artifice in his
division, in his book of Vacuity and some others, says, that the past
and future time are not, but have subsisted (or will subsist), and
that the present only is; but in his third, fourth, and fifth books
concerning Parts, he asserts, that of the present time one part is past,
the other to come. Thus it comes to pass, that he divides subsisting
time into non-subsisting parts of a subsisting total, or rather leaves
nothing at all of time subsisting, if the present has no part but what
is either future or past.

These men's conception therefore of time is not unlike the grasping of
water, which, the harder it is held, all the more slides and runs away.
As to actions and motions, all evidence is utterly confounded. For if
NOW is divided into past and future, it is of necessity that what is now
moved partly has been moved and partly shall be moved, that the end and
beginning of motion have been taken away, that nothing of any work
has been done first, nor shall anything be last, the actions being
distributed with time. For as they say that of present time, part is
past and part to come; so of that which is doing, it will be said that
part is done and part shall be done. When therefore had TO DINE, TO
WRITE, TO WALK, a beginning, and when shall they have an end, if every
one who is dining has dined and shall dine, and every one who is
walking has walked and shall walk? But this is, as it is said, of all
absurdities the most absurd, that if he who now lives has already lived
and shall live, then to live neither had beginning nor shall have end;
but every one of us, as it seems, was born without commencing to live,
and shall die without ceasing to live. For if there is no last part,
but he who lives has something of the present still remaining for the
future, to say "Socrates shall live" will never be false so long as it
shall be true to say "Socrates lives"; and so long also will it be false
to say "Socrates is dead." So that, if "Socrates shall live" is true
in infinite parts of time, it will in no part of time be true to say
"Socrates is dead." And verily what end will there be of a work, and
where will you terminate an action, if, as often as it is true to say
"This is doing," it is likewise true to say "This shall be doing"? For
he will lie who shall say, there will be an end of Plato's writing and
disputing; since Plato will never give over writing and disputing, if it
is never false to say of him who di