As the universal Soul contained an activity that agitated her, and
impelled her to transport into another world what she still saw on
high, she was willing to retain all things that were present at the
same time. (Time arose not by a single fiat, but as the result of a
process. This occurred within the universal Soul, but may well be
first illustrated by the more familiar process within) Reason, which
distributes unity, not indeed That which remains within itself, but
that which is exterior to itself. Though this process seem to be a
strengthening one, reason developing out of the seed in which it
brooded unto manifoldness, it is really a weakening (or destructive
one), inasmuch as it weakened manifoldness by division, and weakened
reason by causing it to extend. The case was similar with the universal
Soul. When she produced the sense-world, the latter was animated by
a movement which was only an image of intelligible movement. (While
trying to strengthen) this image-movement to the extent of the
intelligible movement, she herself (weakened), instead of remaining
exclusively eternal, became temporal and (involuntarily) subjected what
she had produced to the conditions of time, transferring entirely into
time not only the universe, but also all its revolutions. Indeed, as
the world moves within the universal Soul, which is its location, it
also moves within the time that this Soul bears within herself.[461]
Manifesting her power in a varied and successive manner, by her mode
of action, the universal Soul begat succession. Indeed, she passes
from one conception to another, and consequently to what did not exist
before, since this conception was not effective, and since the present
life of the soul does not resemble her former life. Her life is varied,
and from the variety of her life results the variety of time.[462]
TIME IS THE LIFE OF THE SOUL CONSIDERED IN THE MOVEMENT BY WHICH SHE
PASSES FROM ONE ACTUALIZATION TO ANOTHER.
Thus, the extension of the life of the soul produces time, and the
perpetual progression of her life produces the perpetuity of time, and
her former life constitutes the past. We may therefore properly define
time as the life of the soul considered in the movement by which she
passes from one actualization to another.