Before priority and posteriority, time, which did not yet exist,
brooded within existence itself. But an active nature (the universal
Soul), which desired to be mistress of herself, to possess herself, and
ceaselessly to add to the present, entered into motion, as did time,
along with (the Soul). We achieve a representation of the time that
is the image of eternity, by the length that we must go through with
to reach what follows, and is posterior, towards one moment, and then
towards another.[460]