old; which we cannot, therefore, do to a ruby or a diamond, things
whose usual periods we know not.

5 .Relations of place and extension

The relation also that things
have to one another in their places and distances is very obvious to
observe; as above, below, a mile distant from Charing-cross, in
England, and in London.

But as in duration, so in extension and
bulk, there are some ideas that are relative which we signify by names
that are thought positive; as great and little are truly relations.

For here also, having, by observation, settled in our minds the
ideas of the bigness of several species of things from those we have
been most accustomed to, we make them as it were the standards,
whereby to denominate the bulk of others.

Thus we call a great
apple, such a one as is bigger than the ordinary sort of those we have
been used to; and a little horse, such a one as comes not up to the
size of that idea which we have in our minds to belong ordinarily to
horses; and that will be a great horse to a Welchman, which is but a
little one to a Fleming; they two having, from the different breed
of their countries, taken several-sized ideas to which they compare,
and in relation to which they denominate their great and their little.

6 .Absolute terms often stand for relations

So likewise weak and
strong are but relative denominations of power, compared to some ideas
we have at that time of greater or less power.

Thus, when we say a
weak man, we mean one that has not so much strength or power to move
as usually men have, or usually those of his size have; which is a
comparing his strength to the idea we have of the usual strength of
men, or men of such a size.

The like when we say the creatures are all
weak things; weak there is but a relative term, signifying the
disproportion there is in the power of God and the creatures.

And so
abundance of words, in ordinary speech, stand only for relations
(and perhaps the greatest part) which at first sight seem to have no
such signification: v.

g.

the ship has necessary stores.

Necessary
and stores are both relative words; one having a relation to the
accomplishing the voyage intended, and the other to future use.

All
which relations, how they are confined to, and terminate in ideas
derived from sensation or reflection, is too obvious to need any
explication.

Chapter XXVII
Of Identity and Diversity

1.Wherein identity consists

Another occasion the mind often
takes of comparing, is the very being of things, when, considering
anything as existing at any determined time and place, we compare it
with itself existing at another time, and thereon form the ideas of
identity and diversity.

When we see anything to be in any place in any
instant of time, we are sure (be it what it will) that it is that very
thing, and not another which at that same time exists in another
place, how like and undistinguishable soever it may be in all other
respects: and in this consists identity, when the ideas it is
attributed to vary not at all from what they were that moment
wherein we consider their former existence, and to which we compare
the present.

For we never finding, nor conceiving it possible, that
two things of the same kind should exist in the same place at the same
time, we rightly conclude, that, whatever exists anywhere at any time,
excludes all of the same kind, and is there itself alone.

When
therefore we demand whether anything be the same or no, it refers
always to something that existed such a time in such a place, which it
was certain, at that instant, was the same with itself, and no
other.

From whence it follows, that one thing cannot have two
beginnings of existence, nor two things one beginning; it being
impossible for two things of the same kind to be or exist in the
same instant, in the very same place; or one and the same thing in
different places.

That, therefore, that had one beginning, is the same
thing; and that which had a different beginning in time and place from
that, is not the same, but diverse.

That which has made the difficulty
about this relation has been the little care and attention used in
having precise notions of the things to which it is attributed.

2 .Identity of substances

We have the ideas but of three sorts of
substances: 1.

God.

2 .Finite intelligences

3.

Bodies.

First, God is without beginning, eternal, unalterable, and
everywhere, and therefore concerning his identity there can be no
doubt.

Secondly, Finite spirits having had each its determinate time and
place of beginning to exist, the relation to that time and place
will always determine to each of them its identity, as long as it
exists.

Thirdly, The same will hold of every particle of matter, to which no
addition or subtraction of matter being made, it is the same.

For,
though these three sorts of substances, as we term them, do not
exclude one another out of the same place, yet we cannot conceive
but that they must necessarily each of them exclude any of the same
kind out of the same place: or else the notions and names of
identity and diversity would be in vain, and there could be no such
distinctions of substances, or anything else one from another.

For
example: could two bodies be in the same place at the same time;
then those two parcels of matter must be one and the same, take them
great or little; nay, all bodies must be one and the same.

For, by the
same reason that two particles of matter may be in one place, all
bodies may be in one place: which, when it can be supposed, takes away
the distinction of identity and diversity of one and more, and renders
it ridiculous.

But it being a contradiction that two or more should be
one, identity and diversity are relations and ways of comparing well
founded, and of use to the understanding.

Identity of modes and relations.

All other things being but modes or
relations ultimately terminated in substances, the identity and
diversity of each particular existence of them too will be by the same
way determined: only as to things whose existence is in succession,
such as are the actions of finite beings, v.

g.

motion and thought,
both which consist in a continued train of succession, concerning
their diversity there can be no question: because each perishing the
moment it begins, they cannot exist in different times, or in
different places, as permanent beings can at different times exist
in distant places; and therefore no motion or thought, considered as
at different times, can be the same, each part thereof having a
different beginning of existence.

3 .Principium Individuationis

From what has been said, it is easy
to discover what is so much inquired after, the principium
individuationis; and that, it is 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.

This, though it seems
easier to conceive in simple substances or modes; yet, when
reflected on, is not more difficult in compound ones, if care be taken
to what it is applied: v.

g.

let us suppose an atom, i.e.

a continued
body under one immutable superficies, existing in a determined time
and place; it is evident, that, considered in any instant of its
existence, it is in that instant the same with itself.

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.

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.

In the state of living
creatures, their identity depends not on a mass of the same particles,
but on something else.

For in them the variation of great parcels of
matter alters not the identity: an oak growing from a plant to a great
tree, and then lopped, is still the same oak; and a colt grown up to a
horse, sometimes fat, sometimes lean, is all the while the same horse:
though, in both these cases, there may be a manifest change of the
parts; so that truly they are not either of them the same masses of
matter, though they be truly one of them the same oak, and the other
the same horse.

The reason whereof is, that, in these two cases- a
mass of matter and a living body- identity is not applied to the
same thing.

4 .Identity of vegetables

We must therefore consider wherein an oak
differs from a mass of matter, and that seems to me to be in 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 fit
to receive and distribute nourishment, so as to continue and frame the
wood, bark, and leaves, &c.

, 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,