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PHILOSOPHICAL

CONSIDERATIONS

Ο Ν ΤΗ Ε

NATURE of TIM E.

Tempus item per fe non eft.

LUCRET.

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PHILOSOPHICAL

CONSIDERATIONS

ΟΝ ΤΗΕ

NATURE of TIME.

WE

E are fo accustomed to connect our Ideas of Time with the History of what paffes in it, that is, to mistake a fucceffion of Thoughts and Actions for Time, that we find it extremely difficult, perhaps impoffible, totally to separate, or diftinguish them from each other and indeed had we power to effect this in our minds, all human language is fo formed, that it would fail us in our expreffion: yet certain it is, that Time, abstracted from the thoughts, actions, and motions which pafs in it, is actually nothing: it is only the Mode in which fome created Beings are ordained to exift, but in itself has really no existence at all.

THO' this Opinion may seem chimerical to many, who have not much confidered the fubject, yet Bb 2

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it is by no means new, for it was long fince adopted by fome of the most celebrated Philofophers of Antiquity, particularly by the Epicureans, and is thus well expreffed by Lucretius:

Tempus item per fe non eft; fed rebus ab ipfis Confequitur fenfus, tranfactum quod fit in avo, Tum quæ res inftat, quid porro deinde fequatur; Nec per fe, quemquam tempus fentire, fatendum eft, Semotum ab ufum, motu, plácidaque quiete.

Time of itself is nothing; but from Thought Receives its rife, by lab'ring Fancy wrought, From things confidered: while we think on fome As prefent, fome as past, and some to come: No thought can think on Time, that's ftill confefs'd,

But thinks on things in motion, or at rest.

CREECH.

FROM obferving the diurnal revolutions of the Sun, and the various transactions, which pafs during those revolutions, we acquire conceptions of Days; by dividing thefe Days we form Hours, Minutes, and Seconds; and by multiplying them, Months, Years, and Ages; then by measuring thefe imaginary periods against each other, and beftowing on each diftinct denominations, we give them the appearance of fomething real: Yefterday, which is past, and To-morrow, which is not

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yet come, affume the fame reality as the prefentDay; and thus we imagine Time to refemble a great Book, one of whofe pages is every day wroteon, and the reft remain blank to be filled up in their turns with the Events of Futurity; whilft in fact this is all but the delufion of our own Imaginations, and Time is nothing more, than the manner in which past, prefent, and future Events fucceed each other: yet is this delufion fo correspondent with our present ftate, and fo woven up with all human language, that without much reflection it cannot be perceived, nor when perceived can it be remedied: nor can I, while endeavouring to prove Time to be Nothing, avoid treating it as Something in almost every line.

THERE feems to be in the nature of things, two Modes of Existence; one, in which all Events paft, prefent, and to come, appear in one View; which, if the expreffion may be allowed, I fhall call perpetually inftantaneous; and which, as I apprehend, constitutes Eternity; the other, in which all things are prefented feparately, and fuc-, ceffively, which produces what we call Time. M

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Or the first of thefe human Reafon can afford) us no manner of conception; yet it affures us, on the strongest evidence, that fuch must be the Exiftence of the Supreme Creator of all things, that fuch probably may be the Existence of many fuperior

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