D. Response to the Instance

97. I exclude this objection [n.95] as follows:

First I show that what it supposes about ‘the now as to substance’ is false and is against the Philosopher’s intention - because the Philosopher proves [Physics 4.11.219b22-25] that “‘the now’ follows what is being moved” by the fact that “we learn from what is being moved the ‘before’ and ‘after’ in motion,” and that from this ‘now’ we learn the ‘before’ and ‘after’ in time. But this is not true of the movable as to substance, but as it is under different changes, because, if the movable is taken as to substance absolutely, we do not from it learn the ‘before’ and ‘after’ in motion.a

a.a [Interpolation] therefore neither do we from the same ‘now’ according to substance learn the ‘before’ and ‘after’ in time, but we do so from different ‘nows’.

98. Likewise, the Philosopher says [Physics 4.11.219b33-20a4], as to the second property about the ‘now’, that it is not without time nor vice versa, because motion is not without the movable nor vice versa; and as motion is to the movable, so the number of motion is to the number or unity of the movable. But that the movable cannot, as to its substance, be without motion is false, but it is true of the movable precisely as it exists under change; therefore if the latter is a movable in the whole motion, then so is the ‘now’ corresponding to it.

99. Further, how could the ‘indivisible now’ flow according to different existences (which would necessarily be indivisible), without its whole flow being a composite of indivisibles? For the Philosopher proves, from his intention in Physics 6.10.241a6-14, that the indivisible cannot move, because then its motion would be composed of indivisibles, because a lesser or equal part of it would pass by before a greater did;     therefore time would be a composite of indivisibles, which is against the Philosopher [Physics 6.9.239b8-9].

100. To prove this [sc. that an indivisible ‘now’ cannot flow according to different existences] there are two reasons from the Philosopher [Physics 4.10.218a21-30],a one of which is of this sort: ‘those things are said to be at once which are in the same indivisible instant etc     .’b

a.a [Interpolated note] In the Reportatio, “these reason are left unsolved, though they may apparently be solved.”

b.b [Interpolation]     therefore if the instant is the same in substance, all instances are equally present and at once, both those now and those a thousand years from now (Averroes Physics 4 comm.92).

101. The other reason is that ‘of any continuous thing there are two distinct terms etc     .’ - which reason I clarify as follows:

Because to ask whether the substance itself of the ‘now as to substance’ is movable is only to dispute about words. But if the ‘now’ is other than the substance (namely, something indivisible in the genus of quantity), I ask of which continuous thing or of which discrete part it is the term - because everything indivisible that is per se in the genus of quantity is either a term of continuous quantity or a part of discrete quantity. If the now is part of discrete quantity then time is discrete, which the Philosopher did not concede [n.99]; if it is a term of continuous quantity, then it must be two (according as it is the term of this and of that part of the continuous), because it is impossible for ‘the same thing as to substance’ to be per se the end and the beginning of one and the same quantity.a

a.a [Interpolation] Again, the Commentator makes the following argument at Physics 4 comm.91: an instant is end and term of something finite; but everything finite has two terms and two ends; therefore it also has two instants.

102. And if you say that it is the term ‘according to diverse existences’ - then since those existences are accidents of the ‘now’ the same in substance (because for you it remains the same under diverse existences [n.95], and consequently those existences are accidents of it), and since everything indivisible in the genus of quantity is the per se term of a quantity (or is a part of what is discrete), it follows that that ‘now’ is not an indivisible per se in the genus of quantity, since it is not per se a term.

103. Further, I ask to what genus those ‘existences’ belong. If they are indivisibles of the genus of quantity, then they are sufficient to be the terms of the continuous proper without the ‘now as to substance’, which is unacceptable (the proof of the consequence is that nothing indivisible is per se a term ‘because there is a term of a second indivisible’). But if they belong to another genus, namely of quality - then a quality will be per se the idea of terminating the continuous in the genus of quantity.

104. And further, how would the ‘now as to substance’ not undergo change according to diverse existences? And then one would have to ask about the measure of it and of its changes, and so on ad infinitum.

105. Further, is the ‘now as to substance’ the same in any motion whatever or in a single one precisely?

106. To the Philosopher [n.96] I say that he does not intend the ‘now’ to remain the same in substance, but the opposite follows from what he said; but any ‘single now’, considered in itself, is the same, and this is said to be ‘the same in substance’ - but considered in order to past and future time, since it is the end of the past and the beginning of the future, it is said ‘to be distinguished in being’ [Physics 4.13.222a10-15].

107. And to make this clear, there is the likeness about the movable thing, that it remains the same [n.95]; not indeed the movable thing as it absolutely precedes change (for in that case, the ‘now’ is not the measure of it and it does not belong to time [nn.97-98]), but the movable thing as it is under a change is ‘the same as to substance’ - that is, according to the being of the change considered in itself -, and is ‘different as to being’ -that is, as under the change it is the term of the past and the beginning of the future, and in this respect it is said to be here and to be there. Not indeed actually so, but in one intermediate ‘where’ between the extremes (insofar as this intermediate ‘where’ ends the motion as to the prior ‘where’ and begins the motion as to the later ‘where’) - in this it is said to be here and there, because ‘to change’ is to have something of both extremes; hence the Philosopher in Physics 6.4.234b17-19 maintains that, although something may be in a single intermediate, yet it is ‘other’ according to each extreme.

