the world of immutable being. And when reason, which works with equal
truth, whether she be in the circle of the diverse or of the same--in
voiceless silence holding her onward course in the sphere of the
self-moved--when reason, I say, is hovering around the sensible world
and when the circle of the diverse also moving truly imparts the
intimations of sense to the whole soul, then arise opinions and beliefs
sure and certain. But when reason is concerned with the rational, and
the circle of the same moving smoothly declares it, then intelligence
and knowledge are necessarily perfected. And if any one affirms that
in which these two are found to be other than the soul, he will say the
very opposite of the truth.

When the father and creator saw the creature which he had made moving
and living, the created image of the eternal gods, he rejoiced, and in
his joy determined to make the copy still more like the original; and
as this was eternal, he sought to make the universe eternal, so far
as might be. Now the nature of the ideal being was everlasting, but to
bestow this attribute in its fulness upon a creature was impossible.
Wherefore he resolved to have a moving image of eternity, and when he
set in order the heaven, he made this image eternal but moving according
to number, while eternity itself rests in unity; and this image we call
time. For there were no days and nights and months and years before the
heaven was created, but when he constructed the heaven he created them
also. They are all parts of time, and the past and future are created
species of time, which we unconsciously but wrongly transfer to the
eternal essence; for we say that he 'was,' he 'is,' he 'will be,' but
the truth is that 'is' alone is properly attributed to him, and that
'was' and 'will be' are only to be spoken of becoming in time, for they
are motions, but that which is immovably the same cannot become older or
younger by time, nor ever did or has become, or hereafter will be, older
or younger, nor is subject at all to any of those states which affect
moving and sensible things and of which generation is the cause. These
are the forms of time, which imitates eternity and revolves according
to a law of number. Moreover, when we say that what has become IS become
and what becomes IS becoming, and that what will become IS about
to become and that the non-existent IS non-existent--all these are
inaccurate modes of expression (compare Parmen.). But