition of a Spirit be not as intelligible and congruous to Reason, as in that of a Body. For the precise Notion of Substance is the same in both, in which, I conceive, is comprised Extension and Activity either connate or communicated. For Matter it self once moved can move other Matter And it is easy to understand what Penetrable is as Impenetrable, and what Indiscerpible as Discerpible and Penetrability and Indiscerpibility being as immediate to Spirit, as Inpenetrability and Discerpibility to Body, there is as much reason to be given for the Attributes of the one as of the other, by Axiome 9.57

In this response to Hobbes, More wants to establish that the essence of matter and spirit is not what Hobbes and Descartes take it to be. More thinks that each has gotten it wrong, and thus they have been unable to account adequately for our experiences.

More argues that Hobbes’ denial of immaterial substances leads to dire consequences:

From whence are insinuated no better Consequences then these: That it is impossible that there should be any God, or soul, or Angel, Good or Bad; or any Immortality or Life to come. That there is no Religion, no Piety nor Impiety, no Vertue nor Vice, Justice nor Injustice, but what it pleases him that has the longest Sword to call so. That there is no Freedome of Will, nor consequently any Rational remorse of Conscience in any Being whatsoever, but that all that is, is nothing but Matter and corporeal Motion; and that therefore every trace of mans life is as neces-sary as the tracts of Lightning and the fallings of Thunder; the blind


impetus of the matter breaking through or being stopt every where, with as certain and determinate necessity as the course of a Torrent after mighty storms and showers of Rain.58

More thus sees that what he takes to be the problems of materialism fl ow from the denial of immaterial substance. His mandate seems clear: show that materialism is fl awed, and thus save religion and morality. More sees the primary task as establishing the possibility of immaterial substance in such a way that even the materialist must grant it. He does this in two ways, by providing a positive argument and by denying their arguments. More then argues for the actuality of immaterial substances.

First, in his negative approach to materialism, More rejects Hobbes’ argument that “incorporeal body” is a contradiction and nonsensical. To do this, More presents in Hobbes’ own words Hobbes’ argument that incor poreal substance is inconsistent. More then systematically responds to Hobbes. More begins with chapter 34 of Leviathan, discussed in the previous chapter. More responds to Hobbes’ argument:

We have set down the chiefest passages in the Writings of Mr. Hobbs, that confi dent Exploder of Immaterial Substances out of the world. It remains now that we examine them, and see whether the force of his Arguments bears any proportion to the fi rmness of his belief, or rather mis-belief, concerning these things. To strip therefore the fi rst Excerption of that long Ambages of words, and to reduce it to a more plain and compendi-ous forme of reasoning, the force of his Argument lies thus: That seeing every thing in the Universe is Body (the Universe being nothing else but an Aggregate of Bodies) Body and Substance are but names of one and the same thing it being called Body as it fi lls a place, and Substance as it is the subject of several Alterations and Accidents. Wherefore Body and Substance being all one, Incorporeal substance is no better sense then an Incorporeal Body, which is a contradiction in the very termes. But it is plain to all the world that this is not to prove, but to suppose what is to be proved, That the Universe is nothing else but an Aggregate of Bodies: When he has proved that, we will acknowledge the sequel; till then, he has proved nothing, and therefore this fi rst argumentation must pass for nought.59

More thus accuses Hobbes of begging the question in this argument: he has assumed what is at issue. Hobbes has assumed that the universe is nothing but an aggregate of bodies. Of course one might wonder if More has not


committed the same error: of assuming that the universe requires an aggregate of souls.

After proving to his satisfaction the possibility of immaterial spirit, More takes the next step of trying to prove that it is really and actually in nature. He uses three distinct arguments for this: the fi rst is from the notion of God, that God is incorporeal. If God is incorporeal, then there are immate-rial spirits. The second is from the phenomena of nature, motion. More argues that given the nature of matter as being utterly devoid of motion in itself, the motion must come from some other substance, this other substance is incorporeal substance. The fi nal argument draws on the phe-nomena of apparitions or ghosts. More takes seriously the existence of ghosts and spirits (as do many other learned men of his time, including Robert Boyle). This is part of his proofs that there is incorporeal substance, an afterlife, and God.

In Book II, More extends the argument. His argument in Book I fi rst shows the possibility of immaterial substance, and then the actuality of immaterial substance. In Book II, More argues that there are immaterial substances, or souls, in humans.

Here More argues for the soul in general by considering faculties or operations we are conscious of in ourselves that are incompatible with matter considered in general without any particular organization. He then argues more particularly by examining the body of man and its operations and faculties. To formulate these two arguments, More adds some axioms to his system. Of particular interest is axiom 20, which he claims even Hobbes must endorse:

Axiom XX: Motion or Re-action of one part of the Matter against another, or at least a due continuance thereof, is really one and the same with Sense and Perception, if there be any Sense or perception in matter.60

Support for this axiom comes in the Preface:

For it is plain in Sensation, there being alwayes external motion from objects when our Senses are affected. And that inward Cogitation is thus performed, appears from the heat that Thinking casts a man into: Where-fore generally all Cogitation is accompanied with motion corporeal. And if there be nothing but Body or Matter in the World, Cogitation it self is really the same thing with Corporeal Motion.

Axiom XXI: So far as this continued Re-action reaches, so far reaches Sense or Perception, and no further.61


Using these two axioms, as well as his preceding system, More points out that it follows that any matter can have sense: so any matter can have per-ceptions, including rocks and trees. This is clearly absurd for More. His strategy is further to show that the materialist position does not account for our conscious actions. It does not account well for memory and the other actions most commonly associated with the rational soul in Renaissance psychology.

More thinks that he has thus overcome Hobbesian materialism because he has exorcised its main demon, the denial of immaterial substance. Once the possibility of such substance is admitted, More’s Neoplatonic system is seen to be superior in accounting for the phenomena of our conscious experience. But before this conclusion can be drawn, More considers alternate accounts that allow immaterial substance so that he can argue that his account of the nature of it will be seen as superior. He considers and rejects Descartes’ account of immaterial substance because of its problems with memory and color. Thus More appeals to the phenomena to show why both Hobbes and Descartes are incorrect in their mechanistic accounts of perception.

More considers the objection to his position that if souls do subsist after death, then what is to prevent them from being reborn into bodies? More responds:

[this] is an option so wild and extravagent, that a wry mouth and a loud laughter (the Argument that every Fool is able to use) is suffi cient to silence it and dash it out of countenance. . . . No wise man can ever harbour such a conceit as this, which every Idiot is able to confute by consulting but with his own Memory. For he is sure, if he had been before, he could remember something of that life past. Besides the uncon-ceivableness of the Approach and Entrance of these praeexistent Souls into the Matter that they are to actuate.62

More thus appeals again to experience to support the view that there is no transmigration of souls after death. One problem with this is that More himself believes in the preexistence of souls. It is because of the actions of a soul prior to being born that a soul merits the circumstances into which it is born. Is it possible for the soul to remember why it deserves its current circumstances? This point is potentially quite problematic for More.

In this section, I highlighted More’s analysis of the immortality of the soul. More focuses on experience in his analysis. He refutes or confutes the positions of those who deny the immortality of the soul by giving an account


of memory to ensure individuation of the soul after death in a state suitable for the punishment earned here. I turn now to John Locke and his treat-ment of More’s philosophy in the Essay and in his discussion of personal identity.

II. Locke on the Cambridge Platonists

Although educated at Oxford, John Locke was familiar with the Cambridge Platonist movement. One indication is Locke’s possession of many of their books in his library.63 A second indication is his circle of friends including Damaris Cudworth (daughter of Ralph Cudworth) and Robert Boyle. A third is that in the Essay he is particularly motivated to argue against innate ideas, a position held and argued for by the Platonists.64

Locke was a good friend of Damaris Cudworth, Lady Masham, the daughter of Ralph Cudworth. Locke corresponded with her65 even when he traveled on offi cial business and was in exile in Holland. It has been suggested that he seriously contemplated marriage with her. During the last thirteen years of his life (which is the time period in which he supervised the second, third, and fourth editions of the Essay), he lived on the Masham estate, Oates. He died at Oates in 1704 while Lady Masham read Psalms aloud to him. Damaris Cudworth was clearly familiar with the Cambridge Platonists’ main works, including Henry More,66 and even gave a few of them to Locke (including a book by Henry More).67 In the fi nal analysis she herself is not a Cambridge Platonist.68 She is interested in philosophy and publishes two treatises that others thought to have been written by Locke. She also corresponded with Leibniz about both her father’s work and Locke’s work. Because of Locke’s connection with Damaris Cudworth, we can be reasonably certain that he was familiar with the Cambridge Platonist movement in its particulars. He may even have even studied the movement to discuss some of the issues with her.69 Certainly, Damaris Cudworth dis-cussed the movement and individuals in the movement with him in their correspondence.

In particular, Locke and Cudworth had long discussions about John Smith’s Select Discourses.70 Locke seems to be looking for something that he does not fi nd in Smith on the subject of immortality.71 After reading Smith’s works Locke wrote the journal entry in February 1682 that explicitly links immortality to identity and substance discussed in Chapter 1. John Worthington, in the preface to Select Discourses, recommends to readers who want a more detailed discussion of immortality to read Henry More.72


It is signifi cant that Cudworth gave a copy of More’s Immortality of the Soul to Locke.73 It is plausible to suggest that Locke might have followed up on the suggestion of Worthington if he had the book available.

Locke is an associate of Robert Boyle, as is explored in greater detail in the next chapter.74 Henry More interprets some of Boyle’s hydrostatic experiments in a way Boyle thinks clearly inappropriate.75 More claims that Boyle’s experiments proved the existence of the immaterial Spirit of Nature.76 As discussed by Gabbey, More claims that mechanistic explana-tions such as those offered by Boyle and Descartes can go only so far, and where they fail, God is needed. Locke, who had in his library the published exchanges in question, must have been familiar with the dispute between his friend and the Platonist. Robert Boyle is also Damaris Cudworth’s doctor, which draws the circle even closer.

Thus, there is evidence to suggest that Locke is familiar with the Cam-bridge Platonists and Henry More in particular. I turn now to the Essay to examine specifi cally Locke’s discussion of personal identity and related subjects.

First, and most importantly, Locke rejects the main account or concern of More. More is committed to proving the immortality of the soul based on its immaterial nature. He thinks that all he has to do is to prove the possibility and then actuality of incorporeal substance, and the personal immortality of the soul will follow. The primary motivation for this is to save morality. Without the fear of Hell or bodily torment, humans are not inclined to act well. More thus specifi cally connects immortality and immateriality to morality.

Locke denies these connections. Locke suggests that knowing the nature of the soul, which he does not want to comment on, is not necessary to assure public morality. This suggestion is an early one from his 1682 journal entry discussed in Chapter 1. Locke includes his more mature refl ections on this subject in the Essay. The crucial passage in Book 4, chapter 3, section 6 is present in the fi rst edition, but is expanded on later editions in a revealing way.

Locke begins by making the claim that there are questions that humans cannot resolve including the question of the nature of the soul. The resources expended on trying to resolve this insoluble question could be better spent in advancing human knowledge. Locke thus chastises the Platonists, materialists, and dualists as spinning their wheels on the question.

Locke believes that we cannot resolve the question because he holds that it is possible that God could have given some “systems of matter fi tly dis-posed, a power to perceive and think, or else joined and fi xed to matter so


disposed a thinking immaterial substance.”77 Locke cites in support of this claim that the effects of motion are only motion. It is clear that the motion of particles on parts of the body produce the motions of pain and pleasure, or color or sound. God has annexed effects, pain and pleasure, to motions in a way that we do not understand. As we do not understand perception, we cannot rule out that God could do the same to a subject that is not immaterial. Locke does not claim that God has done so, but only that God could, given the limitation of our knowledge. The arguments that individuals use to debate the nature of the soul that draw on motion and perception to support the immateriality of the soul are ineffective. Thus Locke rejects Henry More’s rejection of Thomas Hobbes based on percep-tion and motion.

But Locke does not want to lessen belief in the soul’s immateriality or immortality. Rather, he wants to show that the immateriality and immortal-ity of the soul have not been demonstrated, and that they might not be things that can be demonstrated. Locke concludes:

All the great Ends of Morality and Religion are well enough secured, without philosophical Proofs of the Soul’s Immateriality; since it is evident, that he who made us at the beginning to subsist here, sensible intelligent Beings, and for several years continued us in such a state, can and will restore us to the like state of Sensibility in another World, and make us capable there to receive the Retribution he has designed to men, according to their doings in this life. And therefore ’tis not of such mighty necessity to determine one way or t’other, as some, over-zealous for or against the Immateriality of the soul, have been forward to make the World believe.78 [in bold added after the fi rst edition]

Locke thus thinks that morality and religion do not need a philosophical proof of the soul’s immateriality. It is not because it is wrong of philosophy to comment on this theological subject (as some Protestants hold) that Locke says this. Rather it is because God can restore us to a like sensibility in another world. And there we will receive our retribution for activities we do here. That God can and will do so is what grounds morality and religion, for Locke.

How will this sensibility be restored to us? And what relation does this belief have to the nature of the soul? The answers to these questions are in Locke’s discussion of personal identity. I turn now to this discussion to show that it refl ects the controversy about the nature of the soul, and specifi cally the issues raised by More.


One place where Locke refl ects an acquaintance with More is in his consideration of preexistence. This is a doctrine that Henry More advocates as do others during this time, some of whom advocate a more extreme version that Locke attacks.

All those who hold pre-existence, are evidently of this Mind, since they allow the Soul to have no remaining consciousness of what it did in that pre-existent State, either wholly separate from Body, or informing any other Body; and if they should not, ’tis plain Experience would be against them. So that personal Identity reaching no farther than consciousness reaches, a pre-existent Spirit not having continued so many Ages in a state of Silence, must needs make different Persons. Suppose a Christian Platonist or Pythagorean, should upon God’s having ended all his Works of Creation the Seventh Day, think his Soul hath existed ever since; and should imagine it has revolved in several Humane bodies, as I once met with one, who was persuaded his had been the Soul of Socrates.79

Locke makes the same qualifi cation that More does, that we do not have memories of a preexistent state. Yet there is a big difference between the two. Locke thinks that only if we can appropriate a past action, will we be responsible for the actions that we did in that state. This is not the case for More. Here is Locke’s claim:

And therefore whatever past Actions it cannot reconcile or appropriate to that present self by consciousness, it can be no more concerned in, than if they had never been done: And to receive Pleasure or Pain, i.e. Reward or Punishment, on the account of any such Action, is all one as to be made happy or miserable in its fi rst being, without any demerit at all. For supposing a Man punish’d now for what he had done in another Life, whereof he could be made to have no consciousness at all, what differ-ence is there between that Punishment and being created miserable?80

This passage is critical of More and of others, who have punishment affi xed to an individual who may not remember the actions done to merit it.

