Chap. I. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 353 



4/^, As the general idea of motion will apply to fuch a mind as 

 the human, where, though there be no change of fubftance, there is a 

 change and fucceffion of energies, we have from thence fome idea of 

 order, and of nril and laft, and likewife of an interval betwixt ; but9 

 as we have no ftandard by which to mcafure that interval, it is not 

 Time, but, as Ariftotle has obferved, only thefirft rude notion of Time. 

 But, as I can apply it to the duration of things, and fay, that a thing 

 has laded from the time I had one thought, till I had fuch another, it 

 may be confidered as fome bound or limit fet to duration, though not 

 a determined one, fuch as Time *. 



5/(9, As Time is duration bounded, and as it is infinitely divifible, it 

 follows, that the bounds or terminations of the different portions of 

 it are infinite in number. Thefe bounds are called moments or /«- 

 Jlants ; and they are what points are in a line, which may be infinite 

 in number, as the line is infinitely divifible. But it is well obferved 

 by Ariftotle, that Time does not confift of inftants any more than a 

 line does of points f ; for an inftant is no part of time, but the boun- 

 dary of its feveral portions, in the fame manner as a point is no part 

 of a line, but the termination of it, or of any certain part of It ; with 

 this difference betwixt the two, that a point has a fituatlon, and Is 

 fixed ; whereas, an inftant is continually moving, as the body is, from 

 the motion of which Time arifes J. It is, therefore, the intervals be- 

 twixt moments that are the parts of Time, as the intervals betwixt 

 points in the fame line are parts of that line ; and, as fome geometers 

 have conceived a line to be generated by the flux of a point, fo we 

 may conceive Time to be generated by the flux of an inftant, which is 

 therefore here and there, and every where, in Time, 



* See Arift. lib. 4. cap. 16. 



t Ibid. cap. 17. § 7. 



X Ibid. Phyf- cap. ult. § 14. 



