 Hume was dismissive of Shaftesbury’s claims in The Moralists about the identity, writing ”If the reader is desirous to see how a great genius may be influenc’d by these seemingly trivial principles of the imagination ... let him read my Lord Shaftesbury’s reasonings concerning the uniting principle of the universe, and the identity of plants and animals [in] his Moralists, a Philosophical Rhapsody: (Hume 1739–40: 1.4.6.6). It seems, however, that Hume did learn something about personal identity from The Moralists. For Hume’s own view, like Shaftesbury’s, relies on the idea that there is no single “constant and invariable” mental item that can fund personal identity: compare Hume’s Treatise 1.4.6.2 and C 2.350–51. Of course Hume and Shaftesbury draw opposite conclusions, with Shaftesbury moving from the premise that there is no constant and invariable physical or mental item to the conclusion that personal identity must consist of something other than a physical or mental item, and Hume moving to the conclusion that there is no personal identity.