Locke’s distinctions between humans, persons, and substances make good sense when placed against the backdrop of the controversy over the nature of substance. He repeatedly draws attention to problems that arise for personal identity if it is sited either in a material substance or in an immaterial substance. The problems that he points to are many as I have shown.


What Locke draws from this is that personal identity, or the identity of a responsible moral agent, is not found in substances. Rather, it is found in consciousness and the appropriation of actions to one’s self. It may not be immediately apparent, but the objection that Locke makes here cuts directly to More’s account of the afterlife. If you are punished for activities you do on earth, then it seems that there should be some memory of them. Otherwise, as Locke points out, you might as well be created in a state of pain. This can be seen as a rejection of More’s attempt to exonerate God for creating individuals who go to Hell, as well as of More’s account of the afterlife. For More, if you live a bad life, then you sink into Lethe’s lake where you lose your memories of innate ideas, and are tormented. This is also a problem for the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory, in that it implies that what is punished is not the whole person but only the intellectual soul for there are no memories of personal actions.

Locke seems to accept one move of More’s (and other Platonists), that of allowing conscience to play a signifi cant role in the afterlife. As Locke says: “but in the great day, wherein the secrets of all hearts shall be laid open, it may be reasonable to think, no one shall be made to answer for what he knows nothing of; but shall receive his doom, his conscience accusing or excusing him.”81 Individuals will be held accountable for the actions each did, and the conscience will determine what the doom or payment is—although how long that consciousness will last may be an issue.

In conclusion, it is not surprising in light of the controversy about the nature of the soul and the roles that memory, perception, and immortality each play in it, that Locke’s treatment of personal identity refl ects some of these debates. Locke was clearly familiar with the main arguments advanced by the participants and saw his work as providing closure and a new opportunity for the advancement of human knowledge.

Chapter 5

Robert Boyle: On Seeds, Cannibalism, and the Resurrection of the Body

John Locke’s ambition in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, as expressed in his Epistle to the Reader, is to be employed “as an under labourer in clearing the ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge.”1 In so doing he will support those whom he sees as the great master builders of the commonwealth of learning—Isaac Newton, Christian Huygens, Thomas Sydenham, and his friend, Robert Boyle. Locke clearly sees that the work that philosophers need to do is to clear away “the rubbish of mistaken and unintelligible words” taken from philosophy for use in the sciences. Such rubbish includes “substance” and “nature.”

Unlike his relationships with Henry More, Rene Descartes, and Thomas Hobbes, Locke knows Robert Boyle quite well. They fi rst meet in Oxford in 1660 and their relationship continues until Boyle’s death in 1691. Locke assists on occasion in Boyle’s laboratory and keeps up correspondence with him during his travels, even undertaking side trips to make specifi c observations on his behalf. After Boyle’s death, Locke ensures the publica-tion of Boyle’s History of Air and serves as one of the executors for Boyle’s chemical writings and laboratory materials. In this latter capacity he inter-acts with Isaac Newton who, like Boyle, is keenly interested in alchemy, and hopes to obtain some of Boyle’s “red earth” for his own experimental use. The relationship between Locke and Boyle was thus professional as well as personal. That Locke is infl uenced by Boyle in many ways is clear.

In this chapter, I argue that Boyle’s approach to science (including alchemy) and its relation to theology and God is in general infl uential on Locke in the formulation of his understanding of science and philosophy and their relation to theology. And I suggest that Locke’s analysis of personal identity in specifi c is infl uenced by Boyle’s work in science and theology and the reaction to Boyle’s work. I begin with an overview of the life of Robert Boyle, the Christian virtuoso, stressing the importance of


experiments, in particular that on the vacuum, to his work. I then discuss in detail Boyle’s essay “On the Resurrection of the Body” as it is here that the scientifi c and theological explicitly meet in his work. And it is here that Locke is infl uenced by Boyle’s work both in defense of parts of it but also in reaction to it in his own work in later years.

I. Robert Boyle: Lay Theologian and Scientist, a Christian Virtuoso

Robert Boyle (1627–91) is classifi ed as a corpuscularian mechanist. Put simply this means that he thinks that the ultimate explanatory model for phenomenon is based on the movement of the smallest parts which move in accord with mechanical principles. His corpuscularian analysis is similar to and infl uenced by both Gassendian and Cartesian analyses of matter. He develops and supports his analysis with the experiments he performs himself and those of others he observes or reads about.

As the youngest son of one of the richest and most infl uential men in Britain, Boyle had access to resources for education and travel, and later for setting up his own laboratory. Educated at home and then at Eton, he never formally attended college although he was a member of the “Invisible College” in London before moving to Oxford. Because of a profound and dramatic conversion experience during a thunderstorm as a young man, Boyle is quite religious and is scrupulous in his religious observance.2 There is no question among his commentators of his sincerity in his commitment to God. His clear commitment to theism indeed distinguishes his work in his scientifi c and philosophical enterprises. Compared with Descartes, Hobbes and More, Boyle is the most committed to a scientifi c outlook that is in accord with his developed understanding of a Christian God.

When Boyle moves to Oxford in 1655 he joins an active group of natural philosophers. In this setting he encounters Pierre Gassendi’s and Descartes’ work as well as that of their followers. He is infl uenced deeply by Descartes’ methodology (as well as that of Bacon). Ultimately his method and practice of it is his own, as Rose Mary Sargent argues in The Diffi dent Naturalist: Robert Boyle and the Philosophy of Experiment. Boyle moves to London in 1668. There he performs the experiments for which he is best known, including those on the vacuum. And it is in this period of his life that he enters into public controversy with others. He is moved to defend his work, experiments, and method from the use, or more accurately the misuse, of them by others. Of particular interest are his responses to Thomas Hobbes and Henry More.

Robert Boyle and the Resurrection of the Body 103

Boyle’s Origin of Forms and Qualities is often cited as important in the formation of Locke. In this work, Boyle is explicitly anti-Aristotelian and develops his account of primary and secondary qualities. One advantage of Aristotelian metaphysics is that it allows a prominent place for God as creator of a world fi lled with purpose. As the Aristotelian theory of sub-stantial forms is rejected and replaced with a mechanistic account an articu-lation of the nature of God is required. Such an account needs to explain how God works with the world through mechanistic principles, not in defi ance of them, if it is to be successful for theists. And in Boyle, we see an unabashed man of faith rejecting the Aristotelianism of his day and replacing it with the mechanistic account known as corpuscularianism. He does this while defi ning the work of science as a way to understand God.

Boyle’s scientifi c work is distinctive in its focus on experimentation and observation. Boyle observes the world carefully. He conducts experiments and publishes the results of them, even those that did not work out as predicted. In this way, he seeks to gain a better understanding of how the world works, and how God works in the world. And he seeks to share this understanding with others. This focus on the observable is characteristic of his approach. He does not often enter into speculation of what the underly-ing metaphysics must be, but what they may possibly be. While Boyle’s gas laws are what he is known for today, it is his experiments and work with the vacuum that is among his most signifi cant and controversial con-tributions to the science of his day. And it was this work that drew the wrath of Hobbes. His observation and discussion of spirits in conjunction with the vacuum draw the interest of Henry More.

Boyle is provoked into public controversy when his New Experiments Touching the Spring of the Air is criticized by Thomas Hobbes, among others. Breaking with his usual avoidance of controversy, Boyle replies at length to Hobbes, as chronicled by Shapin and Schaeffer in Leviathan and the Air Pump. The core of the disagreement is a difference in experimental method and the conclusions about the underlying metaphysics that one could draw. For Boyle the method of science is driven by experiments. He believes that a scientist should do the experiment, observe the results, and then develop the theory. Essentially scientists are discovering the world. And when done properly, it results in certainty, according to Boyle. Hobbes disagrees. Hobbes argues that Boyle’s method does not lead to certain matters of fact about the world. Such certainty is impossible based solely on observation and experiment. That Hobbes disagrees with Boyle and Boyle’s method is, in some ways, not surprising. Hobbes, according to philosophical legend, came to study philosophy after discovering a copy


of Euclid’s Geometry lying face open on the table. Struck by the way that geometrical proofs are constructed, he emulates (when possible and appro-priate) that model of deductive presentation in his own work. So Boyle’s inductive method is at its core in disagreement with Hobbes’ method. In addition, Hobbes thinks the right characterization of the world is one where a vacuum is impossible. He is a plenist. And so he claims that what we cannot see or observe we can infer to exist, and we call that matter “subtle matter.” And without subtle matter Hobbes’ explanation of percep-tion does not work, as discussed in Chapter 3. Hobbes’ scientifi c theories were infl uential in England and Hobbes rightly sees Boyle’s corpuscularian as competition for them. And yet, the debate over how best to characterize the smallest units of matter is not one that Boyle wanted to have.

As a corpuscularian, Boyle is committed to a basic unit of matter. In his Origin of Forms and Qualities he gives an overview of ten points that charac-terize this view.3 Boyle begins there by claiming that natural bodies are extended and impenetrable substances. Ultimately there is only one kind of stuff that composes the physical world—not four kinds as the Aristotelians hypothesized. What differentiates a material thing from other types of matter is motion. When God created the world, motion was added to undifferentiated matter and thus particles were formed. At the micro level, where the natural philosophers work, are what Boyle calls “minima naturalia.” These are the least parts ordinarily created by natural processes and are quite small. While they are conceptually divisible and divisible by God, in practice they are not divisible. They thus function much like atoms and when they cluster together they are much like molecules. The clusters and minima naturalia are corpuscles and are the foundational units for a cospuscularian explanation. Once a corpuscle’s “texture,” which includes its size, shape and motions of the component corpuscles, is known, we know the intrinsic features of the corpuscle. The qualities that we sense such as color and heat are not actually found in a body. Rather they are the result of the body (and its texture) on our perceptions. This analysis is similar to the primary/secondary distinction developed by Locke. And it is likely that Boyle’s discussion of the distinction, like Locke’s, owes something to Galileo’s work.

Boyle’s mechanistic analysis of the world is quite different from that of the Aristotelians. An example helps to highlight the difference between the types of explanation. Consider a piece of gold. What makes a piece of matter a piece of gold according to an Aristotelian is that it has the right sort of substantial form informing the matter. The piece of gold becomes a piece of gold when the substantial form is acquired. The piece of gold


ceases to be a piece of gold when the substantial form is lost. But how the acquisition and loss of the form occurs is very mysterious and obscure. This mysteriousness is especially problematic for an individual, such as an alchemist, who hopes to control the change such that lead can be changed into gold and vice versa. For a corpuscularian mechanist what makes a piece of gold a piece of gold is its texture. This means that the source of the observable qualities of the gold is its size, shape, and motion of the component corpuscles. The gold comes into being when the texture is right, and ceases to be observed as gold when its texture changes. Now it may be that we cannot yet observe the texture of the corpuscles. But conceptually it seems possible that such observations could occur. Further, it is the sensible qualities of a thing that allow us to sort things into kinds and these qualities are such that they might be changed. And so potentially we can manipulate the texture of a body to change it from one observable kind of thing into another. By changing the motion or other aspects of the component corpuscles, lead could be transmuted into gold. And so the alchemist is neither irrational nor unscientifi c in his or her quest.

In addition to responding to Hobbes, Boyle was moved to protect his work from the misuse of it by Henry More. Henry More, as we saw in the previous chapter, is an ardent believer in the existence of all types of spirit. For More, Boyle’s work on the vacuum demonstrates the existence of spirits in the world. This he sees as contributing to the great chain of being and thus demonstrating the immortality of the soul. But, although Boyle too believes in the existence of spirits he does not think that his work on the vacuum supported them. And he does not appreciate More using his work in this way.4 The evidence is clear that More used Boyle’s work without permission. In his response to More, Boyle tries to keep the dispute in the natural philosophical realm and does not venture into a discussion of More’s neoplatonism. This is likely because he saw More as a potential ally and supporter as both are members of the Royal Society. And both are working against the Hobbists and atheists to support a theistic inter-pretation of the world. Boyle rightly sees More as infl uential within the circle of scientists who desired that their theology and philosophy support the emerging science and vice versa.

Boyle sees himself not just as a scientist. He sees and presents himself as a lay theologian too. In this capacity, he critically engages with scripture. In his studies and publications, he articulates a way to understand passages from scripture and to explain them such that faith and reason need not be in confl ict. And while he avoids controversy, as Wojcik has shown, he also does engage in some religious controversies—particularly that of


determining the relation of human reason to the mysteries of Christianity. To put it more simply, he tries to articulate the relation between reason (philosophy and science) and faith (revelation). Such a topic was of keen interest to himself and to all natural philosophers, especially as the counter and counter-counter reformation was taking place in England during his life.

It is useful to understand the basics of Boyle’s distinction between reason and faith. Articulated in his 1681 Discourse of Things above Reason, Boyle claims that there are limits to human reason. He believes that only God has infi nite reason. So there are aspects of the world which humans cannot ever understand. At the same time, there are aspects of the world which humans can understand and ought to explore properly. It is in exploring the knowable world that one comes to know and understand God. As a committed theist, Boyle believes that one ought to know and understand God as far as possible. God is depicted as a master craftsman and artifi cer. As Cook sees it, Boyle’s discussion of observations and experiments is used to provide the evidence that the world created by God operates according to mechanistic principles.5 And because the principles are knowable, so too in some way is God. Boyle sees God’s providence everywhere, in chance encounters as well as in the laboratory. He sees experiments as a way to come to understand better how God works. Classifi ed as a “voluntarist” because he holds that God’s will is more powerful than His intellect, Boyle sees everything as depending on God. The world could have been com-pletely different because God could have chosen to do things quite differ-ently. A different set of mechanistic principles could underlie the world. And yet, having established the world we can come to better understand God through careful observation of the world that was created. And we can also understand better how and where God relates to the world by examining carefully the revelations from God in the Bible. The Bible is seen by Boyle as containing parts of the history of God’s creation. For Boyle then the study of science does not lead to atheism. Rather it leads to a better understanding of God. This basic belief in the consistency of science and faith leads Boyle to explore a number of theological issues in addition to scientifi c ones. And it also makes him keenly aware of the need to ground his science in such a way that it does not lead to atheism on the part of others.

