human bodies; as I once met with one, who was persuaded his had been the soul of Socrates (how reasonably I will not dispute; this I know, that in the post he filled, which was no inconsiderable one, he passed for a very rational man, and the press has shown that he wanted not parts or learning;)—­would any one say, that he, being not conscious of any of Socrates’s actions or thoughts, could be the same person with Socrates?  Let any one reflect upon himself, and conclude that he has in himself an immaterial spirit, which is that which thinks in him, and, in the constant change of his body keeps him the same:  and is that which he calls himself:  let his also suppose it to be the same soul that was in Nestor or Thersites, at the siege of Troy, (for souls being, as far as we know anything of them, in their nature indifferent to any parcel of matter, the supposition has no apparent absurdity in it,) which it may have been, as well as it is now the soul of any other man:  but he now having no consciousness of any of the actions either of Nestor or Thersites, does or can he conceive himself the same person with either of them?  Can he be concerned in either of their actions? attribute them to himself, or think them his own more than the actions of any other men that ever existed?  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 of the soul of 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’ body were numerically the same that now informs his.  For this would no more make him the same person with Nestor, than if some of the particles of smaller that were once a part of Nestor were now a part of this man the same immaterial 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 find himself conscious of any of the actions of Nestor, he then finds himself the same person with Nestor.

17.  The body, as well as the soul, goes to the making of a Man.

And thus may we be able, without any difficulty, 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.  But yet the soul alone, in the change of bodies, would scarce to any one but to him that makes the soul the man, be enough to make the same man.  For should the soul of a prince, carrying with it the consciousness of the prince’s past life, enter and inform the body of a cobbler, as soon as deserted by his own soul, every one sees he would be the same person with the prince, accountable only for the prince’s