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Plotinus ENNEADS - THE THIRD ENNEAD, Part II, Complete

Translated by Stephen MacKenna and B. S. Page.

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II: 42 pages - You are on Page 10

This brings us to the fact that, in a certain sense, the Movement, the orbit of the universe, may legitimately be said to measure Time — in so far as that is possible at all — since any definite stretch of that circuit occupies a certain quantity of Time, and this is the only grasp we have of Time, our only understanding of it: what that circuit measures — by indication, that is — will be Time, manifested by the Movement but not brought into being by it.

This means that the measure of the Spheric Movement has itself been measured by a definite stretch of that Movement and therefore is something different; as measure, it is one thing and, as the measured, it is another; [its being measure or] its being measured cannot be of its essence.

We are no nearer knowledge than if we said that the foot-rule measures Magnitude while we left the concept Magnitude undefined; or, again, we might as well define Movement — whose limitlessness puts it out of our reach — as the thing measured by Space; the definition would be parallel since we can mark off a certain space which the Movement has traversed and say the one is equivalent to the other.

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Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-greece/plotinus/enneads-3b.asp?pg=10