The Essential Augustine
PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY 231
Where then is the time which we may call long? Is it the future? In fact, we do not say: it is long, for it does not yet exist so as to be long; rather, we say: it will be long. When will it be so? For if at a certain instant when it will be still the future, then it will not be long, because that which is capable of being long does not yet exist. But if it will be long at the instant when it will just start to exist, as something from the nonexistent future, and will have become the present in order that it be something that could be long—then, in our remarks above, present time cries out that it cannot be long!
Nevertheless, O Lord, we do perceive intervals of 21. time; we compare them among themselves and we say that some are longer and others shorter. We even measure how much longer or shorter one period of time is than another; we can answer that this period is double or triple, while that is single, that is, just as long as another. But we measure periods of time as they are passing by; we do this measuring at the time of sense perception. So who can measure the past periods which are already out of existence, or the future ones which do not yet exist—unless, perhaps, someone is going to dare to say that the nonexistent can be 'measured? Therefore, while time is passing into the past it can be perceived and measured; but when it has passed away it cannot, for it does not exist.
I am looking for information, O Father, not making 22. an affirmation: O my God, counsel me and rule me. Who is there who will tell me that there are not three periods of time Gust as we learned when children and as we have taught the children): past, present and future, but that there is only the present because the other two do not exist? Or do they also exist but, when the present comes out of the future, does it proceed from something secret and, when the past comes about from the present, does it recede into something hidden? Indeed, where have the people who have foretold the future seen those things, if they are not yet in existence? For what does not exist cannot be seen. And those who tell about past events would certainly not tell the truth, if they did not see these things with their mind. And if they were not in existence, they could not be seen at all. Therefore, both future things and past things do exist.
Permit me, O Lord, to seek further information; 23. "O my Hope," let not my effort be confounded.
If future and past things exist, I would like to know