Whether this mortall life be rather to be called death then life. CHAP. 10.
FOr as soone as euer man enters this mortall body, hee beginnes a perpetuall iourney vnto death. For that this changeable life enioynes him to, if I may call the course vnto death a life. For there is none but is nearer death at the yeares end then hee was at the beginning: to morrow, then to day: to day then yesterday, by & by then iust now, & now then a little before; (a) each part of time that we passe, cuts off so much from our life, and the remainder still decreaseth: * 1.1 so that our whole life is nothing but a course vnto death, wherin one can neither stay nor slacke his pace: but all runne in one manner, and with one speed. For the short liuer, ranne his course no faster then the long: both had a like passage of time, but the first had not so farre to runne as the later, both making speede a∣like. It is one thing to liue longer, and another to runne faster. Hee that liues longer, runneth farther but not a moment faster. And if each one begin to bee in death as soone as his life beginnes to shorten, (because when it is ended hee is not then in death but after it) then is euery man in death as soone as euer he is conceiued. For what else doe all his dayes, houres and minutes declare, but that they beeing done, the death wherein hee liued, is come to an end: and that his time is now no more in death (hee being dead,) but after death? Therefore if man cannot be in life and death both at once, hee is neuer in life as long as he is in that dying rather then liuing body. Or is he in both? in life that is still dimini∣shed, and in death because hee dies, whose life diminisheth? for if hee be not in life, what is it that is diminished, vntill it bee ended, and if hee bee not in death, what is it that diminisheth the life? for life being taken from the body vntill it be ended, could not be said now to be after death, but that death end•…•…d it and that it was death whilest it diminished. And if man be not in death, but after it, when his life is ended, where is he but in death whilest it is a diminishing?
L. VIVES.
EAch (a) part] All our life flowes off by vnspied courses, and dieth euery moment of this hasting times. Quintilian. Time still cuts part of vs off: a common prouerbe. Poets and Philosophers all say this, and Seneca especially, from whom Augus•…•…ine hath much of that hee relateth heere.