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As to Duration, I still think it is absolutely impossible to conceive it without something that exists, and continues to exist, i.e. to endure. But how it should be a property of the thing existing is to me inconceivable. One thing... is absolutely certain, viz. that if eternal Duration be a property of the Supreme Being, Duration limited must be a property of inferior beings; so that we have here some common property.
I find you agree with Dr Clarke, in considering Time and Duration as the same. But this is an error that Dr Clarke has fallen into, by not being learned in the Ancient Metaphysics; for there he would have learned that time is only the measure of motion. It therefore could not exist, but with the material world; so that, if we could suppose nothing existing but the Supreme Mind, which is immoveable, there would in that case be Duration, or αίών,—as the Greek Philosophers call it—but not χρόνος, or Time. And the Doctor should not have rejected the common distinction, made by all Philosophers and Divines before him, betwixt Time and Eternity, without assigning better reasons than he has done. (en) |
