Note 71 — Chapter III · * OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.

To illustrate this apparent paradox of Diodorus, affirming past motion, but denying present motion, we may compare what is said by Aristotle about the Now or Point of Present Time — that it is not a part, but a boundary between Past and Future.

Aristot. Physic. iv. p. 218, a. 4-10. τοῦ δὲ χρόνον τὰ μὲν γέγονε, τὰ δὲ μέλλει, ἐστι δ’ οὐδὲν, ὄντος μεριστοῦ· τὸ δὲ νῦν οὐ μέρος — τὸ δὲ νῦν πέρας ἔστι (a. 24) — p. 222, a. 10-20-223, a. 20. ὁ δὲ χρόνος καὶ ἡ κίνησις ἅμα κατά τε δύναμιν καὶ κατ’ ἐνεργείαν.

Which doctrine is thus rendered by Harris in his Hermes, ch. vii. pp. 101-103-105:—“Both Points and Nows being taken as Bounds, and not as Parts, it will follow that in the same manner as the same point may be the end of one line and the beginning of another — so the same Now may be the End of one time, and the beginning of another.… I say of these two times, that with respect to the Now, or Instant which they include, the first of them is necessarily Past time, as being previous to it: the other is necessarily Future, as being subsequent.… From the above speculations, there follow some conclusions, which may be called paradoxes, till they have been attentively considered. In the first place, there cannot (strictly speaking) be any such thing as Time Present. For if all Time be transient, as well as continuous, it cannot like a line be present altogether, but part will necessarily be gone and part be coming. If therefore any portion of its continuity were to be present at once, it would so far quit its transient nature, and be Time no longer. But if no portion of its continuity can be thus present, how can Time possibly be present, to which such continuity is essential?” — Compare Sir William Hamilton’s Discussions on Philosophy, p. 581.