them. This question we might easily decide, if we would recollect what
has been already proud at large, that the understanding never observes
any real connexion among objects, and that even the union of cause
and effect, when strictly examined, resolves itself into a customary
association of ideas. For from thence it evidently follows, that
identity is nothing really belonging to these different perceptions, and
uniting them together; but is merely a quality, which we attribute to
them, because of the union of their ideas in the imagination, when we
reflect upon them. Now the only qualities, which can give ideas an union
in the imagination, are these three relations above-mentioned. There
are the uniting principles in the ideal world, and without them
every distinct object is separable by the mind, and may be separately
considered, and appears not to have any more connexion with any other
object, than if disjoined by the greatest difference and remoteness.
It is, therefore, on some of these three relations of resemblance,
contiguity and causation, that identity depends; and as the very essence
of these relations consists in their producing an easy transition
of ideas; it follows, that our notions of personal identity, proceed
entirely from the smooth and uninterrupted progress of the thought along
a train of connected ideas, according to the principles above-explained.

The only question, therefore, which remains, is, by what relations this
uninterrupted progress of our thought is produced, when we consider
the successive existence of a mind or thinking person. And here it is
evident we must confine ourselves to resemblance and causation, and must
drop contiguity, which has little or no influence in the present case.

To begin with resemblance; suppose we coued see clearly into the
breast of another, and observe that succession of perceptions, which
constitutes his mind or thinking principle, and suppose that he always
preserves the memory of a considerable part of past perceptions; it is
evident that nothing coued more contribute to the bestowing a relation
on this succession amidst all its variations. For what is the memory but
a faculty, by which we raise up the images of past perceptions? And
as an image necessarily resembles its object, must not. The frequent
placing of these resembling perceptions in the chain of thought, convey
the imagination more easily from one link to another, and make the whole
seem like the