VI. Do we, therefore, bear witness to the things of which we now speak, as to things foreign from our nature ? But how is this possible ? For how can intellectual perception be effected, except by contact ? And how can we come into contact with things that are foreign to us ? It is necessary, therefore, that we also should participate of eternity. Since, however, we exist in time, how is this possible ? But we shall know what it is to be in time, and what it is to be in eternity, when we have discovered what time is. We must, therefore, descend from eternity to time, and the investigation of time. For there, indeed, the progression was to that which is above, but we must now speak descending, yet not profoundly, but our descent most be such as that of time. If, indeed, nothing had been said concerning time by ancient and blessed men, it would be necessary that connecting from the beginning what follows with eternity, we should endeavour to speak what appears to us to be the truth on this subject, and to adapt our opinion to the conception of it which we possess. Now, however, it is necessary first to assume those assertions which especially deserve attention, and to consider if what we say is concordant with some one of them. But perhaps the assertions concerning time, ought in the first place to receive a threefold division. For time may be said to be either motion, or that which is moved, or something pertaining to motion. For to say that it is either permanency, or that which is stable, or something pertaining to permanency, will be perfectly remote from the conception of time, since it is in no respect the same (and therefore, can never accord with that which is stable). Of those, however, who say that time is motion, some indeed assert that it is every motion; hut others, that it is the motion of the universe. But those who say it is that which is moved, assert it to he the sphere of the universe. And of those who say it is something pertaining to motion, or the interval of motion; some assert that it is the measure of motion, hut others that it is an attendant on it, and either on every motion, or on that which is arranged.1
Archytas the Pythagorean defined time to he the universal interval of the nature of the universe, in consequence of surveying the continuity in the productive principles of that nature, and their departure into division. Others still more ancient defined time to he, as the name manifests, a certain dance of intellect; hut others defined it to he the periods of soul; others, the natural receptacle of these periods ; and others, orderly circulations; all which (says Iamhlichus, from whom this information is derived) the Pythagoric sect comprehends. Both Archytas also and Aristotle appear to have admitted time to he a continued and indivisible flux of nows. See a treasure of the conceptions of the ancients on this subject, in the Additional Notes to my translation of Aristotle’s ” Physics.” ↩