In A Discourse of Things Above Reason, Boyle discusses the nature of God. And in Advices about Things Transcending Reason, Boyle disagrees explicitly with Hobbes about the nature of God. Hobbes, as discussed in Chapter 3 claims that the nature of God is that God is a corporeal substance. Boyle


responds: “Upon which account it is, that tho we do not fully comprehend what God is, yet knowing by the clear Light of Nature (and if we be Christians) believing it upon the account of Revelation, that he is a Being Intelligent and infi nitely perfect, we may safely deny against Epicurus, Vorstius, and Mr. Hobbes, that he is a Corporeal Substance, as also that he is Mortal, or Corruptible.”6 In the same work, he advises that just because something is not completely understood, does not mean that it must believed to be false. Of course, using revelation and the clear light of reason to respond to Hobbes is perhaps not the most scientifi c or convincing response. Another strategy that Boyle and others use to respond to Hobbes and other materialists was that of trying to demonstrate the existence of spiritual or supernatural beings.7 This is why More’s work was of interest to Boyle. And also why Boyle’s work was of interest to More. And indeed even the alchemists’ work was of interest as it can be seen as supporting the existence of spirits, as the philosopher’s stone, the holy grail of alchemy, had among its properties that it could be used to verify the existence of spirits. Thus the boundary between the things above reason and the things below was not always as clearly drawn as one might wish. And the way that observation and scientifi c experiments are used in support of such things is not what a modern reader might expect, as will be seen in the next section.

II. Boyle on Scripture, Cannibalism, and the Possibility of Bodily Resurrection

Boyle believes that one can be a Christian and a natural philosopher. He writes and publishes (under the name T. E. A. Lay-Man) “Some Consi-derations about the Reconcileableness of Reason and Religion.” Appended to it is an essay about the possibility of bodily resurrection. Boyle’s use of scripture and the way that he handled the inquiry about bodily resurrection was quite infl uential on Locke, if only because he had need to defend Boyle’s analysis as well as his own more developed response. At core is a discussion of what the role of reason is in regard to religious “mysteries” as revealed in scripture and the role of substance in science and theology.

In his essay “Some Considerations about the Reconcialeableness of Reason and Religion” Robert Boyle is not overly concerned with the immor-tality of the immaterial soul. But appended is “Some Physico-Theological Considerations about the Possibility of the Resurrection.” This essay was solicited from Boyle by an unidentifi ed “friend.” The question that was put


to Boyle and to which he responds is “Whether to believe the Resurrection of the Dead, which the Christian Religion teaches, be not to believe an impossibility?”8 In his extended response, Boyle combines scientifi c observations, scriptural interpretation, and philosophical reasoning to show that the resurrection of the body is possible.

Boyle begins with the qualifi cation that his response is not meant to demonstrate that bodily resurrection must occur. As he says, had it not been revealed in scripture, he would never have thought that it would occur. But he believes that it will occur because he believes it is within God’s power for it to occur. He continues with the qualifi cation that his account of the possibility of the resurrection is not going to be one that is purely physical as the general resurrection will occur by the power of God and not in the ordinary course of nature. The general resurrection is thus dependent on the power of God, just as was the conception of Jesus. Citing Luke, Boyle claims that the conception of Jesus shows that a small portion of human substance can be produced in a supernatural way, without the intervention of humans. As the angel in Luke tells Mary “nothing shall prove impossible to God.” A third qualifi cation is that Boyle is focusing on what is plainly taught in the scriptures. He is not focusing on responding to a particular Christian sect’s teachings about the Resurrection or a particular theologian’s teaching about it.

With these qualifi cations set, Boyle turns to some very philosophical considerations to lay the groundwork to respond to probable objections that the “friend” might have with his account. Boyle begins with a deter-mination of “what is absolutely necessary but is suffi cient to make a portion of Matter, consider’d at differing times or places, to be fi t reputed the same body.9 Being well aware that bodies change over time, he parallels his discussion with that of the identities of cities and fl ames—entities which change signifi cantly over time and yet are said to be the same. To resolve how this is, he examines what identity consists in. In his response he says “and even in Metaphysicks themselves, I think it determine, what is the true Principle of Individuation.” Next he references a classic question for scientists about the sameness of water when it is in its liquid or solid form. When a piece of ice melts, it is clearly the same substance even though almost all of the observable qualities or attributes have changed. Boyle rejects that identity is the denominating quality or attribute of a substance. Rather the account of the identity of the substance must be given in terms of the qualities that the substance has. A substance can change qualities quite signifi cantly, and yet be the same substance.


His second consideration is that it is consistent with scripture “that a comparatively small quantity of the matter of a Body, being increas’d either by Assimilation or other convenient Apposition of aptly disposed matter, may bear the name of the former Body”.10 Boyle considers three passages where a small quantity of matter is increased by assimilation or addition of new matter and is acknowledged as the same body as the original. In the discussion of these passages, Boyle references similar observations from natural philosophers about the observable world. First Boyle discusses chapter 15 of Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians, emphasizing verse 37: “That which thou sowest, thou sowest not that Body that shall be; but bare Grain, it may chance of Wheat, or of some other Grain.”11 He takes this passage to show that what is sown is not a particular type of grain. Rather what is sown can become potentially a number of different bodies. This idea of the seed is a basic idea of Boyle’s analysis not only of bodies in resurrection but also in his analysis of nature. One characteristic of Boyle’s scientifi c work is his emphasis on observation, as discussed in the previous section. So it is not surprising that he uses an observation of a friend to support his analysis of seeds generating a body, even after the body has been apparently destroyed. He writes: “A friend took ashes of a plant similar to an English red Poppy. And he sowed this ashes in the garden. And from this grew larger plants than had been seen.”12 The conclusion that Boyle draws is that “a plastick power remained in the matter that had been fi red, and so the body could reproduce”. This “plastick power” is a seed. The second passage is that of the story of Adam and Eve from the second chapter of Genesis. Boyle reads the passage literally. And so to Adam’s rib God adds a quantity of either newly created or preexistent matter to create Eve. Thus God has the power to create a full body from a part of a body—even if that part of the body was previously someone else’s. And in so doing a new individual is created. The same piece of matter can thus become more than one body. The third passage is that of Ezekiel’s Vision of “an Army of living Men” where previously had been a valley full of dry bones. From those bones arise living men through the agency of God. Again, although God furnishes a great portion of matter, the individual that arises is the same as the original individual. There is continuity through the bones.

Of note is that all of these created bodies clearly depend on God for their existence. And Boyle, as we saw above, is careful to not claim that this is exactly how God did, does, or will do such things. Rather it is an account of how such activities are possible given what we have observed of the world and have learned about God through scripture and observation


of the world. The possibility is in contrast to those who argue that the resurrection of the body is impossible.

Boyle sees the possibility of the resurrection of the body as needing to be established to counter two concerns. The fi rst concern that leads to disbelief in the possibility of the resurrection is the observation that when bodies die they undergo signifi cant decay and even when alive are con-stantly undergoing change. This means that body parts (both large and very small) can be scattered and lost. And this leads directly to the second concern that some parts of the body might well be consumed by animals, and potentially other humans. When a body part is consumed, it is appar-ently transmuted into the body of another. The diffi culty seems clear: it seems plausible that a body could be completely consumed and that noth-ing unique to it would remain. Essentially the fi rst substance would become a second substance. If then two individuals are to be restored it would be impossible for them both to be restored with their unique body. The body would seem to no longer be the fi rst person’s body. It is now completely the second person’s body. It appears indistinguishable. As Boyle puts it “or that any footsteps should remain of the Relation it had to the fi rst Possessor.”13 The diffi culty seems obvious for a Christian.

To these concerns Boyle has a number of well-developed responses that draw on scientifi c observations. He answers these critics not through scripture (as it is unlikely that it would convince them) but rather through the use of reason. His fi rst response is to point out that the human body can be compared to a statue or other artifact. But unlike a statue, it is made out of a material that is constantly changing at a level that we cannot see. The human body is in perpetual transition. As we eat, drink, and excrete the substance or material of the body is changing. And yet, there are some parts of the body—the bones—that are of a “stable and lasting Texture.” As was known then, bones do survive fi re and other assaults. From this he concludes that it is not some determinate amount of matter necessary to make a human body the same. A very small portion of matter might well be suffi cient if they “are of a stable and lasting texture.”14

His second response is “there is no determinate Bulk or Size that is necessary to make a human Body pass for the same, and that a very small portion of Matter will sometimes serve the turn.” He gives the example of a human embryo in the womb being the same person as a “new born Babe, A Man at his full stature, and a decrepit Man of perhaps an hundred years old.” Clearly he was aware of how humans develop. It is the embryo or seed which grows and incorporates other matter into it which remains the same. And there may well be that some of the matter is the same from


the beginning. What the embryo or seed does is give form to the matter—not as the Aristotelians had posited, but rather in that it organizes the matter in the maintenance of a common life.

Third is the claim that bodies can consist of corpuscles that have been associated with other bodies. And although they have been associated with other bodies, have retained their own original nature. This particular response is reinforced with an interesting example from alchemy, as well as ones from gastronomy. Boyle observes that Gold can be dissolved in aqua Regis, a mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acid. This “water of the king” is capable of dissolving gold, the noble metal. Later the gold can be reconstituted. Boyle suggests that this can happen because the gold corpuscles have been but disguised or hidden. In similar fashion Boyle cites butter which has taken on the taste of the weeds that the cows consumed, birds that eat fi sh as a mainstay of their diet and so taste fi shy, hogs that have been fattened with shellfi sh and so taste of shellfi sh, and humans who when they eat prickly pears pass red urine. What these examples, drawn from the laboratory as well as observation of common experiences, demon-strate is that a particle or a corpuscle of a body can retain its nature under various disguises, and under the right circumstances may be stripped of those disguises. It is not too much of a stretch of the imagination then for us to think it possible for God to do this at the resurrection.

Boyle believes that all bodies are made up of one common matter. He invokes the prime matter of the schools. But what makes one piece of matter separate from another is not a substantial form. Rather it is its mechanical affectations—its motion, size, position—its “texture.” And if someone were to watch a particular piece of matter as it changed or was mingled with other matter, it would be possible for it to be extracted from what it has become and become what it had previously been.15 Having established that it is possible for a body to go through a number of signi fi cant alterations, but still be the same as (or be revertible to) the original, Boyle is careful to qualify his claims. He is not suggesting that this is exactly how God will recreate bodies at the resurrection, only that it is possible that He do so. Boyle sees that it is possible for God to restore or reproduce a human body for the resurrection and that this body could be united with its former soul. And further, that it would then be possible for God to transform that body into the type of body that Paul describes in Corinthians. This is like what happens with a candle that has been blown out, and then relit. As Boyle puts it in the fi nal sentence “For in the twinkling of an Eye, an opacous, dark, languid, and stinking smoke loses all its stink, and is changed into a most active penetrant and


shining Body.”16 The change of texture of a portion of matter is within the power of God.

Thus Boyle’s discussion of the resurrection of the body is one which utilizes his core mechanistic corpuscularian theories. It is one that draws primarily on a plain reading of scripture. And it is one that does not con-strain or require of God that a particular analysis of substance or matter be the one that is utilized, ultimately. Boyle’s discussion of these matters was not without infl uence, or controversy, as we see briefl y in the next section.

III. Boyle’s Infl uence on Locke

Boyle’s infl uence on Locke’s work in personal identity is quite signifi cant. There are a number of similarities between them in their analysis of the resurrection—their approach to scripture, their understanding of the resurrection as something that is above reason, their corpuscularianism, and their systematic presentation on the issues involved in the resurrection. And yet, Locke moves away from Boyle’s position to one that is not based on the body even while defending Boyle’s work from attack.

As we saw in the fi st chapter, Locke’s discussions of the Epistles of St Paul focus primarily on scripture itself. As a protestant (of some variant) he, like Boyle, was concerned to focus on scripture alone and not as it had been interpreted by a particular council, or a particular sect of Christianity, or a particular theologian. This is not to say that Locke was not aware of all of these and was not infl uenced by them. Indeed as Wainright points out, Locke’s interleaved Bible shows many references to theologians and philosophers—including Newton.17 But in his presentation of the material, he focuses on what scripture says.

Like Boyle, Locke sees the resurrection as something above reason. As he defi nes it, this means that reason can be used to explain it. And like Boyle, Locke is concerned to explain the resurrection in a way that antici-pates and responds to the concerns raised by others. And in a way that coheres with his own philosophical commitments. And it is in this way that Locke moves beyond Boyle’s analysis, as will be discussed shortly. Locke moves the focus from the resurrection of the body to the resurrection of the dead. He does so quite explicitly in his exchange with Edward Stillingfl eet, Bishop of Worcester.

Like Boyle, Locke is a corpuscularian. Unlike Boyle, he does not enter into many scientifi c experiments nor do his publications feature extensive


discussions of them. Rather Locke focuses on the philosophical underla-boring. In the Essay, his work on “substance” and “nature” and “power” can be seen as supporting Boyle’s work. And it perhaps meant to defend it as well. And it should perhaps be noted that by not committing to a particular underlying metaphysics of substance, Locke tries to escape the very tedious debates that such commitments had led to in English theological circles.

Finally, like Boyle, Locke’s analysis of personal identity focuses initially on the problem of the principium individuationis for individual bodies. The discussion of a human body is more complicated than one of an entity that does not change. And like Boyle, Locke gives an analysis of what it takes for the human body to remain the same through the changes that naturally occur. For Locke, as we saw in the fi rst chapter, it is participation in the same organized life. But unlike Boyle, Locke does not stop with the discus-sion of the human body. For Locke, it is the person that is transformed at the resurrection and what follows and this is the account that he is at pains to provide.

What occasions this change in focus? I think that the simplest explana-tion is that Locke is not concerned to establish the resurrection of the body. He reads the scriptures not as promising the same resurrection of the same body. Instead, he focuses on the passages and sees that they promise the resurrection of the dead. This explanation is reinforced by a short examination of Locke’s exchange with Edward Stillingfl eet about personal identity.

After the publication of the Essay, Stillingfl eet initially has few problems with its contents. And then his position changes dramatically. He re-reads the Essay and sees that upon closer examination (especially of the sections that are added after the fi rst Edition) that it has implications for theolo-gical topics, especially for those dealing with the Trinity. He sees that the Socinians and other heretical groups might fi nd that their anti-Trinitarian positions could be supported by Locke’s reasoning. And Stillingfl eet is quite anti anti-Trinitarian.

