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FIRST CLASS OP OBJECTS FOE THE SUBJECT. Ill
25. The Time in which a Change takes place.
As the Principle of Sufficient Reason of Becoming is
exclusively applicable to changes, we must not omit to
mention here, that the ancient philosophers had already
raised the question as to the time in which a change takes
place, there being no possibility of it taking place during
the existence of the preceding state nor after the new
one has supervened. Yet, if we assign a special time to it
between both states, a body would, during this time, be
neither in the first nor in the second state : a dying man,
for instance, would be neither alive nor dead; a body
neither at rest nor in movement : which would be absurd.
The scruples and sophistic subtleties which this question
has evoked, may be found collected together in Sextus
Empiricus
"
"
Adv. Mathem." lib. ix. 267-271, and Hypat."
iii. c. 14 ; the subject is likewise dealt with by Gellius, 1.
vi. c. 13 Plato 1
had disposed somewhat cavalierly of this
knotty point, by maintaining that changes take place
suddenly and occupy no time at all ; they occur, he says,
in the Qaifyvrjc, (in repentino), which he calls an UTOTTOQ
tyvffic, kv \povo) ovcev ovaa ; a strange, timeless existence
(which nevertheless comes within Time).
It was accordingly reserved for the perspicacity of Aris
totle to clear up this difficult point, which he has done
profoundly and exhaustively in the sixth Book of Physics,
chap, i.-viii. His proof that no change takes place sud
Plato s
denly (in
efaityvrjo) , but that each occurs only
gradually and therefore occupies a certain time, is based
entirely upon the pure, a priori intuition of Time and of
Space ; but it is also very subtle. The pith of this very
lengthy demonstration may, however, be reduced to the
following propositions. When we say of objects that they
1
Plato,
"
Parmenicles," p. 138, ed. Bip.