4. Some ideas of time supposed positive and found to be relative.
There are yet, besides those, other words of time, that ordinarily are
thought to stand for positive ideas, which yet will, when
considered, be found to be relative; such as are, young, old, &c.,
which include and intimate the relation anything has to a certain
length of duration, whereof we have the idea in our minds. Thus,
having settled in our thoughts the idea of the ordinary duration of
a man to be seventy years, when we say a man is young, we mean that
his age is yet but a small part of that which usually men attain to;
and when we denominate him old, we mean that his duration is run out
almost to the end of that which men do not usually exceed. And so it
is but comparing the particular age or duration of this or that man,
to the idea of that duration which we have in our minds, as ordinarily
belonging to that sort of animals: which is plain in the application
of these names to other things; for a man is called young at twenty
years, and very young at seven years old: but yet a horse we call
old at twenty, and a dog at seven years, because in each of these we
compare their age to different ideas of duration, which are settled in
our minds as belonging to these several sorts of animals, in the
ordinary course of nature. But the sun and stars, though they have
outlasted several generations of men, we call not old, because we do
not know what period God hath set to that sort of beings.
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