The Essential Augustine
it also ceased immediately to be long, for it ceased to be.
Let us see then, O human soul, whether present time 19. can be long; for the ability to perceive periods of time, and to measure them, has been given thee. What wilt thou answer me?
Is a hundred present years a long time? First of all, see whether there can be a hundred present years. If the first of these years is going on, it is present, but ninety-nine are still in the future and so they do not yet exist. But, if the second year is going on, one is already past, another is present, and the rest are in the future. And this is so, no matter which of the intervening years of this century we take to be present: the preceding years will be past, the succeeding ones future. For that reason, there cannot be a hundred present years.
Now, see whether even the one which is going on may itself be present. If, now, the first month in it is going on, the rest are future; if the second is, then the first is now past and the rest do not yet exist. Therefore, the year which is now going on is not present as a whole and, if it is not present as a whole, then the year is not present. For a year is twelve months, and whatever one of these months is now going on, that one is present; the rest are either past or future. Yet neither is the month which is now going on present, but one day: if the first, the rest are future; if the last, the rest are past; if any intermediate one, it is between the past and future ones.
See how the present time, which we found the only 20. one worthy of being called long, has been contracted to scarcely the extent of one day. But let us look at this carefully, for not even one day is present as a whole. It is made up of all twenty-four hours of night and day. The first of these regards the rest as future, the last one regards them as past; and the intermediate ones are to those preceding, as to the.past; to those coming after, as to the future. And this one hour itself goes on by means of fleeting little parts: whatever part of it has flown by is the past; whatever remains to it is the future. If one can conceive any part of time which could not be divided into even the most minute moments, then that alone is what may be called the present, and this flies over from the future into the past so quickly that it does not extend over the slightest instant. For if it has any extension, it is divided into past and future. But the present has no length.