or what else is
there of similitude between the first speck of living entity and the mature
man?--every deduction of reasoning, every sentiment or passion, with every
fibre of the corporeal part of our system, has been subject almost to
annual mutation; while some catenations alone of our ideas and muscular
actions have continued in part unchanged.

By the facility, with which we can in our waking hours voluntarily produce
certain successive trains of ideas, we know by experience, that we have
before reproduced them; that is, we are conscious of a time of our
existence previous to the present time; that is, of our identity now and
heretofore. It is these habits of action, these catenations of ideas and
muscular motions, which begin with life, and only terminate with it; and
which we can in some measure deliver to our posterity; as explained in
Sect. XXXIX.

6. When the progressive motions of external bodies make a part of our
present catenation of ideas, we attend to the lapse of time; which appears
the longer, the more frequently we thus attend to it; as when we expect
something at a certain hour, which much interests us, whether it be an
agreeable or disagreeable event; or when we count the passing seconds on a
stop-watch.

When an idea of our own person, or a reflex idea of our pleasures and
pains, desires and aversions, makes a part of this catenation, it is termed
consciousness; and if this idea of consciousness makes a part of a
catenation, which we excite by recollection, and know by the facility with
which we excite it, that we have before experienced it, it is called
identity, as explained above.

7. In respect to freewill, it is certain, that we cannot will to think of a
new train of ideas, without previously thinking of the first link of it; as
I cannot will to think of a black swan, without previously thinking of a
black swan. But if I now think of a tail, I can voluntarily recollect all
animals, which have tails; my will is so far free, that I can pursue the
ideas linked to this idea of tail, as far as my knowledge of the subject
extends; but to will without motive is to will without desire or aversion;
which is as absurd as to feel without pleasure or pain; they are both
solecisms in the terms. So far are we governed by the catenations of
motions, which affect both the body and the mind of man, and which begin
with our irritability, and end with it.

* * * * *

SECT. X