Clearly, too, if there were no time, there would be no ‘now’, and vice versa. just as the moving body and its locomotion involve each other mutually, so too do the number of the moving body and the number of its locomotion. For the number of the locomotion is time, while the ‘now’ corresponds to the moving body, and is like the unit of number.
Time, then, also is both made continuous by the ‘now’ and divided at it. For here too there is a correspondence with the locomotion and the moving body. For the motion or locomotion is made one by the thing which is moved, because it is one-not because it is one in its own nature (for there might be pauses in the movement of such a thing)-but because it is one in definition: for this determines the movement as ‘before’ and ‘after’. Here, too there is a correspondence with the point; for the point also both connects and terminates the length-it is the beginning of one and the end of another. But when you take it in this way, using the one point as two, a pause is necessary, if the same point is to be the beginning and the end. The ‘now’ on the other hand, since the body carried is moving, is always different.
Hence time is not number in the sense in which there is ‘number’ of the same point because it is beginning and end, but rather as the extremities of a line form a number, and not as the parts of the line do so, both for the reason given (for we can use the middle point as two, so that on that analogy time might stand still), and further because obviously the ‘now’ is no part of time nor the section any part of the movement, any more than the points are parts of the line-for it is two lines that are parts of one line.
In so far then as the ‘now’ is a boundary, it is not time, but an attribute of it; in so far as it numbers, it is number; for boundaries belong only to that which they bound, but number (e.g. ten) is the number of these horses, and belongs also elsewhere.
It is clear, then, that time is ‘number of movement in respect of the before and after’, and is continuous since it is an attribute of what is continuous.
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12
The smallest number, in the strict sense of the word ‘number’, is two. But of number as concrete, sometimes there is a minimum, sometimes not: e.g. of a ‘line’, the smallest in respect of multiplicity is two (or, if you like, one), but in respect of size there is no minimum; for every line is divided ad infinitum. Hence it is so with time. In respect of number the minimum is one (or two); in point of extent there is no minimum.
It is clear, too, that time is not described as fast or slow, but as many or few and as long or short. For as continuous it is long or short and as a number many or few, but it is not fast or slow-any more than any number with which we number is fast or slow.
Further, there is the same time everywhere at once, but not the same time before and after, for while the present change is one, the change which has happened and that which will happen are different. Time is not number with which we count, but the number of things which are counted, and this according as it occurs before or after is always different, for the ‘nows’ are different. And the number of a hundred horses and a hundred men is the same, but the things numbered are different-the horses from the men. Further, as a movement can be one and the same again and again, so too can time, e.g. a year or a spring or an autumn.
Not only do we measure the movement by the time, but also the time by the movement, because they define each other. The time marks the movement, since it is its number, and the movement the time. We describe the time as much or little, measuring it by the movement, just as we know the number by what is numbered, e.g. the number of the horses by one horse as the unit. For we know how many horses there are by the use of the number; and again by using the one horse as unit we know the number of the horses itself. So it is with the time and the movement; for we measure the movement by the time and vice versa. It is natural that this should happen; for the movement goes with the distance and the time with the movement, because they are quanta and continuous and divisible. The movement has these attributes because the distance is of this nature, and the time has them because of the movement. And we measure both the distance by the movement and the movement by the distance; for we say that the road is long, if the journey is long, and that this is long, if the road is long-the time, too, if the movement, and the movement, if the time.
Time is a measure of motion and of being moved, and it measures the motion by determining a motion which will measure exactly the whole motion, as the cubit does the length by determining an amount which will measure out the whole. Further ‘to be in time’ means for movement, that both it and its essence are measured by time (for simultaneously it measures both the movement and its essence, and this is what being in time means for it, that its essence should be measured).
Clearly then ‘to be in time’ has the same meaning for other things also, namely, that their being should be measured by time. ‘To be in time’ is one of two things: (1) to exist when time exists, (2) as we say of some things that they are ‘in number’. The latter means either what is a part or mode of number-in general, something which belongs to number-or that things have a number.
Now, since time is number, the ‘now’ and the ‘before’ and the like are in time, just as ‘unit’ and ‘odd’ and ‘even’ are in number, i.e. in the sense that the one set belongs to number, the other to time. But things are in time as they are in number. If this is so, they are contained by time as things in place are contained by place.
Plainly, too, to be in time does not mean to co-exist with time, any more than to be in motion or in place means to co-exist with motion or place. For if ‘to be in something’ is to mean this, then all things will be in anything, and the heaven will be in a grain; for when the grain is, then also is the heaven. But this is a merely incidental conjunction, whereas the other is necessarily involved: that which is in time necessarily involves that there is time when it is, and that which is in motion that there is motion when it is.
Since what is ‘in time’ is so in the same sense as what is in number is so, a time greater than everything in time can be found. So it is necessary that all the things in time should be contained by time, just like other things also which are ‘in anything’, e.g. the things ‘in place’ by place.
A thing, then, will be affected by time, just as we are accustomed to say that time wastes things away, and that all things grow old through time, and that there is oblivion owing to the lapse of time, but we do not say the same of getting to know or of becoming young or fair. For time is by its nature the cause rather of decay, since it is the number of change, and change removes what is.
Hence, plainly, things which are always are not, as such, in time, for they are not contained time, nor is their being measured by time. A proof of this is that none of them is affected by time, which indicates that they are not in time.
Since time is the measure of motion, it will be the measure of rest