The extent of the Movement of the All, then ?
The Celestial Circuit may, no doubt, be thought of in terms of quantity. It answers to measure — in two ways. First there is space ; the movement is commensurate with the area it passes through, and this area is its extent. But this gives us, still, space only, not Time. Secondly, the circuit, considered apart from distance traversed, has the extent of its continuity, of its tendency not to stop but to proceed indefinitely : but this is merely amplitude of Movement ; search it, tell its vastness, and, still. Time has no more appeared, no more enters into the matter, than when one certifies a high pitch of heat ; all we have discovered is Motion in ceaseless succession, like water flowing ceaselessly, motion and extent of motion.
io8
Succession or repetition gives us Number — dyad, triad, etc. — and the extent traversed is a matter of Magnitude ; thus we have Quantity of Movement — in the form of number, dyad, triad, decade, or in the form of extent apprehended in what we may call the amount of the Movement : but, the idea of Time we have not. That definite Quantity is (not Time but) merely something occurring within Time, for, otherwise Time is not everywhere but is something belonging to Movement which thus would be its substratum or basic-stuff : once more, then, we would be making Time identical with Movement ; for the extent of Movement is not some- thing outside it but is simply its continuousness, and we need not halt upon the difference between the momentary and the continuous, which is simply one of manner and degree. The extended movement and its extent are not Time ; they are in Time. Those that explain Time as extent of Movement must mean not the extent of the movement itself but something which determines its extension, something with which the movement keeps pace in its course. But what this something is, we are not told ; yet it is, clearly. Time, that in which all Movement pro- ceeds. This is what our discussion has aimed at from the first : “ What, essentially, is Time 7 ” It comes to this : we ask " What is Time ? ” and we are answered, “ Time is the extension of Movement in Time ! ”
On the one hand Time is said to be an extension apart from and outside that of Movement ; and we are left to guess what this extension may be : on the other hand, it is represented as the extension of Move- ment ; and this leaves the difficulty what to make of the extension of Rest — though one thing may continue as long in repose as another in motion, so that we are obliged to think of one thing Time that covers both Rest and Movements, and, therefore, stands distinct from either.
What then is this thing of extension ? To what order of beings does it belong ?
It obviously is not spatial, for place, too, is something outside it.
III. 7. 9l
“ A Number, a Measure, belonging to Movement ? ”
This, at least, is plausible since Movement is a continuous thing ; but let us consider.
To begin with, we have the doubt which met us when we probed its identification with extent of Movement : is Time the measure of any and every Movement ?
Have we any means of calculating disconnected and lawless Move- ment ? What number or measure would apply ? What would be the principle of such a Measure ?
One Measure for movement slow and fast, for any and every move- ment : then that number and measure would be like the decade, by which we reckon horses and cows, or like some common standard for liquids and solids. If Time is this Kind of Measure, we learn, no doubt, of what objects it is a Measure — of Movements — but we are no nearer understanding what it is in itself.
Or : we may take the decade and think of it, apart from the horses or cows, as a pure number ; this gives us a measure which, even though not actually applied, has a definite nature. Is Time, perhaps, a Measure in this sense ?
No : to tell us no more of Time in itself than that it is such a number is merely to bring us back to the decade we have already rejected, or to some similar collective figure.
If, on the other hand. Time is (not such an abstraction but) a Measure possessing a continuous extent of its own, it must have quantity, like a foot-rule ; it must have magnitude ; it will, clearly, be in the nature of a line traversing the path of Movement. But, itself thus sharing in the movement, how can it be a Measure of Movement ? Why should the one of the two be the measure rather than the other ? Besides an accompanying measure is more plausibly considered as a measure of the particular movement it accompanies than of Movement in general. Further, this entire discussion assumes continuous movement, since the accompanying principle. Time, is itself unbroken (but a full explanation implies justification of Time in repose).
no
The fact is that we are not to think of a measure outside and apart, but of a combined thing, a measured Movement, and we are to discover what measures it.
Given a Movement measured, are we to suppose the measure to be a magnitude ?
If so, which of these two would be Time, the measured movement or the measuring magnitude ? For Time (as measure) must be either the movement measured by magnitude, or the measuring magnitude itself or something using the magnitude like a yard-stick to appraise the move- ment, In all three cases, as we have indicated, the application is scarcely plausible except where continuous movement is assumed ; unless the Movement proceeds smoothly, and even unintermittently and as embrac- ing the entire content of the moving object, great difficulties arise in the identification of Time with any kind of measure.
