Chap. r. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 351 



the motions of the fun and moon, being the moft confpicuous of thofe 

 bodies *. 



And now we have the full definition of time. ' It Is the meafure 



* of the duration of things that exift in fucceffion, by the motion of 



* the celeftial bodies.' 



From this definition, feveral confequences are to be drawn. And, in 

 ihtjirjl place, as motion and time may be both divided into any gi- 

 ven number of parts, io^ by dividing the periods of the revolution of 

 thofe bodies into any determined number of parts, we divide ti/ne^ in 

 like manner, into months, days, hours, minutes, &c. 



2dOi All the fubjeds to which tujie is applicable, are faid to be in 

 time, and are all, fome way or other, affected by time. But it is evi- 

 dent, as was before obferved, that beings, which fuffer no change, nei- 

 ther in fubflance, qualities, nor energies, cannot be iji time. Of this 

 kind, we conceive Divinity to be; and, therefore, he is not ift time but 

 in eternity^ or s» «(«•.,, as the Greek philofophers exprefs it, by which 

 is meant fimply duration, or continuation of exiftence, but without 

 being any ways bounded or limited. Of the fame kind, are all things 

 that, in any fenfe, may be faid to be unchangeable and eternal ; fuch 

 as theorems and propofitions of fcience ; and, therefore, Ariftotle very 

 properly extends the obfervation to every thing eternal, and which 

 continues always the famef. Of fuch things we fhould not fpeak with 

 any diliindion of time. But, as language was invented for the ufe of 

 men converfant with things in generation and corruption, there is no 

 verb of that kind in in any language, as 1 have elfewhere obferved J. 



* See Arift. phyf. lib. 4 cap. ult. § 8. It has been doubted, I find, of old, whether 

 the revolutions of the fun were all equal to one another, as Plutarch tells us, De Ifidc 

 ct Ofiridey i?i initio. 



t Tat dfioira. Phyf lib. 4. cap. 19. § 7. 



■t Origin of Language, vol.2, page I22' 



