b) 'When .. we perceive the 'now' as one, and neither as before
and after in a motion nor as an identity but in relation to a 'before
' and an 'after', no time is thought to have elapsed, because there has
been no motion either. On the other hand, when we do perceive a '
before' and an 'after', then we say that there is time. For time is just
this - number of motion in respect of 'before' and 'after'.'
Aristotle, Physics, 219B.
c) 'That which neither has been nor will be, but simply
possesses being; that which enjoys stable existence as neither in
process of change nor having ever changed - that is Eternity.
Thus we come to the definition: the Life - instantaneously entire,
complete, at no point broken into period or part - which belongs
to the Authentic Existent by its very existence, this is the thing
we were probing for - this is Eternity.' '.... We know it as a Life
changelessly motionless and ever holding the Universal content in
actual presence; not this now and now that other, but always all;
not existing now in one mode and now in another, but a consummation
without part or interval. All its content is in immediate concentration
as at one point; nothing in it ever knows development: all remains
identical within itself,knowing nothing of change, forever in a Now,
since nothing of it has passed away or will come into being, but what
it is now, that it is ever.'
Plotinus, Enneads (MacKenna trans.), III, 7.
d) 'For if eternity and time are rightly distinguished by this,
that time does not exist without some movement and transition,
while in eternity there is no change.'
Augustine, City of God, Book XI, Ch VI.
e) '.... their heart flieth about in the past and future motion
of things, and is still wavering. Who shall hold it and fix it, that it
may rest a little, and by degrees catch the glory of that ever-standing
eternity, and compare it with the times which never stand, and
see that it is incomparable.'
Augustine,Confessions, Book XI, Ch XI.
f) 'But thought's the slave of life, and life time's fool;
And Time, that takes survey of all the world,
Must have a stop.'
Shakespeare, IHenryIV,V,4, 83.