Let us, then, suppose Time to be this “ measured Movement,” measured by quantity. Now the Movement if it is to be measured requires a measure outside itself ; this was the only reason for raising the question of the accompanying measure. In exactly the same way the measuring magnitude, in turn, will require a measure, because only when the standard shows such and such an extension can the degree of movement be appraised. Time then will be, not the magnitude accom- panying the Movement, but that numerical value by which the magnitude accompanying the Movement is estimated. But that number can be only the abstract figure which represents the magnitude, and it is difficult to see how an abstract figure can perform the act of measuring.
And, supposing that we discover a way in which it can, we still have not Time, the measure, but a particular quantity of Time, not at all the same thing : Time means something very different from any definite period : before all question as to quantity is the question as to the thing of which a certain quantity is present.
Time, we are told, is the number outside Movement and measuring it, like the tens applied to the reckoning of the horses and cows but not inherent in them : we are not told what this Number is ; yet, applied or not, it must, like that decade, have some nature of its own.
Iii. 7. 9]
Or “ it is that which accompanies a Movement and measures it by its successive stages ” ; but we are still left asking what this thing recording the stages may be.
In any case, once a thing — whether by point or standard or any other means — measures succession, it must measure according to time : this number appraising movement degree by degree must, therefore, if it is to serve as a measure at all, be something dependent upon time and in contact with it : for, either, degree is spatial, merely — the beginning and end of the Stadium, for example — or in the only alternative, it is a pure matter of Time : the succession of early and late is stage of Time, Time ending upon a certain Now or Time beginning from a Now.
Time, therefore, is something other than the mere number measuring Movement, whether Movement in general or any particular tract of Movement.
Further : — Why should the mere presence of a number give us Time — a number measuring or measured ; for the same number may be either — if Time is not given us by the fact of Movement itself, the movement which inevitably contains in itself a succession of stages ? To make the number essential to Time is like saying that magnitude has not its full quantity unless we can estimate that quantity.
Again, if Time is, admittedly, endless, how can number apply to it ?
Are we to take some portion of Time and find its numerical state- ment ? That simply means that Time existed before number was applied to it.
We may, therefore, very well think that it existed before the Soul or Mind that estimates it — if, indeed, it is not to be thought to take its origin from the Soul — for no measurement by anything is necessary to its existence ; measured or not, it has the full extent of its being.
And suppose it to be true that the Soul is the appraiser, using Mag- nitude as the measuring standard, how does this help us to the conception of Time ?
Ii2
Time, again, has been described as some sort of a sequence upon Movement, but we learn nothing from this, nothing is said, until we know what it is that produces this sequential thing ; probably the cause and not the result would turn out to be Time.
And, admitting such a thing, there would still remain the question whether it came into being before the movement, with it, or after it ; and, whether we say before or with or after, we are speaking of order in Time : and thus our definition is " Time is a sequence upon movement in Time ! ”
Enough. Our main purpose is to show what Time is, not to refute false definition. To traverse point by point the many opinions of our many predecessors would mean a history rather than an identification ; we have treated the various theories as fully as is possible in a cursory review ; and, notice, that which makes Time the Measure of the All- Movement is refuted by our entire discussion and, especially, by the observations upon the Measurement of Movement in general, for all the argument — except, of course, that from irregularity — applies to the All as much as to particular Movement.
We are, thus, at the stage where we are to state what Time really is.
To this end we must go back to the state we affirmed of Eternity, unwavering Life, undivided totality, limitless, knowing no divagation, at rest in unity and intent upon it. Time was not yet : or at least it did not exist for the Eternal Beings, though its being was implicit in the Idea and Principle of progressive derivation.
But from the Divine Beings thus at rest within themselves, how did this Time first emerge ?
We can scarcely call upon the Muses to recount its origin since they were not in existence then — perhaps not even if they had been. The engendered thing. Time, itself, can best tell us how it rose and became manifest ; something thus its story would run :
111. 7. Ilj
Time at first— in reality before that " first " was produced by desire of succession — Time lay, self-concentrated, at rest within the Authentic Existent : it was not yet Time ; it was merged in the Authentic and motionless with it. But there was an active principle there, one set on governing itself and realising itself ( = the All-Soul), and it chose to aim at something more than its present : it stirred from its rest, and Time stirred with it. And we (i.e. human Souls as summed in the principle of developing Life, the All-Soul ?) we, stirring to a ceaseless succession, to a next, to the discrimination of identity and the establishment of ever new difference, traversed a portion of the outgoing path and produced an image of Eternity, produced Time.
For the Soul contained an unquiet faculty, always desirous of trans- lating elsewhere what it saw in the Authentic Realm, and it could not bear to retain within itself all the dense fullness of its possession.