In the controversy that follows, it is clear that Stillingfl eet hopes to establish the resurrection of the same body. And when he reads Locke’s account, he does not seem to be convinced of Locke’s position on it. In his analysis, Stillingfl eet raises such questions as “Is your perspiration part of your body?” and “What if a fat man has consumption and becomes quite thin before he dies?” And he, like Boyle and others, focuses on the grain of wheat discussion in Corinthians to provide a scriptural support for his analysis of the same body. In Locke’s replies, he points out that Stillingfl eet


has misunderstood his position and Boyle’s. And indeed, Stillingfl eet seems to be committed to a rather unusual understanding of the Corinthians passage whereas the seed reproduces itself as it grows. Locke says:

For I never thought of any seed or seminal parts, either of plant or animal, “so wonderfully improved by the providence of God,” whereby the same plant or animal should beget itself; nor ever heard, that it was by divine Providence designed to produce the same individual, but for the producing of future and distinct individuals, for the continuation of the same.18

Locke continues later in the passage by pointing out that St Paul was talking about the sensible grain. And that because he did not know about micro-scopes, he would not have known about the “little embryo plant in the seed.” Locke also is at pains to reinforce that the idea of the same man is not that he has the same body, something that he had been quite explicit about in the Essay. As he says:

your lordship says it is as much the same [I crave leave to add body] “as a man grown up is the same,” (same what, I beseech your lordship?) “with the embryo in the womb.” For that the body of the embryo in the womb, and the body of the man grown up, is the same body, I think no one will say; unless he can persuade himself that a body, that is not an hundredth part of another, is the same with that other; which I think no one will do, till, having renounced this dangerous way by ideas of thinking and reasoning, he has learnt to say that a part and the whole are the same.19

Locke is thus reinforcing his account which has the identity conditions depend on the type of thing that is being identifi ed. The same man need not have the same physical body over his lifetime. The same plant need not have the same physical body over its lifetime. Rather, the plant will need to partake in the same organized life. And the human will need to partake in the same organized life.

It seems plausible then to suggest that Locke, having observed and par-ticipated in the theological skirmishes of various sorts, when confronted with this challenge is quite clearly going to give an analysis that does not fall back into being committed to a particular analysis of matter or substance or to a particular theological school. He reiterates his position on personal identity. And indeed we can see that by focusing on personhood, he hopes


to rise above the issues of bodily resurrection. And that in the way that he does this, he will perhaps contribute to making a philosophical problem less sectarian so as to help ground the new science, which had been the goal of the Essay all along.

The response to Stillingfl eet highlights that Locke has moved beyond Boyle. He has moved into the discussion of personal immortality. He has moved into the discussion of what it takes for an individual to be a moral agent and to be held responsible as a moral agent at the last Judgment. And in so doing he neatly sidesteps those concerns which mire theological debate in discussions of bodies and substance instead of in behavior and actions. And so Locke sees that by focusing on persons and not bodies that public morality and private morality is preserved.

Chapter 6

Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity in Its Context: A Reassessment of

Classic Objections

As seen in the previous chapters, Locke’s theory of personal identity is written in response to the discussions of personal immortality and bodily resurrection by some of his contemporaries. Simply put, Locke argues that an account of personal identity that turns on substance, be it immaterial or material, is inadequate. In Chapter 1 I gave an overview of the scholastic problem of the principium individuationis and linked it conceptually to the doctrines of personal immortality and bodily resurrection. I then developed a general interpretation of Locke’s theory of personal identity based on An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, chapter 27. In the subse-quent chapters, I explored four distinct discussions of personal immortality and bodily resurrection emphasizing those aspects most infl uential on Locke. In those chapters, I showed how Locke is infl uenced by Cartesianism, Hobbesian materialism, Cambridge Platonism and Boyle’s corpuscularian mechanism in the development of his theory of personal identity. In par-ticular, the infl uence is apparent in Locke’s development of “person” as a forensic concept and in his treatment of the importance of memory to punishment and reward. In this chapter, I demonstrate that by placing Locke’s theory in this context, Locke can be seen to have new resources to draw on in his response to three common philosophical criticisms made of his theory.

In the fi rst section, I canvas several current discussions of personal identity by philosophers who treat Locke’s theory. I focus on three com-monly cited “fatal” objections that go back to his near contemporaries.

I. An Overview of Three Alleged Fatal Flaws

A version of Locke’s theory is often used as a starting point for contempo-rary discussions of personal identity. Such commentators generally invoke

Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity 117

Locke as the progenitor of the modern version of the problem and then proceed quickly to dismiss his solution as fl awed. They see this as clearing the way for a modern assessment of this problem and a reformulation of a proper response, sometimes loosely based on Locke’s treatment of the problem.1 The fl aws alleged of Locke are multiple, but by far the three most common are those that trace to two early critics of Locke, Bishop Joseph Butler and Thomas Reid.

Locke’s theory of personal identity is usually presented as a psychological theory. On one such view, personal identity is determined and constituted by memory. For example, if A remembers doing X, then A is the same person who did X.2 On a second view, personal identity is said to depend on the continuity of consciousness. A is the same person as B just if A has a continuous consciousness with B, with continuity being defi ned in a variety of ways.3 There are, of course, other ways of representing Locke’s theory as a psychological one. But these two seem to be taken as the standard interpretation of Locke by contemporary philosophers. Three common objections or criticisms of his theory are based on these two interpretations.4

The fi rst and most commonly cited objection concerns the role memory plays in Locke’s theory of personal identity. This objection is credited to Thomas Reid, who focuses on the problem of fading memories. Brian Garrett succinctly puts the objection this way:

Memories fade as people get older. Thus the following scenario is quite common: where “C,” “B,” and “A” name the same person at different times, C remembers B’s experiences, B remembers A’s experiences, yet C is too old to remember A’s experiences. But Locke’s theory cannot give a consistent description of this case. Since C remembers B’s experiences, and B remembers A’s, it follows, on Locke’s theory, that C is B and the B is A. Since identity is transitive, it follows that C is A (C is the same person as A). But since C cannot remember A’s experiences, it follows, on Locke’s theory, that C is not the same person as A. Hence, on Locke’s theory, C both is and is not the same person as A.5

This problem, sometimes referred to as the transitivity of identity pro-blem, is taken to show that Locke’s theory is fatally fl awed. It is suggested that on any theory of identity, personal or otherwise, identity must be transitive—if A is identical to B, and B is identical to C, then A is identical to C. Locke appears to deny this because of his reliance on memory. I expand this objection in the next section where I develop Reid’s case of the brave offi cer.


The second criticism directed against Locke’s theory is credited to Bishop Joseph Butler. Bishop Butler writes in criticism of Locke:

And one should really think it self-evident, that consciousness of personal identity presupposes, and cannot therefore constitute, personal identity any more than knowledge, in any other case, can constitute truth, which it presupposes.6

Butler, according to John Perry, suggests that personal identity is primitive and thus that Locke’s attempt to analyze personal identity by using personal identity is circular. I address this problem of circularity in the third section, where I discuss its motivation by considering a case of “false” memories.

The third criticism is also credited to Butler. Butler claims that Locke’s explanation of personal identity is such “as to render the inquiry concern-ing a future life of no consequence at all to us.”7 Butler claims that there is nothing in Locke’s account of personal identity to explain why I care what happens to me tomorrow. This criticism cuts deep to the heart of the pro-blem. Why should you care now about what may happen to your future self, given that you are a constantly changing entity? I consider this question in Section IV not only for Locke but also for Descartes, Hobbes, and More.

I now examine these three criticisms. Using the insights gained from the study of Locke’s predecessors and his reaction to them, I develop a response to each on Locke’s behalf. For each criticism, I detail a contemporary example or case that highlights the proposed problem for Locke and use the case to focus Locke’s defense.

II. Reid’s Problem: The Brave Offi cer and the Transitivity of Identity

In this section, I consider the problem Reid raises for Locke. I begin by formulating Reid’s problem. I then show how my interpretation of Locke’s theory responds to it and cases like it, including the formulation by Brian Garrett above.

The problem Reid raises for Locke is often referred to as the “brave offi cer objection.” In Essays on the Intellectual Powers, Reid begins by referring to Locke’s defi nition of “person.”8 He then draws a conclusion from this defi nition about how a person remains the same over time:

He [Locke] observes, very justly, that to know what is meant by the same person, we must consider what the word person stands for; and he defi nes


a person to be an intelligent being, endowed with reason and with con-sciousness, which last he thinks inseparable from thought.

From this defi nition of a person, it must necessarily follow, that, while the intelligent being continues to exist and to be intelligent, it must be the same person. To say that the intelligent being is the person, and yet that the person ceases to exist, while the intelligent being continues, or that the person continues while the intelligent being ceases to exist, is to my apprehension a manifest contradiction.9

Notice that Reid’s rendering of Locke’s understanding of “person” is different from Locke’s defi nition of “person” as a moral agent:

Person, as I take it, is the name for this self. Wherever a Man fi nds what he calls himself, there I think another may say is the same Person. It is a Forensick Term appropriating Actions and their Merit; and so belongs only to intelligent Agents capable of a Law, and Happiness and Misery.10

“Person” is for Locke a term not about humans or thinking intelligent beings, but rather about agents capable of a law, happiness, and misery, who are the appropriate recipients of praise and punishment for actions done by them in their capacity as an agent. While persons must be thinking intelligent beings, “personhood” derives not from being an intelligent or a thinking thing, but rather from being an entity capable of a law (such as the one “written on the heart”), happiness, and misery. While intelligence is necessary for being a person, it is not suffi cient. Thus to ask about the iden-tity of a person over time for Locke is not to ask about the continuance of a thinking intelligent being, but rather to ask about the continuance of an agent responsible for an action. There is a difference in the two. Locke continues in the passage:

And therefore whatever past Actions it cannot reconcile or appropriate to that present self by consciousness, it can be no more concerned in, than if they had never been done: And to receive Pleasure or Pain, i.e. Reward or Punishment, on the account of any such action, is all one as to be made happy or miserable in its fi rst being, without any demerit at all.11

This is clear enough. If you can appropriate to your present self an action or reconcile to yourself an action, then your present self is rightfully pun-ished or blamed for that action. If you cannot appropriate to your present self that action or reconcile to your present self that action, then you are


not the person who did that action. Thus, you should not be punished for the action. The issue is how the appropriation or reconciliation of an action is accomplished. Locke says:

For it being the same consciousness that makes a Man be himself to himself, personal Identity depends on that only, whether it be annexed solely to one individual Substance, or can be continued in a Succession of several Substances. For as far as any intelligent Being can repeat the Idea of any past Action with the same consciousness it had of it at fi rst, and with the same consciousness it has of any present Action: So far it is the same personal self.12

Locke’s theory of appropriation or reconciliation is based on an intelligent being repeating or replaying the idea(s) of a past action. If the intelligent being repeats it now with the consciousness he or she has of a present action, then he or she is the same person who did that action. But if one cannot repeat the past action with the awareness that the present self did it, then one is not now the person who did that action. Or in other words, if the present consciousness of the individual cannot extend back to that action and the self thus appropriate the action, the individual cannot be responsible for it.

Reid understands these passages to mean that the identity of a person can be affi xed at a given time to a thinking being or a human or a substance by the act of appropriation of memories. That is, that a thinking being or human is identical to the person. He treats “person” as a persisting entity like “substance” or “man.” This is clearer in his counterexample of the brave soldier. This counterexample highlights one of the problem-atic aspects of Locke’s theory for Reid, the reliance on memories that may fade:

there is another consequence of this doctrine, which follows no less necessarily, though Mr. Locke probably did not see it. It is, that a man may be, and at the same time not be, the person that did a particular action.

Suppose a brave offi cer to have been fl ogged when a boy at school, for robbing an orchard, to have taken a standard from the enemy in his fi rst campaign, and to have been made a general in advanced life: Suppose also, which must be admitted to be possible, that, when he took the stan-dard, he was conscious of his having been fl ogged at school, and that when made a general he was conscious of his taking the standard, but had absolutely lost the consciousness of his fl ogging.


These things being supposed, it follows, from Mr. Locke’s doctrine, that he who was fl ogged at school is the same person who took the stan-dard, and that he who took the standard is the same person who was made general. Whence it follows, if there be any truth in logic, that the general is the same person with him who was fl ogged at school. But the general’s consciousness does not reach so far back as his fl ogging—therefore, according to Mr. Locke’s doctrine, he is not the person who was fl ogged. Therefore, the general is, and at the same time is not the same person with him who was fl ogged at school.13

I schematize Reid’s argument as follows:

1. To be the same person is to appropriate the actions of the person who did that action.

2. At t1, a person is fl ogged.3. At t2, a person captures a standard at just the same moment as he is

appropriating to himself the action of being fl ogged. (Perhaps he thinks to himself, “Wow, who would have thought that I who was fl ogged would be a hero in battle.”)

4. Thus the person at t2, is the same person as the person at t1.5. At t3, a person becomes a general at just the same moment as he appro-

priates to himself the action of capturing the standard. (Perhaps he thinks to himself, “Wow, who would have thought when I captured the standard, that I would become general someday.”)

6. Thus the person at t3 is the same person as the person at t1, by the transitivity of identity.

7. But the person at t3, even when pressed, cannot appropriate to himself the action of being fl ogged at t1. (Perhaps he thinks to himself “What are you talking about? I have no such recollection, though I recall the names of each of my teachers.)

8. And so the person at t3 is not the same person as the person at t1.

The contradiction of (6) and (8) shows that there is something wrong with Locke’s argument. Most people agree that identity is transitive and thus that the problem is with Locke’s analysis of the identity of the person in premise (1).

The quandary that Reid raises for Locke is to account for how the general who is the same man as the soldier and the boy both is and is not the person who was fl ogged, given that the soldier has appropriated to himself the memories of the boy and the general appropriated to himself the memories


of the soldier. Reid’s concern is that most individuals do not or cannot appropriate to themselves everything that they have done, as the general cannot remember the incident from his childhood. Reid, and others such as Garrett, think of memory appropriation as being the same thing as memory. If you remember something then you have appropriated it to yourself. But, this is not Locke’s claim.

Locke does allow for problems with amnesia and is quite cognizant of the fact that individuals do not remember everything they have done in the past. But he does not think that this poses a problem for his theory of personal identity. As he says:

But yet possibly it will still be objected, suppose I wholly lose the memory of some parts of my Life beyond a possibility of retrieving them, so that perhaps I shall never be conscious of them again; yet am I not the same Person that did those Actions, had those thoughts that I once was con-scious of, though I have now forgot them? To which I answer, that we must here take notice what the word I is applied to: Which, in this case, is the Man only. And the same Man being presumed to be the same Person, I is easily here supposed to stand also for the same Person.14

Thus Locke might respond to the brave offi cer problem by claiming that Reid, among others, has confused “person” and “man” and their corre-sponding identities. Reid has misunderstood premise (1) and thus mis-applies it in premises (5) and (7). While personhood is determined by memory appropriation, as Locke understands it, all memories of a man are not appropriated or perhaps even appropriable at any given time while the man is alive. The identity of a person is fi xed at a time to a particular thinking intelligent being by the appropriation of memories. But this does not mean that that thinking being is the same person as long as it remains the same thinking being.

