CHAP. 24. Time is it, by which wee measure the motion of bodies.
1. DOest thou command mee to allow of it, if any man should define Time to bee the motion of a body?
Saint Augustines confessions translated: and with some marginall notes illustrated. Wherein, diuers antiquities are explayned; and the marginall notes of a former Popish translation, answered. By William Watts, rector of St. Albanes, Woodstreete
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- Saint Augustines confessions translated: and with some marginall notes illustrated. Wherein, diuers antiquities are explayned; and the marginall notes of a former Popish translation, answered. By William Watts, rector of St. Albanes, Woodstreete
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- Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo.
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- London :: Printed by Iohn Norton, for Iohn Partridge: and are to be sold at the signe of the Sunne in Pauls Church-yard,
- 1631.
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- Augustine, -- Saint, Bishop of Hippo.
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http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A22627.0001.001
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"Saint Augustines confessions translated: and with some marginall notes illustrated. Wherein, diuers antiquities are explayned; and the marginall notes of a former Popish translation, answered. By William Watts, rector of St. Albanes, Woodstreete." In the digital collection Early English Books Online. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A22627.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 2, 2024.
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Page 785
No, thou doest not bid mee. For there is no body (that I heare of) moued, but in time. This thou sayest: but that the motion of a body should bee time, I neuer did heare: nor doest thou say it. For when a body is moued, I by Time then measure, How long it may haue moued, from the instant it first beganne to moue, vntill it left mouing? And if so bee I did not see the instant it beganne in; and if it continues to moue so long, as I cannot see when it ends; I am not then able to measure more of it, but onely perchance, from that instant I first saw it beginne, vntill I my selfe leaue measuring. And if I looke long vpon it; I can onely signifie it to bee a long time, but not how long: because when wee
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pronounce how long, wee must doe it by comparison; as for example, This is as long as that, or this twice so long as that, or the like. But were wee able to make ob∣seruation of the distances of those places, whence, and whither a body or his parts goe, which is mo∣ued; (as if suppose it were moued in a Turne) then might wee precisely say, how much time the motion of that body or his part, from this place vnto that, was finished in.
2. Seeing therefore the mo∣tion of a body is one thing, and that by which we measure how long it is, another thing; who cannot now iudge, wch of the two is rather to bee called time? For and if a body bee sometimes moued vncer∣tainely, and stands still other
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sometimes; then doe we mea∣sure, not his motion onely, but his standing still too: and wee say, It stoode still, as much as it moued; or it stoode still twice or thrice so long as it moued; or any o∣ther space which our mea∣suring hath eyther perfect∣ly taken, or guessed at; more or lesse, as wee vse to say. Time therefore is not the motion of a bo¦dy.