Note 112 — Concerning that which is Eternal, for the Purpose of demonstrating the Eternity of the World.

The nature of time itself, which every thing in generation participates, has been a subject of much subtle and profound speculation to the Pythagoric, Platonic, and Peripatetic philosophers. According to Archytas the Pythagorean (as we are informed by Simplicius, on Aristotle’s Categories) “time is a generative number, proceeding from the motion of the mundane soul, as from unity.” But others of the ancients considered it as a certain extension of soul about intellect. Others confessed, that time was the period of soul and intellect. According to the determination of others, it is a natural extension about intellect. And others described time, by circulations in a circular nature; all which the Pythagoric sect comprehends. Time, therefore, according to Archytas and the most ancient philosophers, is a self-moving motion, and the number of temporal unity: for as eternity abides in one, so time is moved in number. According to Plato, “time is a certain image flowing in number, of eternity abiding in one.” But according to Aristotle, “it is the number, or measure of motion according to prior, and posterior.” But the opinion of Plotinus respecting time, is perhaps the most profound of all: and though the preceding definitions when attentively considered contain an abundance of intellectual truth, yet the doctrine of Plotinus on this subject rekindles a greater light in our intellectual conceptions. In his book then on eternity and time, which we have cited in the preceding proposition, after many admirable doubts concerning the nature of time, he enters on its definition, as follows:

“But it is requisite to recal ourselves again to that nature which we have said resides in eternity: a nature immutable and total, and a life infinite and indeclinable, and abiding in, and about the one. But time was not as yet, or at least was not among these true beings, but was about to follow, by a certain reason and nature of a posterior energy. Supernal natures therefore acting quietly among themselves, if any one desires to know how time first fell, he will not perhaps improperly call upon the Muses, who then were not, for the important explanation. Perhaps also he will opportunely invoke them, since the Muses then existed, according to true conceptions of their nature. And perhaps such a one will find time already generated, such as it now is, and manifests itself to our intellectual view. But he will speak concerning it after the following manner:

“Before priority originated, and was indigent of that which is posterior, time not yet existing according to procession, reposed together with priority in being itself, with a tranquil and intellectual energy. But at length time desiring a nature engaged in a multiplicity of affairs, and anxious to govern itself, and become independent, and always chusing to possess more of that which is present, began to be agitated, and at the same time commenced a flowing duration, subsisting in continual succession, and a transition into different periods of existence. And by conceiving that from this motion, a certain longitude of procession is effected, we establish time, as an image of eternity. For since it is a certain restless power of the mundane soul, desirous of transferring what it there beholds, into another, it cannot sustain that a collected whole should be at once present with its nature: but as the spermatic reason, unfolding itself from a certain quiet seed, acts according to an abundant discursive energy; dispersing in the mean time that which is called abundant, by a certain division, and instead of the one which abides in itself, unfolding and consuming a non-abiding one, and thus proceeding into a more debile extension: so likewise the nature of the mundane soul fabricating the sensible world in imitation of that which is superior, and agitated with a motion, not such as the intelligible world contains, but rather similar to the motion which is there; with a motion I say affecting to represent its image, it renders itself in the first place temporal, as a substitute for eternity. But afterwards it endeavours to become subservient to time, because it compels the world to reside in time, comprehending all its transitions in its forming nature. For the world is moved in this nature; since there is no other place for the universe than the mundane soul; and in the time of this soul, it is agitated without end. For this soul applying one energy after another in succession, generates that which is consequent, together with its energy, and at the same time proceeds with a cogitation posterior to this energy, and which before this had no existence, because cogitation was not yet in energy. Its present life too, is now not entirely similar to the preceding life: and hence together with this energy, another life succeeds; and in consequence of this another time is produced. Time, therefore, is allotted a distance and protraction of life; and a perpetual prorogation of life, possesses a perpetual time. If any one, therefore, should say that time is an energy of the mundane soul, perpetually proceeding in a certain transitory motion, from one life to another, he will perhaps appear to assert something correspondent to the truth. For if eternity is life abiding in station, and in a habit similar and the same, and already infinite; and if it is requisite that time should be the image of eternity, in the same manner as this universe is the image of the intelligible world, certainly instead of the life which flourishes there, another life must reside in a certain power of the mundane soul, equivocal with respect to intelligible life; and instead of intellectual motion, it is requisite that there should be a motion of some part of the soul. Likewise instead of identity, and a similar and abiding habit, that which does not abide in the same, but always pursues a different energy must succeed. And again instead of a property indistant, and one, a resemblance of one possessing unity in a continued succession. Besides instead of that which is infinite and total, that which perpetually propagates itself in infinite succession. Lastly, instead of that which is a collected whole, that which sustains parts, and is always about to be total and perfect. For thus it will imitate that which is total, collected, and infinite, if it wishes its essence to consist in a continual pursuit of being; and thus resembles the being of eternity itself. But it is requisite not to receive time external to soul, in the same manner as eternity is not external to being itself. Nor again, must we conceive that time exists as an appendage, or any thing posterior, in the same manner as conceptions of this kind, are not proper to eternity: but we must contemplate it as beheld seated in the recesses of soul, with which it exists in conjunction, just as eternity subsists in being itself.”