Locke’s analysis of personal identity is not concerned with substance, but about awareness of past actions. Locke uses the appropriation of memory to explain why responsibility accrues to a particular individual in the future, specifi cally after death. For Locke, an individual is responsible before God for what he or she can appropriate on the Day of Judgment. Before that time, the same man or thinking being might be different persons, that is, a consciousness connected to the same thinking thing in union with the same organized body might appropriate to itself different actions from the past.


Are you responsible for your actions of yesterday? Usually, yes. But does not it happen that people can change in signifi cant ways in short (or long periods) of time? Are you as an adult responsible for actions done as a child? Most people would agree not. To highlight this I need but alter Reid’s example slightly. Suppose the action that the boy did is that of stealing an apple and he was not caught at that time, and so, never fl ogged as punishment. This startling fact comes to light when he becomes general. The question is asked: Is the general responsible for the actions of the boy and thus should be punished accordingly?

The answer to the question is a judgment call on the part of those gathered to determine it. While we can ascertain that the general is a con-tinuous human with the boy who did indeed steal the apple, most would think that punishment now would serve little purpose, as it is obvious that he has already been reformed. Further, it is unclear whether punishing the general now would have a deterrent effect on his or others stealing apples in the future or whether retribution is served by holding the general responsible, but this case might be made by a determined prosecutor. Holding the general responsible is a matter of debate by the group. How they decide is based on the facts of the case before them, precedent, and theories of the role of punishment in society. There is no clearly correct answer to the problem.

The question that Locke is concerned with is: Will the general be held responsible for stealing the apple when he is resurrected and judged by his conscience on the Day of Judgment? Clearly if he cannot appropriate the action at that time he cannot hold himself responsible for it as the person who did the action. He might feel a sense of responsibility because he is the same man who did the action, but it would not be responsibility because of appropriation of the action. But, if having had “the secrets of the heart” restored to him, he now has access to the action and, on replaying it, recognizes his current self as the self who did that action and thus appropriates and reconciles it to himself, he will indeed be held responsible for it—although what punishment or doom his conscience would mete out I am not sure.

Thus, this altered case of the general and the boy highlights the essential difference between divine and human punishment in Locke and the role that the distinction between “man” and “person” plays in this regard.

Having considered Reid’s classic objection to Locke, I turn now to Butler’s allegations of circularity.


III. Locke and Butler on the Circularity of Explaining Personal Identity

In this section, I examine Butler’s allegation that Locke’s treatment of personal identity is circular. I use a case of false memories to motivate the claim. I then show how Locke might respond to this case and thus to Butler’s charge.

Butler criticizes Locke in his fi rst Appendix to The Analogy of Religion:

Now, when it is asked wherein personal identity consists, the answer should be the same as if it were asked, wherein consists similitude or equality; that all attempts to defi ne, would but perplex it. Yet there is no diffi culty at all in ascertaining the idea. For as, upon two triangles being compared or viewed together, there arises to the mind the idea of similitude; or upon twice two and four, the idea of equality; so likewise, upon comparing the consciousness of one’s self, or one’s own existence in any two moments; there as immediately arises to the mind the idea of personal identity. And as the two former comparisons not only give the idea of similitude and equality, but also shows us, that two triangles are like, and twice two and four are equal; so the latter comparison not only gives us the idea of personal identity but also shows us the identity of ourselves in those two moments; the present, suppose, and that immediately past; or the present, and that a month, a year, or twenty years past. Or in other words, by refl ect-ing upon that which is myself now, and that which was myself twenty years ago, I discern they are not two, but one and the same self.15

Butler draws from this the conclusion that any attempt to explain or defi ne personal identity, such as memory appropriation or continuity of consciousness, will involve the use of personal identity in a problematic way. Butler thinks instead, according to Perry, that personal identity is primitive like equality, a point I return to at the end of this section.

One way to see the alleged circularity of Locke’s position is to look at a case of false memories. These cases point to a contradiction that follows from Locke’s account. Consider this case:

Lily has recently been charged with murder on the basis of her con fession. Lily claims to remember doing the crime. There is scant circumstantial evidence to link her to it, but there is some. She is in no way coerced to confess. But in fact, it is not Lily who did the murder, it is Moe as a video graphically reveals later.


A contradiction arises in this case when we use memory as a privileged psychological relation ensuring personal identity and responsibility. How do we know it is Lily who did the action? She claims that she did it. But on what basis does she claim it? That she remembers it. How does she remember it? Because she did it. But she did not do it. On Locke’s theory, it appears that x is the person who did an action, and is thus responsible for it, if and only if x remembers doing the action. Lily has a memory of doing the action. Thus Lily is the person who did that action. But Lily is not the person who did the action, it was Moe. Thus Lily both is and is not the person who did that action. This is clearly contradictory.

What has gone wrong with Locke’s theory? One explanation is that problems like the Lily case show that memory is not suffi cient to explain personal identity because experience shows that claims of memory are not necessarily veridical. We do not decide between the genuine and apparent memory in the case of Lily by appealing to her inner conviction, because this is unreliable. We use more than the memory claims she provides. The evidence we use is the physical evidence of the video that does not link her to the crime. This suggests then that memory is not enough to ascribe personal identity and thus responsibility to Lily. We have to use a bodily criterion to ascribe responsibility and to assess judgment in cases even when someone remembers. This is because humans do not have access to other humans’ internal states. Thus Locke’s theory about memory appro-priation is said to be problematic because we need to invoke more than memory to explain cases like Lily’s. One cannot invoke personal identity on the basis of memory because of false memories.

The problem of false memories is, however, considered by Locke in the Essay, and he does not think it poses a challenge to his theory. He says:

But that which we call the same consciousness, not being the same indivi-dual Act, why one intellectual Substance may not have represented to it, as done by itself, what it never did, and was perhaps done by some other Agent, why, I say such a representation may not possibly be without reality of Matter of Fact, as well as several representations in Dreams are, which yet whilst dreaming we take for true, will be diffi cult to conclude from the Nature of things. And that it never is so, will by us, till we have clearer views of the Nature of thinking Substances, be best resolved into the Goodness of God, who as far as the Happiness or Misery of any of his sensible Creatures is concerned in it, will not by a fatal Errour of theirs transfer from one to another that consciousness which draws Reward or Punishment with it.16


Locke’s theory is about fi rst-person ascriptions of moral responsibility. The problem we have with Lily is that not being Lily, we do not have access to her fi rst person experiences. What we have access to is what she tells us and to the physical evidence. In short, we act as a human court and judge her on the basis of the facts before us. Rarely is it the case that an individual who confesses to a crime to which no forensic evidence links her is held responsible for the crime, although it is possible.17 What individuals other than Lily use to determine the veridical nature of her claims is not her memory, but rather other kinds of evidence available. Thus, Locke can offer an account of the Lily case in a way in which personal identity is not used in a circular way to determine responsibility.

It might be objected that the Lily case can be reformulated to focus on Lily’s experiences. She sincerely claims that she remembers and that she has appropriated this action just like she appropriated the action of eating lunch. She cannot tell the difference between the two appropriations, even after viewing the video that exonerates her. If she persists in her claim of responsibility, is this a problem for Locke?

No. How Lily will be judged on the Day of Judgment is different from how she is judged here. Then it will be what she can “really” appropriate to himself. Locke assures us that no one will be able to appropriate to himself actions he did not do, as the goodness of God will not allow it. This point is more important than it fi rst appears. It might seem that Locke is con-cerned only with the Lilies of the world, but in fact, the case of responsibi-lity for actions is also important in a theological debate related to personal immortality and the principium individuationis. It relates to the status of Christ in the Trinity and his role as Redeemer or Satisfi er for Adam’s and humanity’s sins. During the seventeenth century, the role of Christ’s Satis-faction is of great concern to the various Protestant sects. It speaks directly to the debate over the primary attribute of God in his relation to humans and the debate over faith and works. Is salvation a free gift from God to individuals (thus showing His mercy or grace), or is it the result of Christ’s death as satisfying the debt of original sin and other sins that we have repented of (thus showing His justice)?

I showed in Chapter 1 that Locke in his Paraphrase of the Epistles of St. Paul holds that Christ is the “fi rst fruits” of the sacrifi ce. His death and resurrec-tion makes it possible for individuals who die to be resurrected. Christ does not take on the role of satisfying the debt incurred by individuals. If Christ were to satisfy that debt, then he would have to appropriate to himself the actions for which he was being punished, otherwise he would be punished inappropriately. Locke does not think that God’s goodness allows this to


happen. God will not hold one person (Christ) responsible for another person’s (Moe’s) actions because God will not allow an individual to appro-priate to himself the actions of another on the Day of Judgment.18

Thus, one way to respond to the reformulated Lily case on Locke’s behalf is to suggest that God will not allow that to happen on the Day of Judgment—the day when it really matters what is appropriated by an individual. Instead on that day, “the secrets of the heart will be laid open.” No longer will an individual who had false memories like Lily be able to ascribe these actions to herself. Perhaps one of those secrets will be the realization that you had deluded yourself into remembering things that you had not done, and you will then hold yourself responsible for this action.

In the criticism that begins this section, Butler asserts that personal identity is primitive. The example Butler gives is that when we consider ourselves today and ourselves twenty years ago we see we are the same. But this is not a severe criticism of Locke. As discussed in Chapter 1, for Locke, the identity of x is determined by the comparison of ideas of x. If the two ideas do not differ (where what it takes to differ depends on what the idea is an idea of), then they are said to be the same. Identity is a relation like equality. But this does not mean that we cannot discuss the ideas that are being compared. This is what Locke does in his discussion of personal identity where he treats “person” as distinct from “man.” Thus the charge that identity is a primitive relation is not a telling criticism against Locke, nor is the charge of circularity.

I turn now to a closely related third criticism of Locke.

IV. Locke and Lack of Care for the Future Self

The fi nal objection often cited is that Locke’s analysis of personal identity, resting as it does in continuity of consciousness, gives individuals little reason to care for the fate of their future selves. Butler claims that Locke’s account of personal identity “renders the inquiry concerning a future life of no consequence,” because there is nothing in Locke’s account of personal identity to explain why I care what happens to me tomorrow. Locke’s theory, on Butler’s account, runs into diffi culties because con-sciousness is an action, and strictly speaking no two actions are the same. If what we compare when we inquire into the personhood of ourselves is the present consciousness with that of a past consciousness, we will see that consciousnesses are never the same.19 Thus the present person is never the same as a previous person. If this is the case, then why should


the present person be motivated by future punishments and rewards or receive them?

Butler is correct that Locke thinks that thoughts or actions are always diverse because they have different beginnings of existence.20 But does Locke make the claim that what we assess in our comparison of the idea of person is the activity of consciousness? Or do we compare a “self” made up of a conscious thinking thing sensible of happiness and misery, just as a tree made up of a living thing is what we compare when we determine the identity of the tree? Locke says:

Self is that conscious thinking thing (whatever Substance made up of whether Spiritual or Material, Simple or Compounded, it matters not), which is sensible, or conscious of Pleasure and Pain, capable of Happiness or Misery, and so is concerned for it self, as far as that conscious ness extends. . . That with which the consciousness of this present thinking thing can join itself, makes the same Person, and is one self with it, and with nothing else; and so attributes to itself, and owns all the Actions of that thing as its own, as far as that consciousness reaches, and no farther; as every one who refl ects will perceive.21

Locke says the consciousness of present thoughts and past thoughts serves the function of assessing responsibility of past actions for the self:

For it is by the consciousness it has of its present Thoughts and Actions, that it is self to it self now, and so will be the same self, as far as the same consciousness can extend to Actions past or to come; and would be by distance of Time, or change of Substance, no more two Persons, than a Man be two Men by wearing other Cloaths to Day than he did Yesterday, with a long or a short sleep between: The same consciousness uniting those distant Actions into the same Person, whatever Substances contri-buted to their Production.22

Locke uses consciousness to unite distant actions to the present self, just as the same common life of a tree unites the acorn with the full grown oak. Consciousness while likely dependent on an immaterial substance may not be because we do not know the nature of immaterial substance (or any substance). We do not have access to that which grounds or supports consciousness. But, we do not need to know the nature of consciousness to understand the nature of personal responsibility after death.

Thus, Butler asks Locke to supply what he cannot: an analysis of the nature of thinking and of consciousness. What Locke can supply is an


analysis of the self as dependent on consciousness. He can talk about what it is about the self and consciousness that makes one suitable for future punishment and about how this future punishment or reward motivates one or ought to motivate one. His point in doing this is to free the discus-sion from questions of the nature of consciousness and thinking.

I now contrast Locke’s theory with Descartes’, Hobbes’, More’s and Boyle’s on the question of concern for the future. How do the differing accounts of personal immortality motivate one in this life? Consider the case of Frank, who is contemplating yet another evil activity. He is a refl ective thinker and consults these thinkers about the probability of his personal survival after death. What advice might each give him? And how might it motivate him in regard to the activity?

Descartes might demonstrate to Frank that his soul or mind will likely survive the death of his body. Frank will either go straight to Hell, or spend a signifi cant time in Purgatory before eventually going to Heaven. In either case, his immediate fate is not likely to be pleasant. If Frank presses Descartes, Descartes may be forced to admit that in neither Hell nor Purgatory is it likely that he will experience bodily torments, for without a body, bodily torments are unlikely. Also it is unlikely that he will have any memory of his time here on earth and probably not of the particular action that he is now contemplating. Thus, Frank might think something like this: “My mind will survive the death of my body. I will spend time in Purgatory or I will go straight to Hell. In either case, it is my mind alone that survives, I won’t have a body, so bodily torments are out. I also won’t remember this particular action, but that is no loss. So my soul will be tormented. Big deal, how bad can it be without a body?” Because of Des-cartes’ account of the separability of the soul from the body, Frank is not motivated to avoid doing the action in this lifetime. While metaphysical individuality is maintained, self-hood seems likely lost.

Very differently from Descartes, Hobbes would advise Frank that his concern with an immaterial soul or spirit is misplaced. All that exists are material bodies. Thus, when the body dies, consciousness ends. Death is like a long sleep in which there are no dreams—or nightmares. At some point, Frank might be resurrected and his body reconstructed. At this time, he will probably be placed in Hell, his body will burn up shortly as the fl ames are rather hot. Thus Frank might think something like this: “After the death of my body, the soul sleeps. There is no continued consciousness. If Revelation turns out to be correct, then I will be resurrected after a great passage of time and my material body recreated. But Hobbes doesn’t seem too concerned with Revelation or esoteric church doctrines, so why should I? If it does occur, I will undoubtedly end up in Hell. But I will


burn up quickly as my body is not large. Also, why think that a recreated body will be me? If my mind is a material thing, then how can it be the same material thing when it is reconstituted—won’t some of my atoms have gone on and become parts of other people? Also, at what age will my body be reconstituted? I’m relatively young, and I expect to live another forty years. When I’m seventy fi ve, I probably won’t remember this action, and if I’m resurrected at age seventy fi ve I probably won’t remember this action.” Frank thus is not motivated to avoid doing the action in this life because of pain that may result from it after his death. This pain seems far removed from his current concerns.

