69. Time is a chain whose links are infinitely divisible. There is no time which we cannot divide into other times. The indivisible instant represents something analogous to the indivisible point; a limit which we approach without ever reaching, an unextended element producing extension. A geometrical point must be moved in order to generate a line; but no motion is conceived as possible unless we presuppose space in which the point moves; or in other words, when we treat of the generation of extension, we commence by presupposing it. A similar thing happens in relation to time. We imagine an indivisible instant, from the fluxion of which results the continuity of duration which we call time. But this fluxion is impossible, unless we suppose a time in which it flows. We wish to examine the generation of time, and we suppose it already existing, prolonged infinitely, as an immense line on which the fluxion of the instant takes place. What are we to infer from these apparent contradictions? Nothing but a strong confirmation of the doctrine which we have established. Time distinguished from things is nothing. Duration in the abstract, distinguished from that which endures, is a being of reason,--a work which our understanding produces from the materials furnished by reality. All being is present. That which is not present is not-being. The present instant, the _now_, is the reality of the thing; it is not sufficient to constitute time, but it is necessary to time. There can be present without either past or future; but there can be neither past nor future without the present. When besides being there is not-being, and this relation is perceived, time begins. To conceive past and future without the alternation of being and not-being, as a sort of line infinitely produced in two opposite directions, is to take an empty play of the phantasy for a philosophical idea, and to apply to time the illusion of imaginary space. 70. Therefore, if there is only being, there is only absolute, present duration; therefore no past nor future, and, consequently, no time. Time is in its essence a successive, _flowing_ quantity; it cannot be seized in its actuality; for it is always divisible, and every division in time constitutes past and future. This is a demonstration that time is a mere relation, and in so far as it is in things, it only expresses being and not-being. CHAPTER X. APPLICATION OF THE PRECEDING DOCTRINE TO SEVERAL IMPORTANT QUESTIONS. 71. This theory will be much better understood by its application to the solution of several questions. I. How long a time had passed before the creation? None. As there was no succession, there was only the present, the eternity of God. All else that we imagine is a mere illusion, contrary to sound philosophy.