The Essential Augustine (continued)
PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY 229
For, what is time? Who can explain it easily and briefly? Who can grasp this, even in cogitation, so as to offer a verbal explanation of it? Yet, what do we mention, in speaking, more familiarly and knowingly than time? And we certainly understand it when we talk about it; we even understand it when we hear another person speaking about it.
What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know; but, if I want to explain it to a questioner, I do not know. Yet, I say with confidence that I know that, if nothing passed away, there would be no past time; if nothing were coming, there would be no future time; and if nothing were existing, there would be no present time.
Then, how do those two periods of time, the past and the future, exist, when the past is already not existing, and the future does not yet exist? And again, the present would not pass away into the past, if it were always present; indeed, it would not be time but eternity. So, if the present, in order to be time, must be such that it passes over into the past, then how can we say that it is; for the sole reason for its existence is the fact that it will stop being; that is to say, can we not truly say that time is only because it inclines not to be?
Still, we speak of a long time and a short time, and 18. we only say this of the past or future. For instance, we call a hundred years ago a long past time, and, likewise, a hundred years ahead a long future time. But we say, for example, that ten days ago is a short past time, and ten days hence is a short future. But how is something long or short which does not exist? For, the past does not now exist and the future does not yet exist. So, let us not say: it is long; rather, let us say of past time: it was long; and of the future: it will be long.
My Lord, my Light, will not Thy Truth here also make sport of man? For was that past time long in the sense that it was long when already past, or when it was still present? Of course, it could have been long only at the time when that existed which was capable of being long, but as past it was already not existing; hence, it could not be long, for it was wholly nonexistent.
So let us not say past time was long; for we will discover nothing which could have been long, since, from the fact that it is past, it does not exist. Rather let us say: "That present time was long," for, when it was present, it was long. For it had not yet passed away into nonexistence, and so there was something which could be long. But once it passed away,