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DIADUMENUS.
It is also against common sense, that there should be a time future and past, but no time present; and that
erewhile and
lately subsist, but
now is nothing at all. Yet this often befalls the Stoics, who admit not the least time between, nor will allow the present to be indivisible; but whatsoever any one thinks to take and understand as present, one part of that they say to be future, and the other part past; so that there is no part remaining or left of the present time: but of that which is said to be present, one part is distributed to the future, the other to the past. Therefore one of these two things follows: either that; holding there was a time and there will be a time, we must deny there is a time; or we must hold that there is a time present, part of which has already been and part will be, and say that of that which now is, one part is future and the other past; and that of
now, one part is before and the other behind; and that
now is that which is neither yet now nor any longer now; for that which is past is no longer
now, and that which is to come is not yet
now. And dividing thus the present, they must needs say of the year and of the day, that part of it was of the year or day past, and part will be of the year or day to come; and that of what is together, there is a part before and a part after. For no less are they perplexed, confounding together these terms,
not yet and
already and
no longer and
now and
not now. But all other men suppose, esteem, and think
erewhile and
awhile hence to be different parts of time from
now, which is followed by the one and preceded by the other. But Archedemus, saying that
now is the beginning and juncture of that which is past and that which is near at hand, has (as it seems) without perceiving it thereby taken away all time. For if
now is no time, but only a term or extremity of time, and if every part of time is such as
now, all time seems to have no parts, but to be wholly dissolved into terms, joints, and beginnings. But Chrysippus, desiring to show more 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.