But yet this hinders not but that, having the IDEA of
the length of the motion of the shadow on a dial between the marks of
two hours, I can as distinctly measure in my thoughts the duration of
that candle-light last night, as I can the duration of anything that
does now exist: and it is no more than to think, that, had the sun shone
then on the dial, and moved after the same rate it doth now, the shadow
on the dial would have passed from one hour-line to another whilst that
flame of the candle lasted.
28. Our measures of Duration dependent on our ideas.
The notion of an hour, day, or year, being only the idea I have of the
length of certain periodical regular motions, neither of which motions
do ever all at once exist, but only in the ideas I have of them in my
memory derived from my senses or reflection; I can with the same ease,
and for the same reason, apply it in my thoughts to duration antecedent
to all manner of motion, as well as to anything that is but a minute or
a day antecedent to the motion that at this very moment the sun is in.
All things past are equally and perfectly at rest; and to this way
of consideration of them are all one, whether they were before the
beginning of the world, or but yesterday: the measuring of any duration
by some motion depending not at all on the REAL co-existence of that
thing to that motion, or any other periods of revolution, but the having
a clear IDEA of the length of some periodical known motion, or other
interval of duration, in my mind, and applying that to the duration of
the thing I would measure.
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