Henry More would give Frank different advice. He would convince Frank that he is an immaterial, immortal soul. If Frank persists in his actions he will end up with a very unpleasant afterlife which is entirely his own fault. After death, he will molder in his grave and be pricked by his conscience. He will lose his memory of the intellectual truths and thus be far removed from God. Thus, when Frank leaves More, he might think something like this: “So I molder in the grave because my soul doesn’t ascend back to God. At least I won’t have access to the memories of this action. There will be pain, but it won’t be ‘me’ that experiences it—it will be my soul. On the other hand, if I refrain from this action, what is heaven like? Well, there too I won’t be ‘me,’ so I won’t be concerned about the action I am currently planning to do. I may have the delight of understanding mathematics and eternal truths, but this doesn’t seem like much of a reward to me.” Frank thus may not be motivated by this account to refrain from doing the action. The persistence of his immaterial soul is not enough to dissuade him.

And Robert Boyle would give different advice too. He would show Frank that some of his body would survive death. And that so on the Day of Judgment that body would be recreated so that the soul could be rejoined to it. And then depending on his merits, and it looks likely that they would be such that Frank would not gain Heaven, his body would not be transformed into a new celestial one. Frank should not count on a fi nal death to spare him from his punishment. He is going to end up tormented in Hell.

Finally, however John Locke shows Frank that it is not the persistence of the substance that he should be concerned about. Rather it is the persis-tence of the self independent of the substance in which it might adhere, be it material or immaterial. Even if Hobbes is right and Descartes wrong, there may well be the continuation of the individual self. Further, if revela-tion is right, then Frank will remember this action that he is contemplating doing as he is punished for it. He will have a body that can experience


torments and he will be conscious of those torments as they occur. He will not escape personal responsibility for his actions, although he may evade the law here on earth. On leaving Locke, Frank might think something like this “At bodily death, I die. But I am resurrected on the Day of Judg-ment after Jesus and the saints. At this time, I will hold myself accountable for this action. I will probably end up in Hell. I will be racked by pain and I will be aware of it. This sounds unpleasant. If I refrain from this action and reform my life, I may go to Heaven with my individuality preserved and in a cool new incorruptible body.” Locke’s advice based on his understand-ing of personal identity and its relation to the afterlife seems likely to be more motivating to Frank than the advice of the others because of Locke’s strong emphasis on the survival of the self and its use of memories.

Thus, Locke’s theory has an advantage over the others. He provides an account of a personal afterlife that a refl ective individual, like Frank, might accept. While Locke’s account is problematic, nevertheless in con-trast to the others of his time, it provides some reason to motivate people to be concerned with their future actions. Individuals who remember an action as the self who did that action, and who are rewarded or punished for doing it, may be dissuaded from doing this action. Thus, Butler’s criti-cism that Locke provides no reason for individuals to care about what will happen to them in the future misses the mark.

V. Conclusion

In writing his important treatment of personal identity, Locke responds to many competing assessments of personal immortality. He rejects them because their reliance on substance removes what seems necessary for responsibility—the awareness that the self did an action and is being rightfully punished for that action. This is signifi cant because Locke shifts the debate from a preoccupation over the nature of substance and the mind to a debate about personhood and the self in a way that refl ects others’ treatment of these issues. In my examination of this new context, I provide a better understanding of some of Locke’s most interesting commitments in his treatment of personal identity. Locke’s theory is not as simple minded or as open to easy objection as is often thought. I conclude that the three most commonly cited objections are, on the basis of the analyses I give above, not fatal to Locke’s theory of personal identity and immortality.

Notes

Introduction

1 Recent examples of this include works by Jan Wojcik, Robert Boyle and the Limits of Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), Peter Alexander, Ideas Qualities and Corpuscles: Locke and Boyle on the External World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), G. A. J. Rogers, “Hobbes Hidden Infl uence.” Perspectives on Thomas Hobbes. Ed. G. A. J. Rogers and Alan Ryan (Oxford: Claren-don Press, 1988), 189–206; “Introduction.” Leviathan: Contemporary Responses to the Political Theory of Thomas Hobbes (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1995); “Descartes and the English.” The Light of Nature: Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science Presented to A.C. Crombie. Ed. J. D. North and J. J. Roche (Dordrecht; Boston: M. Nijhoff, 1985), 281–302 and Marleen Rozemond, Descartes’s Dualism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998).

Chapter 1

1 For a discussion of the education offered by Oxford and Cambridge during this time see John Twigg, The University of Cambridge and the English Revolution, 1625–1688 (Cambridge: Boydell Press , 1990) and Nicholas Tyacke (ed.) Seventeenth-Century Oxford (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997). See Kenney W. Henry, “John Locke and the Oxford Training in Logic and Metaphysics” (Diss., St. Louis University, 1959) for an explicit account of Locke’s philosophical education at Oxford.

2 Letter 1579, December 22, 1692. John Locke, The Correspondence of John Locke, Ed. E. S. De Beer (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981, vol. 4), 601.

3 Letter 1592, January 20, 1693, Locke (1981, vol. 4), 623.4 In letter 1609, March 2, 1693, Locke (1981, vol. 4) 650, Molyneux suggests to

Locke that he insert a new chapter head on Principium Individuationis.5 See Jorge J. E. Gracia (ed.) Individuation in Scholasticism: The Later Middle Ages and

the Counter-Reformation (1150–1650) (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994) for a discussion of the many approaches taken to individuation and identity by the scholastics. In this work as well as his other works on individuation, Gracia carefully outlines the many related questions falling under the umbrella of the principium individuationis.

6 For a very useful account of how the two problems and the metaphors associated with each waxed and waned in the Middle Ages, see Caroline Walker Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995).

7 1 Cor. 15.52.

Notes 133

8 One reason that Epicurus historically has such a bad reputation is because he argues against the immortality of the soul. When Pierre Gassendi rehabilitates his philosophy, this is one aspect that he explicitly considers. For a full account of how Gassendi does this see Margaret J. Osler, “Baptizing Epicurean Atomism: Pierre Gassendi on the Immortality of the Soul.” Religion, Science and Worldview: Essays in Honor of Richard S. Westfall. Ed. Margaret J. Osler and Paul Lawrence Farber (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 163–83 and Divine Will and the Mechanical Philosophy: Gassendi and Descartes on Contingency and Necessity in the Created World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

9 The classic work on Purgatory and its relation to ancient and medieval thought is that of Jacques Le Goff, Naissance du Purgatoire, trans. Arthur Goldhammer, The Birth of Purgatory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984).

10 See Philip Almond, Heaven and Hell in Enlightenment England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) for an extensive analysis of key enlightenment thinkers’ handling of these issues.

11 See Norman T. Burns, Christian Mortalism from Tyndale to Milton (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972) and William M. Spellman, “Between Death and Judgement: Confl icting Images of the Afterlife in Late Seventeenth-Century English Eulogies.” Harvard Theological Review. 87 (1994): 49–66.

12 John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding in Four Books (London: Tho. Basset, 1690) Wing Collection 639:21, I.4.4.

13 Ibid.14 Ibid., II.1.11–12.15 Ibid., II.1.15. 16 A discussion of Smith’s work is found in John J. De Boer, The Theory of Knowledge

of the Cambridge Platonists (Madras: Methodist Publishing House, 1931).17 The relation of this passage to Cudworth was pointed out to me by Dr. James

Buickerood.18 Peter King, The Life and Letters of John Locke, with Extracts from his Journals

and Common-place Books (London: G. Bell, 1884), 128.19 King, 128.20 King, 129.21 Leonora Cohen Rosenfi eld, From Beast-Machine to Man-Machine; the Theme

of Animal Soul in French Letters from Descartes to La Mettrie. Preface by Paul Hazard (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940).

22 Kenneth Dewhurst, John Locke (1632–1704) Physician and Philosopher: A Medical Biography (London: Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 1963), 222–3.

23 Michael Ayers, Locke: Epistemology and Ontology (London and New York: Routledge, 1993) Part 2, 256.

24 See John Locke, A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul to the Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, Ephesians. Ed. Arthur W. Wainwright (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987). Wainwright’s introduction, especially pp. 11–18, gives an overview of the theologians Locke considers in the Paraphrase and the general style of paraphrases at this time.

25 Ibid., 246.26 Ibid., 255.27 Ibid., 251–2, fn 35*. 28 Ibid., 250, fn 20*.

134 Notes

29 Ibid., 679–84.30 D. P. Walker, The Decline of Hell: Seventeenth-Century Discussions of Eternal

Torment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964) catalogues this change in the depictions of the nature of Hell during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

31 The most signifi cant addition is Prince Maurice’s account of the parrot at II.27.8, added in the fourth edition.

32 John Locke (1979) II. 27.1. Hereafter this work will be referred to as Essay, followed by the book, chapter, and section numbers. This and all passages in this text are used with the permission of Oxford University Press.

33 Ibid.34 Essay, II.27.3.35 Essay, II.27.3. Suarez also advocates the principium individuationis as existence.36 Essay, II.27.3.37 Essay, II.27.4.38 Essay, II.27.5.39 Essay, II.27.6.40 Essay, II.27.7.41 Essay, II.27.9.42 Essay, II.27.14.43 Essay, II.27.15.44 Essay, II.27.22.45 Molyneux questions Locke about his handling of the drunkard in letter

1685, December 23, 1693 Locke (1989, vol. 4) 767. Locke responds to his concerns in Letter 1693, January 19, 1694, 785–6. This correspondence between the two is analyzed by Henry Allison, “Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity: A Re-examination.” Journal of the History of Ideas 27 (1966): 41–58; Paul Helm, “Did Locke Capitulate to Molyneux?” Journal of the History of Ideas 42 (1981): 669–71; and Henry Allison and Nicholas Jolley, “Locke’s Pyrrhic Victory.” Journal of the History of Ideas 42 (1981): 672–4.

46 This is illustrated by a jury decision in Arizona in the late 1990s. Scott Falater claimed to be sleepwalking when he killed his wife. Despite the testimony of experts supporting his claim, the jury found him guilty of murder.

47 Essay, II.27.26.

Chapter 2

1 See for example Henry Allison, “Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity: A Re-examination.” Journal of the History of Ideas 27 (1966): 41–58 and “Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity.” Locke on Human Understanding. Ed. I. C. Tipton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), and Antony Flew, “Locke and the Problem of Personal Identity.” Philosophy 26 (1951): 53–68. Each claims that Locke gives the fi rst formulation of the problem of personal identity and further that Locke’s treatment of the problem is fl awed.

2 Descartes’ (1991) letter to Mersenne, December 23, 1630 from Descartes, Rene, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes: The Correspondence, trans. John Cottingham,

Notes 135

Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, Anthony Kenny (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). Hereafter this work is referred to as CSMK. The passages from CSMK are used with permission of Cambridge University Press.

3 For a full account of Descartes’ life story, see Stephen Gaukroger, Descartes: An Intellectual Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995) and Genevieve Rodis Lewis, Descartes: His Life and Thought, trans. Jane Marie Todd (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998).

4 Richard A. Watson, The Breakdown of Cartesian Metaphysics (New Jersey: Humanities Press International, 1987), 155.

5 For example, Descartes courted different theologians including Father Dinet of the Society of Jesus in hopes that he would win support for his philosophy from the theologians of that order.

6 Rene Descartes, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985) volume II, p. 3. Hereafter, all references to this translation will be noted as CSM I for volume I or CSM II for volume II. Passages used by permission of Cambridge University Press.

7 CSMK, p. 163. To Mersenne, December 24, 1640. 8 In both the Meditations and the Letter to the Sorbonne, Descartes also claims a

proof for the existence of God that, with the belief in immortality, reinforces public morality.

9 Norman P. Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (Georgetown: Sheed and Ward, 1990), 2 vols, 605.

10 For a discussion of the soul during the Renaissance, see Schmitt et al., eds., Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) especially chapters 13, 14, and 15. Katharine Park in chapter 14, “The Organic Soul,” includes a diagram that shows the division of the souls and the faculties taken to be associated with each during the Renaissance.

11 Aristotle, “On the Soul,” trans. D. W. Hamlyn. A New Aristotle Reader, ed. J. L. Ackrill (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 430a 10–26.

12 See Ovey N. Mohammed, Averroes’ Doctrine of Immortality: A Matter of Controversy (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Waterloo, Canada, 1984. Canadian Corpora-tion for Studies in Religion) vol. 6, 10–14 and Oliver Leaman, Averroes and his Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 82–116.

13 See Julius R. Weinberg, A Short History of Medieval Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), 136 for a fuller version.

14 See Schmitt et al., 6–69, esp. 38–40.15 Dominick A. Iorio, The Aristotelians of Renaissance Italy (The Edwin Mellen Press,

1991) Studies in the History of Philosophy 24, pp. 25–66. 16 Tanner, 605.17 This previous council was the council of Vienne. H. J. Schroeder, Disciplinary

Decrees of the General Councils: Text, Translation and Commentary (St Louis: B. Herder, 1937, 373), translates canon one. The relevant portion states:

Moreover, we condemn with the approval of the same holy council every doctrine or exposition rashly asserting or expressing doubt that the sub-stance of the rational or intellectual soul is not vere ac per se the form of the

136 Notes

human body as opposed to the truth of the Catholic faith, at the same time declaring, in order that the truth may be known to all and the approach to universal errors precluded, that anyone who shall in the future presume obstinately to assert, defend, or hold, that the rational or intellectual soul is not per se et essentialiter the form of the human body, is to be regarded as a heretic.

18 Schmitt et al., 495.19 Tanner, 606.20 Tanner, 606.21 The origin of the Synopsis and its treatment of immortality is documented

by Thomas Prendergast, “Descartes: Immortality, Human Bodies, and God’s Absolute Freedom,” Modern Schoolman 62 (1993), 23–5.

22 CSM II, 9. 23 Ibid.24 Descartes’ dualism is analyzed in great detail in two recent works by Marleen

Rozemond, Descartes’s Dualism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998) and Gordon Baker and Katherine J. Morris, Descartes’ Dualism (London: Routledge, 1996).

