C. Instance against the Rejection of the Opinion

95. There is objected against this [sc. that there is no distinction between the existence of an angel and the measure of it], that ‘the now as to substance’ is disposed to the substance of a movable thing as that which is posited to be the measure of the duration of the existence of angels is disposed to that existence - because, just as the existence, measured by this indivisible measure, remains the same, so the like is posited on the side of the ‘now’ and the substance of a movable thing; and yet on this side is found a distinction between the substance of the very movable thing and the substance of the ‘now’; therefore here too.

96. Now that one should posit some such ‘now’ measuring the movable thing, the same as it in substance, seems to follow from the intention of the Philosopher in Physics 4.10.281a8-11; there he seems to solve as it were the question he is moving about the ‘now’, by saying that it is ‘one and the same as to substance, but different as to being’.