108. But how will this solve the question of the Philosopher, which he moves in the Physics [n.96], ‘whether the same ‘now’ in substance remains in the whole time or not’?

I say that the Philosopher nowhere expressly solves this other question, about ‘whether time is’, but he does say a few things from which its solution can be collected [Physics 4.10.217b31-18a8] - and so it is in the case of this question: for if any movable thing whatever has sameness precisely as to substance (that is, relative to itself) and difference as to being (that is, in its order to different parts of motion), then things are the same about an instant with respect to the parts of time; and there is not as much sameness to the instant in the whole of time as there is to one instant; therefore the instant in the whole of time is ‘different things’ as to substance.

109. I say then to the objection [n.95], that if any ‘now’ is similarly disposed to the substance of the movable thing as aeviternity is to the substance of an angel, then that ‘now’ is not other than that substance, nor is it an indivisible in the genus of quantity; and if some ‘now’ in the genus of quantity is imagined for measuring the movable thing as to substance, then there is no such thing in an angel actually existing, as was proved before [n.91].

110. But I argue against this [sc. the imagining of a now in the genus of quantity etc., n.109] as follows:

The movable thing can be considered in three ways: either as it exists under the end points of change, or as it exists under the in-between of change, or as it is prior to motion and change (though able to receive them). In the first way there correspond to it diverse ‘nows’ as to being, in the second way there corresponds to it the time between those ‘nows’ - so in the third way there will correspond to it some proper measure, but this measure is only the ‘now as to substance’;     therefore etc     .

111. I reply.

If time has to differ from motion, and consequently the instant has to differ from change, yet there is not a like reason for positing something different from the existence itself of a uniform angel in order to be measure of it.a For if time differs from motion, the reason for this is that the parts of the same proportion of some motion are not necessarily equal in number and quantity to the parts of the same proportion of time; but no quantity is the same as another quantity unless the parts of the same proportion in it are equal to the parts of the same proportion in the other quantity, and that equal both in number and in magnitude (though, when speaking of the quantity that is in motion, it has this from the part of the magnitude or form by which it is motion). However, parts of a motion, to wit ten parts integrally forming a whole motion, can exist with ten parts of time, and yet they are not the same as the parts of time, because there could exist, along with the same parts of time, a greater number of parts of motion equal in magnitude to the prior parts of the motion, or as many again; for if a double force were to move the same movable thing, and consequently move it twice as quickly, there will be no part in the slower motion that does not exist in the quicker motion (speaking of the parts that the motion has in magnitude, according to the form according to which it is a magnitude), because what moves a movable thing with a quicker motion does not make any parts of the magnitude pass by simultaneously but makes them precisely pass by one after the other; therefore there are as many and as large parts in a quicker motion (speaking of this quantity) as there are in a slower motion. But the same time (possessing the same parts) cannot exist along with the former motion and also with the latter; therefore the parts of time will not be the same as the parts either of the former or of the latter, because the parts of time are not disposed to the whole in the same proportion as, and equal with, those other parts of the whole.

a.a [Interpolation] in the way that is posited on the other side about time and the instant with respect to motion and change as to their measures.

112. If this is true, the conclusion from it is that an indivisible of one quantity is not the indivisible of another quantity, but the conclusion from this conclusion is not that in anything ‘that remains always uniform in being’ one must posit something else different from it, because there the argument about the magnitudes and their parts does not hold. There is then a fallacy of the consequent involved in arguing affirmatively from the lesser thing: ‘if change and motion have measures other than themselves, then the substance too itself - which is prior to motion and change - has a measure other than itself’ [n.110]; for there seems to be less distinction (or lack of sameness) in a permanent thing than in a thing in flux (or in motion) and its measure.Tr. To argue from a distinction between change and its measure to an equal distinction between a permanent thing and its measure is to argue from a less permanent thing to a more permanent one, which is fallacious here because there is no reason to suppose that a more permanent thing should have the same distinctions as a less permanent one; rather it would seem intuitively to have fewer distinctions. ²⁵

113. But if one is pleased to grant some measure to the movable thing insofar as it is in itself prior to motion and change, then that measure will be aeviternity, as will be plain in the question about the measure of the operations of an angel [nn.167, 171-76].

114. And if you look for another measure of it insofar as it is in itself and insofar as it is susceptive of motion and change, I say that it is not other, because the subject insofar as it is in itself is susceptive of its proper accident - and likewise, if there is any measure, it is the same; hence there is not another measure of a surface insofar as it is a surface and insofar as it is susceptive of whiteness and blackness. So I say that if the substance of the first movable (or of any other movable) is measured by aeviternity, there is no other measure of it insofar as it is naturally prior to motion and change and insofar as it is receptive of motion and change.

115. But if you say that insofar as it is at rest it will have a measure other than aeviternity, this is false as will be clear later [nn.167, 171-76].