It now remains, as consequent to what has been said, that we should speak concerning time. In the first place, then, it will be well to doubt doubt concerning it, through exoteric reasons, whether it ranks among beings, or among non-entities; and in the next place to consider what its nature is. That time, therefore, in short is not, or that it scarcely and obscurely is, may be suspected from the following considerations. One part of it was, and is not; another part is future, and is not yet: but from these parts, infinite time, and which is always assumed, is composed. That, however, which is composed from things that are not, does not appear to be ever capable of participating of essence. To which may be added, it is necessary with respect to every thing partible, if it should have a subsistence, that either some or all of its parts should be when it is. But of time, some of the parts are past, others are future, and no part is, in consequence of time being divisible. But the now, or an instant, is not a part of time: for a part measures; and it is necessary that the whole should be composed from the parts; but time does not appear to be composed from instants. Besides, with respect to this now which appears to bound and separate the past and: the future, whether it always remains one and the same, or is another and another, it is not easy to see: for ir’ it is always another and anpther, but there is no part of time which is at once another and another, and of which one part does not comprehend, and another is comprehended, just as the less is comprehended by the greater time; but that which now is not, but was before, must necessarily once have perished; if this be the case, instants cannot subsist together with each other, but the prior instant must always have necessarily perished. It is not possible, therefore, that it can have perished in itself, because it then is. Neither is it possible that a prior now can perish in another now: for let it be impossible for instants to adhere to each other in the same nmnner as it is impossible for a point to adhere to a point. If, therefore, it does not perish in that which is successive, but in another, it will at one and the same time be in the intermediate instants which are infinite. But this is impossible. Neither is it possible for the same instant always to remain: for there is not one boundary of any finite divisible thing, neither, if it should be continuous to one thing, nor if to many. But the now is a boundary; and a finite time may be assumed. Again, if a simultaneous subsistence according to time, and to be neither prior nor posterior, is nothing else than to be in the same, and in an instant; in this case, if those things which are prior and posterior are in the same now, the transactions of a thousand years past will subsist together with those which are accomplished today, and one thing will not be prior or posterior to another. Such, then, are the doubts concerning the particulars which belong to time.
