What is this number? Is it composed of unities? How does it measure?
That would still have to be explained. Now let us suppose that we had
discovered how it measures; we would still not have discovered the time
that measures, but a time that was such or such an amount. Now that is
not the same thing as time; there is a difference between time and some
particular quantity of time. Before asserting that time has such or
such a quantity, we have to discover the nature of that which has that
quantity. We may grant that time is the number which measures movement,
while remaining exterior thereto, as "ten" is in "ten horses" without
being conceived with them (as Aristotle claimed, that it was not a
numbering, but a numbered number). But in this case, we still have to
discover the nature of this number that, before numbering, is what it
is, as would be "ten" considered in itself.[454] It may be said that it
is that number which, by following number, measures according to the
priority and posteriority of that movement.[452] Nor do we yet perceive
the nature of that number which measures by priority and posteriority.
In any case, whatever measures by priority or posteriority, or by
a present moment,[455] or by anything else, certainly does measure
according to time. Thus this number (?) which measures movement
according to priority or posteriority, must touch time, and, to measure
movement, be related thereto. Prior and posterior necessarily designate
either different parts of space, as for instance the beginning of a
stadium, or parts of time. What is called priority is time that ends
with the present; what is called posteriority, is the time that begins
at the present. Time therefore is something different from the number
that measures movement according to priority or posteriority,--I do
not say, any kind of movement, but still regular movement. Besides,
why should we have time by applying number either to what measures, or
to what is measured? For in this case these two may be identical. If
movement exist along with the priority and posteriority which relate
thereto, why will we not have time without number? This would amount
to saying that extension has such a quantity only in case of the
existence of somebody who recognizes that it possesses that quantity.
Since (Aristotle[456]) says that time is infinite, and that it is such
effectually, how can it contain number without our taking a portion of
time to measure it? From that would result that time existed before
it was measured. But why could time not exist before the existence
of a soul to measure it? (Aristotle) might have answered that it was
begotten by the soul. The mere fact that the soul measures time need
not necessarily imply that the soul produced the time; time, along
with its suitable quantity, would exist even if nobody measured it. If
however it be said that it is the soul that makes use of extension to
measure time, we will answer that this is of no importance to determine
the notion of time.
POLEMIC AGAINST EPICURUS: TIME IS NOT AN ACCIDENT OR CONSEQUENCE OF
MOVEMENT.
9. (10). When (Epicurus[457]) says that time is a consequence of
movement, he is not explaining the nature of time; this would demand a
preliminary definition of the consequence of movement. Besides, this
alleged consequence of movement--granting the possibility of such
a consequence--must be prior, simultaneous, or posterior. For, in
whatever way we conceive of it, it is within time. Consequently, if the
consequence of movement be time, the result would be that time is a
consequence of movement in time (which is nonsense).