25 CSM II, 9–10.26 “Substance” is defi ned as that which does not depend on anything else for

its continued existence (see Principles, I.52). In this defi nition, Descartes may be interpreted as maintaining or supporting the distinction between the two to support that the rational soul does not need to die or cease existing because the body dies.

27 It may be that this argument is used by Aquinas in his dealing with the Averroists, and Descartes is trying to curry favor with that party in the Sorbonne as well by using it himself. For a discussion of Aquinas see Ralph McInerny, Aquinas Against the Averroists: On There Being Only One Intellect (West Lafeyette: Purdue University Press, 1993).

28 CSM II, 10.29 As cited by Descartes in his letter to Mersenne December 24, 1640. CSMK,

p. 163.30 CSM II, 91.31 CSMK, 163.32 CSM II, 108.33 Ibid., 109.34 Ibid.35 Rodis-Lewis.36 Prendergast, 26. 37 CSMK, 216.38 See Richard A. Watson, The Breakdown of Cartesian Metaphysics (New Jersey:

Humanities Press International, 1987); Ronald Layman “Transubstantiation: Test Case for Descartes’s Theory of Space.” Problems of Cartesianism. Ed. Thomas M. Lennon, John M. Nicholas, and John W. Davis (Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1982) and J. R. Armogathe, Theologia Cartesiana: l’Explication Physique de l’Eucharistie chez Descartes et Dom Desgabets (La Haye: M. Nijhoff, 1977) for explication and analyses of Descartes’ views on transubstantiation.

Notes 137

39 See Armogathe for an account of Descartes’ interaction with Mesland.40 Peter King, The Life and Letters of John Locke, with Extracts from his Journals and

Common-place Books (London: G. Bell, 1884), 64. Notice that this entry indicates that Descartes fails to accomplish his goal.

41 See W. M. Spellman, John Locke (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, 23) for a fuller account.

42 John Harrison and Peter Laslett, The Library of John Locke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971) list Locke cataloguing under “Descartes”:

Opera Philosophica, 3rd edn, Amstelodami, 1658Meditationes de prima philosophia, Amstelodami, 1658Appendix continens objectiones quintas & septimas in Renati Des-Cartes Meditationes de prima philosophi, Amstelodami, 1657.

Catalogued under Cartes, Ren

Cartes, Ren. Epistolae pars 1a. Am 1668Epist: ad Gis: Voetium (forms part of 601a)Principia philosophiae 1656 (forms part of 601)Voiage du Monde de Des Cartes [by G. Daniel), 1691A discourse of a method for the well guiding of reason, 1649Principiorum philosophiae part I, & II, 1663.

Books about Descartes collected by Locke include:

Bayle, Francoise. The general systeme of the Cartesian philosophy, London, 1670Defense of Cartes, 1670System General of the Cartesian philosophie Borel, Pierre. Vitae Renati Cartesii summi philosophi compendium, Francofurti, 1670 Hisotriarum et observationum medico physicarum centuriae IV . . . Francofurti, 1670Cordeliers. Factum pour les Religieuses de Ste Catherine les Provins contre les Pere Cordeliers (By A. Varet) 1668Ecclaircissem: Sur le Live de Mons de la Ville (entitles Sentimens de M. Descartes . . .) Amerstdam, 1684Forge, Louis de la. Tractatus de mente humana . . . secundum Principia R. Descartes . . . Amstelodami, 1669Sergeant, John. Ideae Cartesianae ad Lydium veritatis lapidem expensae. London, 1698[Non ultra; or, A letter to a learned Cartesian settling] The Rule of truth & fi rst principles. 1698Velthusias, Lambertus De initiis primae philosophiae, juxta fundamenta Cartesii. Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1662Disputatio de fi nito et infi nito, in qua defenditur sententia clarissimi Cartesia de motu, spatio, et corpore. Amstelodami, 1651.

There are also books by Le Clerc, Malebranche, and Nicole.

138 Notes

43 Essay, II.23.33.44 Essay, II.1.18.45 Essay, IV.3.6.46 The debate over Locke’s claim about thinking matter is examined in great detail

in Yolton (1983).47 Essay, IV.3.6. 48 Essay, II.17.18.49 Essay, II.29.16.50 Essay, II.27.12.51 This debate is characterized by Leonora Cohen Rosenfi eld, From Beast-Machine to

Man-Machine; the Theme of Animal Soul in French Letters from Descartes to La Mettrie. Preface by Paul Hazard. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940).

Chapter 3

1 For a biography of Hobbes see Noel Malcolm, “A Summary Biography of Hobbes.” Cambridge Companion to Hobbes. Ed. Tom Sorell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) and A. P. Martinich, Thomas Hobbes (London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1997).

2 A plausible account of this experience is given in Thomas Sorell, “Hobbes’s Objections and Hobbes’s System.” Descartes and His Contemporaries: Meditations, Objections, and Replies. Ed. Roger Ariew and Marjorie Greene (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995). He suggests on page 95 that it is Euclid’s method of presentation which had the greatest impact on Hobbes.

3 For example, the Great Tew Circle might have welcomed him as an occasional member.

4 Kenelm Digby is sometimes characterized as an Aristotelian mechanist. He worked with Thomas White. Hobbes debated free will and necessity and the nature of the soul with White.

5 Thomas Hobbes, Letter 16, August 1935 in The Correspondence of Thomas Hobbes. Ed. Noel Malcolm (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994a), 29.

6 For an overview of Robert Payne’s life and infl uence on Hobbes, see Mordechai Feingold, “A Friend of Hobbes and an Early Translator of Galileo: Robert Payne of Oxford”. The Light of Nature: Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science presented to A.C. Crombie, Ed. J. D. North and J. J. Roche (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1985).

7 The Church of England’s offi cial stance on the issue of immortality and the necessity of belief in it varies somewhat during the general upheaval of the civil war.

8 For example, Luther was outraged by the council. He and other Protestants took it as evidence of the essential non-belief of Catholics. See John Headley, “Luther and the Fifth Lateran Council,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 64 (1973): 55–7 for a fuller account of his reaction.

9 For an interesting discussion of why the delay over the publication of De Corpore see Firithio Brandt, Thomas Hobbes’ Mechanical Conception of Nature, trans. Vaughan

Notes 139

Maxwell and Annie I. Fausboll (Copenhagen: Levin & Munksgaard, 1928) who suggests that it was because of the publication of Descartes’ Principles that Hobbes stopped worked on De Corpore in favor of producing a different work.

10 See Thomas Hobbes, “1668 Appendix to Leviathan,” trans and introduction: George Wright. Interpretation 18.3 (1991): 323–413. Wright offers an analysis of the Appendix. See also Curley’s edition of Leviathan (Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan. Ed. Edwin Curley (Chicago: Hackett, 1994b), which includes the Appendix. All references to Hobbes’ Leviathan are to this edition.

11 See Samuel Mintz, The Hunting of Leviathan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962) for an extended examination of the contemporary response to Hobbes.

12 G. A. J. Rogers, “Hobbes Hidden Infl uence,” Perspectives on Thomas Hobbes. Ed. G. A. J. Rogers and Alan Ryan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), pp. 200–3.

13 Noel Malcolm, “Hobbes and the Royal Society,” Perspectives on Thomas Hobbes. Ed. G. A. J. Rogers and Alan Ryan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988).

14 Rogers (1988), p. 194.15 Ibid.16 Parts of Locke’s Two Treatises of Government seem to stand in direct opposition

to Hobbes. Peter Laslett, in his introduction to the edition of the work (Two Treatise of Government by John Locke. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1988) disputes this claim and argues that the focus of the text is actually Filmer. He thinks that Locke did not read Leviathan.

17 John Locke, The Correspondence of John Locke, Ed. E. S. De Beer (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), Letter 1622, April 18, 1693, vol. 4, p. 668.

18 Mintz 1962, Appendix. But Mintz’s list is not comprehensive, as is pointed out by G. A. J. Rogers in his introduction to Leviathan: Contemporary Responses to the Political Theory of Thomas Hobbes (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1995). Locke catalogues 21 of the books on Mintz’s list in his library.

19 See Jan Prins, “Hobbes on Light and Vision.” The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes. Ed. Tom Sorrel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

20 Thomas Hobbes, The Correspondence of Thomas Hobbes. Ed. Noel Malcolm( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), Letter 34, March 1641, p. 108.

21 Richard Tuck, “Hobbes and Descartes” in Rogers and Ryan (1988). 22 See Sorell (1995), p. 85, Sorell, “Descartes, Hobbes, and the Body in Natural

Science.” The Monist 71 (1988): 515–25, and Peter Zagorin, “Hobbes Early Philosophical Development.” Journal of the History of Ideas. 54.3 (1993): 505–18 for a detailed rebuttal of Tuck’s claims about Hobbes’ concern with skepticism.

23 Jan Prins summarizes some of the similarities and differences in Hobbes’ and Descartes’ optical theories.

24 CSM I, 258.25 CSM I, 122–3.26 Edwin Curley, “Hobbes versus Descartes.” Descartes and His Contemporaries. Ed.

Roger Ariew and Marjorie Grene (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 97–109.

27 Ibid., 99.

140 Notes

28 CSM II, 129.29 CSM II, 129.30 CSM II, 130.31 CSM II, 130.32 CSM II, 21.33 CSM II, 132.34 Ibid.35 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan. Ed. Edwin Curley (Chicago: Hackett, 1994), 1.5, 7. 36 Hobbes (1994), 46.41, 467.37 Hobbes (1994), 46.22 (numbering is unusual because the chapter is a Latin

variant included by Curley), 476. See also An Answer to Bishop Bramhill, in Hobbes, English Works, trans. William Molesworth (London: Bohn, 1839–45, 11 vols), 4:350.

38 Hobbes (1994), 34.2, 261–2.39 Hobbes (1994), 34.3, 262.40 Hobbes (1994), 34.4, 263.41 Hobbes (1994), 34.2, 261–2.42 Descartes uses “subtle matter” in his Optics to explain what the pores of bodies

are fi lled with, as there is no vacuum in nature. CSM I, 154 and 163.43 CSMK 170 and 178.44 Hobbes (1994), 34.3, 262.45 Interestingly Hobbes evokes Tertullian to support this point in the Latin edition

of Leviathan, 46.9, 470.46 Hobbes (1994), 34. 2, pp. 261–2.47 See Norman T. Burns, Christian Mortalism from Tyndale to Milton (Cambridge:

Harvard University Press, 1972) for details of this.48 Hobbes (1994), 38.3, 303.49 Hobbes (1994), 44.15, 419.50 Hobbes (1994), 46.19, 461.51 David Johnston, “Hobbes and Mortalism.” History of Political Thought 10.4 (1989):

647.52 Hobbes (1839), De Cive, XVII: xiii53 Johnston, 654–5.54 Hobbes (1994), 16.1-2, 101.55 A. P. Martinich, The Two Gods of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on Religion and Politics

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 203–8 and Martinich, A Hobbes Dictionary (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1995), pp. 228–32.

56 Hobbes (1839), De Corpore, Elements of Philosophy, the fi rst section, Concern-ing Body, vol. 1, p. 132.

57 Ibid.58 Ibid.59 Ibid.60 Ibid.61 CSM II, 130.62 Essay, II.23.2.63 Essay, II.27.8.64 Essay, II.27.12.

Notes 141

Chapter 4

1 For example, it is now accepted that Newton closely studied More’s Immortality of the Soul when he was a student and was infl uenced by his treatment of the universal spirit.

2 To see this infl uence, a consideration of the lectures required and the method of instruction can be appealed to. Although there was a Puritan infl uence (because of the revolution) there still remained a heavy scholastic infl uence during the time when these men were attending university.

3 For an overview of More’s contributions to the scientifi c revolution, see Rupert A. Hall, Henry More and the Scientifi c Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

4 For an overview of Cudworth’s life and work see Sarah Hutton, “Introduction.” A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality with a Treatise of Freewill. By Ralph Cudworth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) and J. A. Passmore, Ralph Cudworth, An Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951) .

5 It is acknowledged that Culverwell had an infl uence on Locke in Locke’s understanding and assessment of voluntarism. See W. Von Leydon “Introduc-tion” Essays Concerning the Laws of Nature By John Locke, trans. W. Von Leydon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954), 39–43.

6 It was after reading Smith’s Select Discourses that Locke wrote the journal entry regarding personal immortality and the natural argument for it that was cited in Chapter 1. In the Select Discourses (xxii, 1660), John Worthington (who wrote the “To the Reader”), refers the reader who is interested in reading a full refutation of the Epicureans and their philosophy to read Henry More’s Of the Immortality of the Soul, An Antidote against Atheism, and the Appendix to the Antidote.

7 This infl uence of Ficino and the Florentine school is signifi cant, for Pomponazzi was associated with that school. It is partly against the doctrines of Pomponazzi which Descartes saw himself reacting, as discussed earlier in Chapter 2.

8 For example, most Cambridge Platonists are also claimed as members of the “Latitude Men,” a group which advocated toleration of most Protestant sects.

9 See Sterling P. Lamprecht “Innate Ideas in the Cambridge Platonists.” The Philosophical Review 35.6 (1926), esp. 553–64.

10 More refers to men with a “melancholic temper” in his Preface to the Reader before the fi rst part of A Platonick Song of the Soul, ed. Alexander Jacob (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1998). This is a reference to the Puritans, who were sometimes said to be “melancholy men.”

11 See Lamprecht (1926) 564.12 For a complete discussion of the Cambridge Platonist school, see Ernst Cassierer,

Platonic Renaissance in England, trans. James P. Pettegrove (Edinburgh: Nelson, 1953).

13 One reason might be that his early philosophical work is metaphysical poetry written in Spenserian stanzas.

14 See Passmore for more details.15 Instead of focusing on More, I could have instead focused on Ralph Cudworth.

I chose not to for the following reasons: (1) More has a better articulated

142 Notes

and richer position which, because it was published earlier, was more widely infl uential. (2) More explicitly engages Cartesianism and materialism in infl uen-tial ways. He also clearly engages in controversial exchanges with Hobbes, Descartes, and Boyle.

16 The edition that I am using is the same as that in Locke’s library. This is an expanded version of the original Platonick Song of the Soul, found in Philosophicall Poems, second edition (1647). It includes additional poetry and an appendix that is of interest to this project. The basic texts are not altered from the fi rst edition because More did not believe in rewriting his poems. A newer edition of the work is that edited by Alexander Jacob.

17 The title of the poem reveals the main subject of it. “Psychozoia” characterizes the life of the soul, “Psychanthanasia” the immortality of the soul, “Antipsycho-pannychia” is against the sleep of the soul after death, and “Antimonopsychia” is against the one soul.

18 While it is possible that More read Descartes’ Discourses, because they are pub-lished in 1637, it is unlikely that he did so. It is clear that he did read the Meditations.

