Select Works of Plotinus — trans. Thomas Taylor

it? Unless it should be said thaf the generation of it is effected by soul ; since it is by no means necessary that time should exist because it is measured by soul. For it would existp. 205 as much as it is in quantity, though no one should measure it. And if some one should say that it is soul which uses magnitude for the purpose of meat suring time, what will this have to do with the con¬ ception of time ?

X. But to say that time is an appendix of motion, is not to teach what time is, nor ought this to be said before it is shown what the appendix is. For perhaps it may be time. With respect to this appendix, however, it must be considered, whether it has a posterior, or simultaneous, or prior sub¬ sistence ; if there is an appendix of this kind. For in whatever manner it may be spoken of, it is spoken of in time. Hence, if this is time, it will follow that time is the appendix of motion in time. Since, however, we do not investigate what time is not, but what it is, and much has been said on this subject by many prior to us, according to each position, he who discusses these would rather com¬ pose a history [than discover the nature of time ] To which may be added, that we have occasionally said something concerning these different positions. Some things also may be opposed from what has been already said, to him who asserts that time isp. 206 the measure of the universe, and likewise such other things as have just now been asserted respect¬ ing the measure of motion. For separate from inequality, all the other particulars may be ad¬ duced, which are adapted to their positions. It follows, therefore, that we should now show what it is necessary to think time is.

XI. Again, therefore, it is requisite that we should betake ourselves to that condition of being which we have said is in eternity ; a condition which is immutable, and at once total, a life now infinite and perfectly inflexible, and abiding in one, and directed to the one . But time was not yet, or at least was not in those natures ; but was about to be generated * by the reason and nature of that which is posterior. Inteiligibles, therefore, quietly energizing in themselves, he who desires to know how time first fell, will not perhaps call upon the Muses who did not then exist, to tell him. Per¬ haps, however, he will, since the Muses also then

8 Time* as well as the world, is said to have been generated, not because it once was not* for It always existed, but because it depends for its subsistence on causes naturally prior to itself.

ell him. Per¬ haps, however, he will, since the Muses also then

8 Time* as well as the world, is said to have been generated, not because it once was not* for It always existed, but because it depends for its subsistence on causes naturally prior to itself.

p. 207

had a being.1 Perhaps, too, he will find time itself generated, so far as it is generated and unfolded into light. But he will speak about it as follows :

Before this priority originated, and was indigent of the posterior, the former was quiescent together with the latter in being, time not yet existing ; but itself also quietly abiding [i. e. subsisting causally] in real being. A certain nature, however, much conversant with action, wishing to govern, and pos¬ sess authority from itself, and chusing to explore more of the present, was itself indeed moved, and together with it likewise time, always tending to hereafter and the posterior, and not to the same, but to another, and again another existence. But we from this motion producing a certain length of progression, conceive time to be the image of eter¬ nity. For since there was a certain unquiet powerp. 208 of the soul, wishing always to transfer what it there saw to something else, it was not willing that an at- once-collected all should be present with it. But as reason [i. e. a productive principle] evolving itself from a quiet seed, produces as it fancies an abundant progression, abolishing the abundant by division, and instead of the one subsisting in itself, consuming the one which is not in itself, and thus proceeds into a more imbecile length ; in a similar manner, this nature of soul, producing the sensible through the imitation of the intelligible world, and being moved not with the motion which is there, but with a motion resembling it, and wish¬ ing to be its image, in the first place indeed, renders itself temporal, producing this instead of eternity. In the next place, it causes that which is generated to be subservient to time, making the whole of it to be in time, and comprehending all the progres¬ sions of it in time.

* The Muses, considered according to their subsistence in Apollo, belong to the intellectual order, and are therefore superior to time. But if time is supposed to have had a beginning, then the Muses, according to their mundane sub¬ sistence, had no existence prior to the generation of time. To say, therefore, that the Muses did not once exist, is equivalent to the assertion that the intellectual is prior to the mundane order of them, according to nature, order, dignity, and causality.

the first place indeed, renders itself temporal, producing this instead of eternity. In the next place, it causes that which is generated to be subservient to time, making the whole of it to be in time, and comprehending all the progres¬ sions of it in time. For the world is moved in the nature of soul ; since there is not any other place of this universe than soul, and in the time of soul it is moved. For soul exhibiting its energy succes¬ sively, generates together with its energy that which is successive, and proceeds in conjunction with • another reasoning process after that energy, which was not before ; since, neither was the discursive energy of reason effective, nor the present life of soul similar to that which preceded it. Hence, at the same time, there is another life, and this other life will have another time. Distance of life, there¬ fore, [or the interval between one life and another,] will be attended with time. The perpetual exten¬ sion of life also to the anterior part, will have per¬ petual time : and the past life will be accompanied with past time. If, therefore, some one should say that time is the energy 1 of soul, proceeding in a transitive motion from one life to another, will he not appear to say something to the purpose? a For if eternity is life consisting in permanency, and in

8 The word cvepyeia is omitted in the original.

% Time, however, according to Proclus, is a medium be¬ tween that which is alone the cause of motion, as soul, and that which is alone immoveable, as intellect. Hence time is truly, so iar as it is considered in itself, immoveable, but so far as it is in its participants, it is moveable, and subsists toge¬ ther with them, unfolding itself into them. He adds, hence it is a certain proceeding intellect , established indeed in eternity, but proceeding and abundantly flowing into the things which are guarded by it. This definition of time by Proclus, appears to me to be uncommonly beautiful and accurate, bee the whole of the passage from which it is taken, in the Additional Notes to my translation of the Timteus of Plato.

Plot.

o an invariable sameness of subsistence, and which is now infinite, but it is necessary that time should be the image of eternity, just as this universe is the image of the intelligible world ; — if this be the case, instead of the life which is there, it is necessary there should be another life of the discursive power of the mundane soul, homonymous as it w^ere to the life of eternity ; and instead of intellectual motion, that there should be the motion of a