The mind
having once got such a measure of time as the annual revolution of the
sun, can apply that measure to duration wherein that measure itself
did not exist, and with which, in the reality of its being, it had
nothing to do. For should one say, that Abraham was born in the two
thousand seven hundred and twelfth year of the Julian period, it is
altogether as intelligible as reckoning from the beginning of the
world, though there were so far back no motion of the sun, nor any
motion at all. For, though the Julian period be supposed to begin
several hundred years before there were really either days, nights, or
years, marked out by any revolutions of the sun,- yet we reckon as
right, and thereby measure durations as well, as if really at that
time the sun had existed, and kept the same ordinary motion it doth
now. The idea of duration equal to an annual revolution of the sun, is
as easily applicable in our thoughts to duration, where no sun or
motion was, as the idea of a foot or yard, taken from bodies here, can
be applied in our thoughts to duration, where no sun or motion was, as
the idea of a foot or yard, taken from bodies here, can be applied
in our thoughts to distances beyond the confines of the world, where
are no bodies at all.
25. As we can measure space in our thoughts where there is no
body.
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