19 For a discussion of More’s relation to Ficino see C. A. Staudenbauer, “Galileo, Ficino, and Henry More’s Psychathanasia.” Journal of the History of Ideas 29 (1968): 565–78.

20 Poems, Canto II, stanza 22, 22. 21 Ibid., stanza 20, 22.22 Ibid., Preface to the Reader, H.23 Ibid., H1–H2. 24 Ibid., H1.25 Psychathanasia, Book I, Canto 1, stanza 18, 77.26 Ibid., Canto 2, stanzas 18 and 19, 84–5.27 Ibid., stanzas 25–7, 86–7.28 The great chain of being is explored in Arthur Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being

(New York: Harper & Row, 1936).29 Antipscyhopannychia, Preface to the reader.30 Antipsychopannychia, Canto 1, stanza 3, 220.31 Ibid., stanza 15, 221.32 Ibid., stanza 25, 226.33 Ibid., stanza 38, 228.34 Antimonospychia, stanza 16, 289.35 Ibid., stanza 18, 289.36 Ibid., stanza 14, 288.37 Ibid., stanza 34, 293.38 Ibid., stanza 40, 295.39 Alan Gabbey, “Philosophia Cartesiana Triumphata.” Problems of Cartesianism.

Ed. Thomas M. Lennon, John M. Nicholas, and John W. Davis (Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1982).

40 For a discussion of More’s exchange with Descartes, see Gabbey (1982).41 See G. A. J. Rogers, “Descartes and the English.” The Light of Nature: Essays in

the History and Philosophy of Science Presented to A.C. Crombie. Ed. J. D. North and J. J. Roche (Dordrecht; Boston: M. Nijhoff, 1985).

Notes 143

42 More does not ever question Descartes’ religious commitment. 43 Henry More, The Immortality of the Soul, ed. A. Jacob (Dordrecht: Martinus

Nijhoff Publishers, 1987) Epistle Dedicatory, p. 2. It is thought that More was in Luxemburg with Lady Conway seeking a treatment for her recurrent and hideous headaches. Lady Conway is the person to whom An Antidote against Atheism is dedicated, and the Immortality of the Soul is dedicated to her husband. It has been conjectured that Conway is actually a coauthor of this work. This claim is based on the letters exchanged between the two, collected in Conway et al., The Conway Letters: The Correspondence of Anne, Viscountess Conway, Henry More, and Their Friends, 1642-1684 , ed. Marjorie Hope Nicolson, rev. edn., ed. Sarah Hutton (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992). I tend to think she may have been an impetus for the work, asked questions which clarifi ed parts of it, and perhaps edited some parts of the text, but probably not so much as to merit coauthor status.

44 Henry More, The Immortality of the Soul, 5.45 Henry More, The Immortality of the Soul, 5.46 Ibid., 6.47 Ibid., 6.48 Ibid., 9.49 Ibid., 15.50 For a complete analysis of this strategy, see Alan Gabbey, “Henry More and the

Limits of Mechanism.” Henry More (1614–1687) Tercentenary Studies. Ed. Sarah Hutton (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1990) and “Cudworth, More, and the Mechanical Analogy.” Philosophy, Science, and Religion in England 1640–1700. Ed. Richard Kroll, Richard Ashcraft, and Perez Zagorin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

51 More (1987), 110.52 Ibid.53 See Brian Sutton, Philosophy and Memory Traces: Descartes to Connectionism (Cam-

bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) for a developed treatment of memory and its relation to the brain in the seventeenth century.

54 More (1987), 146.55 Ibid.56 Ibid., 29–30.57 Ibid., 30.58 Ibid., 49.59 Ibid., 54.60 Ibid., 78.61 Ibid., 9.62 Ibid., 141.63 Locke catalogues works by Henry More, Ralph Cudworth, Simon Patrick,

John Smith, and Benjamin Whichcote in his library.64 Descartes and the Cartesian do hold a view about innate ideas, but the attacks

on that doctrine in the Essay are not generally aimed at his theory. Sterling P. Lamprecht, “Locke’s Attack Upon Innate Ideas.” The Philosophical Review 36.2 (1927), argues that Locke’s attacks are directed at the more naïve version of the theory found in the Cambridge Platonists’ works in philosophy and theology

144 Notes

and discusses their theory of innate ideas in Lamprecht (1926). See also John Yolton, Thinking Matter: Materialism in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983).

65 There are at least 40 letters exchanged between the two. In the exchanges they frequently discuss philosophical topics. For example, in one of the early letters, they discussed John Smith’s Selected Discourses.

66 As suggested in Sarah Hutton, “Damaris Cudworth, Lady Masham: Between Platonism and Enlightenment.” British Journal of the History of Philosophy 1.1 (1993). She argues that Cudworth owned many works by Henry More and read them to keep herself intellectually alive, citing Cudworth’s correspondence in support of her argument.

67 One such book was Henry More’s Philosophicall Poems.68 For a detailed discussion of Masham’s philosophical views, see Patricia

Springborg, “Astell, Masham, and Locke: Religion and Politics.” Women Writers and the Early Modern British Political Tradition. Ed. Hilda L. Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

69 This is at least the conjecture made by Hutton (1993), p. 50, fn 80.70 In Letter 684, Damaris Cudworth discusses John Smith’s Select Discourses. Locke in

reply sent her a manuscript which he had been working on about the material in the Discourses. This discussion is referred to again in letter 695. There are also other references to Platonism, and specifi cally to More by Cudworth in the letters. For example, in letter 699, she refers to More’s “Divine Sagacitie.” In letter 731, she refers to More in a social capacity, regarding attending a fair. Cudworth, in letter 950, informs Locke of More’s illness and in letter 967, tells Locke of More’s death.

71 The correspondence which survives is collected in John Locke, The Correspondence of John Locke, Ed. E. S. De Beer (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981).

72 Smith (1660), Preface, p. xxii.73 John Harrison and Peter Laslett, The Library of John Locke (Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1971) note in the entry is the notation that it is a gift from Damaris Cudworth.

74 For a discussion of the relationship between Locke and Boyle in the lab, see Lawrence M. Principe, Aspiring Adept Robert Boyle and his Alchemical Quest (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), esp. 175–8.

75 See John Henry, “Henry More versus Robert Boyle: The Spirit of Nature and the Nature of Providence.” Henry More (1614–1687) Tercentenary Studies. Ed. Sarah Hutton and Robert Crocker (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1990) and Stephen Shapin and Simon Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air Pump (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), esp. 207–24.

76 For an account of More’s Spirit of Nature, see Michael Boylan, “Henry More’s Space and the Spirit of Nature.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 18.4 (1980): 395–405.

77 Essay, IV. 3.6.78 Ibid.79 Essay, II.27.1480 Essay, II.27.26.81 Essay, II.27.22.

Notes 145

Chapter 5

1 John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Ed. Peter Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), 7.

2 Boyle’s Scrupulosity is discussed in Michael Hunter, Robert Boyle 1627–1691 Scrupulosity and Science (London: Boydell and Browder, 2000).

3 For a fuller analysis of Boyle, see Lisa Downing “Robert Boyle.” Blackwell Com-panions to Philosophy: A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy. Ed. Steven Nadler (London: Wiley Blackwell, 2002).

4 Unpublished manuscripts analyzed by Hunter and Principe support this, as does Lotte Mulligan, “Right Reason and the Meaning of Metaphor.” Journal of the History of Ideas 55.2 (1994): 235–57. The controversy between Boyle and More is discussed in detail by Simon Schaffer and Stephen Shapin, Leviathan and the Air Pump (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985).

5 See Margaret Cooke, “Divine Artifi ce and Natural Mechanism: Robert Boyle’s Mechanical Philosophy of Nature.” S Osiris, 2nd Series, vol. 16, Science in Theistic Contexts: Cognitive Dimensions (2001) for a fuller explication of Boyle’s position.

6 Robert Boyle, The Works of Robert Boyle. Ed. Michael Hunter and Edward B. Davis (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1999–2000), vol. 9, 402.

7 Principe, 203 8 Boyle (1999), 300. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid., 301–211 Ibid., 303.12 Ibid., 304.13 Ibid.14 Ibid., 305.15 Ibid., 308.16 Ibid., 313.17 Wainwright, esp. 1–28 in John Locke, A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles

of St. Paul to the Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, Ephesians. Ed. Arthur W. Wainwright (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987).

18 John Locke, The Works of John Locke. 12th edn. (London: 1823), vol. 4, 319.19 Ibid., 320.

Chapter 6

1 This is the strategy used by neo-Lockeans in their proposals for dealing with personal identity. See Anthony Quinton, “The Soul.” The Journal of Philosophy 59.15 (1962): 393–409; H. P. Grice, “Personal Identity.” Mind 50 (1941): 330–50; and John Perry “Personal Identity, Memory and the Problem of Circularity.” Personal Identity. Ed. John Perry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975).

2 For example, Brian Garrett, “Personal Identity.” Routledge Encyclopedia of Philoso-phy. Ed. Edward Craig (London: Routledge, 1998) characterizes and summarizes Locke’s theory in this way.

146 Notes

3 One person who presents Locke’s theory in this way is David Wiggins, “Locke, Butler and the Stream of Consciousness: And Men as a Natural Kind.” The Identi-ties of Persons. Ed. Amelie Oksenberg Rorty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976).

4 Roger Scruton, A Short History of Modern Philosophy. 2nd ed. (Routledge: New York, 1995), 92–3 cites two of these criticisms of Locke’s theory as telling. As does Garrett.

5 Garrett, 43. 6 Joseph Butler, “Of Personal Identity.” Personal Identity. Ed. John Perry (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1975), 99–100. 7 Ibid., 99 and Reid 216. 8 Thomas Reid, Thomas Reid’s Inquiry and Essays, Essay on the Intellectual Powers of

Man, Essay Three: Of Memory. Ed. Ronald E. Beanblossom and Keith Lehrer (Chicago: Hackett 1983), 216.

9 Ibid., 216–17.10 Essay, II.27.26.11 Essay, II.27.26.12 Essay,, II.27.10.13 Reid, 216.14 Essay, II.27.20.15 Butler, 99–100.16 Essay, II.27.1317 It is well known that there are some individuals who earnestly confess to every

crime they hear of and yet they are usually not taken seriously by the police. 18 Likewise, God’s goodness will not allow an individual to experience eternal

torment. Eventually the mortal body burns up in the fi res of Hell.19 Butler, 95.20 Essay, II.27.2.21 Essay, II.27.17.22 Essay, II.27.10.

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Index

Alexander of Aphrodisias 3, 35, 68animals 15, 31, 45, 46, 51Aquinas, Thomas 31Aristotelianism 2, 5, 103Aristotle 30, 31, 34, 35, 56, 64, 71, 77,

78, 85, 87, 90Averroes 35Averroism 3, 30, 31, 61, 78, 85

bodily death 8, 12, 131bodily resurrection 1, 2, 5, 8, 12,

13, 15, 17, 29, 68, 80, 107, 108, 115, 116

Boyle, Robert 4, 28, 31, 56, 68, 75, 77, 79, 94, 96, 97, 101–16, 129, 130

Butler, Joseph 118–23, 124–31

Calvin, John 67, 77Cambridge Platonism 1, 4, 12, 14, 47,

56, 76, 77, 78, 89, 96, 116cannibalism 8, 107cat 7, 18, 22Church of England 55, 139conscience 27, 76, 83, 87, 88, 100,

123, 130consciousness 11, 18, 24, 25, 26, 27,

29, 52, 53, 60, 99, 100, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 124, 125, 127, 128, 129

Corinthians 36, 109, 111, 113, 114Counter-Reformation 132, 152Cudworth, Damaris, Lady Masham 96,

97Cudworth, Ralph 12, 77, 78, 96

Descartes, Rene 2–4, 6–28, 33, 36–48, 50–8, 60, 61, 62, 63, 65, 69, 71, 73, 76–81, 85, 87–92, 95, 97, 101, 102, 118, 129, 130

Digby, Kenelm 55Doctrine of Eternal Truths 2, 6, 130

Epicurus 77, 107Epistles of St. Paul 2, 8, 15, 112, 126

Ficino, Marsilio 77, 79

Galileo, Galilei 55, 56, 104Gassendi, Pierre 31, 55, 56, 102,

133, 156

Heaven 13, 17, 79, 129, 130, 131Hell 13, 17, 79, 80, 97, 100, 129,

130, 131Hobbes, Thomas 3, 4, 28, 29–53,

54–75, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 98, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 118, 129, 130

Hobbesian materialism 1, 12, 76, 95, 116

incorruptible body 16, 17, 41, 42, 43, 131

justice 8, 10, 26, 75, 80, 126

Lateran Council 2, 3, 29, 30, 31, 33, 37, 53, 55

Leibniz 96Luther, Martin 67

mercy 4, 5, 64, 75, 126Mersenne, Marin 30, 31, 38, 42, 44,

55, 56Molyneux, William 2, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12,

22, 25, 28, 53, 57, 72morality 4, 5, 9, 27, 33, 49, 54, 57, 78,

80, 88, 91, 93, 97, 98, 115

154 Index

More, Henry 4, 14, 28, 31, 33, 46, 51, 57, 66, 75, 76, 77, 78, 96, 97, 98, 99, 101, 102, 103, 105, 130

mortalism 66, 67, 68, 69

nature of God 103, 106nature of person 128nature of substance 47, 99, 131Neoplatonism 4, 36, 38, 78, 79, 95

Oak trees 19, 20, 21, 128

personhood 2, 25, 52, 114, 119, 122, 127

Plato 77, 78, 81, 85, 96, 97, 99Pollux 11power 43, 44, 65, 79, 91, 97, 108,

109, 112, 113preexistence of the soul 4, 76, 95, 99principium individuationis 2, 7, 9, 12,

15, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 24, 28, 70, 71, 74, 77, 113, 116, 126

Protestant 9, 56, 126

Providence 83, 106, 114public morality 4, 5, 33, 49, 54, 57,

78, 80, 97, 115Purgatory 9, 64, 67, 100, 129Puritan 80

Reid, Thomas 5, 117, 118–24Resurrection of the body 2, 4, 8, 36,

67, 110, 112Resurrection of the dead 7, 15, 16, 113

Satisfaction 126seeds 16, 109Smith, John 12, 77Society of Jesus 30, 45Sorbonne 31–3, 44St. Paul 2, 15, 126Substance 23, 25, 45, 51, 73, 74, 92,

93, 107, 120, 125, 128

transmigration of the soul 10, 95transubstantiation 17, 30, 35, 45Trinity 7, 70, 113, 126

john locke and personal identity immortality and bodily resurrection in 17th-century philosophy

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