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.
- The Duration of anything need not be co-existent with the motion we measure it by.
Hence we see that some men imagine the duration of of the world, from its first existence to this present year 1689, to have been 5639 years, or equal