12. (13). The revolution of the universal Sphere leads us therefore to the recognition of time, within which it occurs. Not only is time that in which (all things "become," that is, grow), but time has to be what it is even before all things, being that within which everything moves, or rests with order and uniformity. This is discovered and manifested to our intelligence, but not produced by regular movement and rest, especially by movement. Better than rest, indeed, does movement lead us to a conception of time, and it is either to appreciate the duration of movement than that of rest. That is what led philosophers to define time as the measure "of" movement, instead of saying, what probably lay within their intention, that time is measured "by" movement. Above all, we must not consider that definition as adequate, adding to it that which the measured entity is in itself, not limiting ourselves to express what applies to it only incidentally. Neither did we ever discern that such was their meaning, and we were unable to understand their teachings as they evidently posited the measure in the measured entity. No doubt that which hindered us from understanding them was that they were addressing their teachings to learned (thinkers), or well prepared listeners, and therefore, in their writings, they failed to explain the nature of time considered in itself, whether it be measure or something measured. PLATO DOES MAKE SOME STATEMENTS THAT ALLOW OF BEING JUSTIFIED. Plato himself, indeed, does say, not that the nature of time is to be a measure or something measured, but that to make it known there is, in the circular movement of the universe, a very short element (the interval of a day), whose object is to demonstrate the smallest portion of time, through which we are enabled to discover the nature and quantity of time. In order to indicate to us its nature ("being"), (Plato[438]) says that it was born with the heavens, and that it is the mobile image of eternity. Time is mobile because it has no more permanence than the life of the universal Soul, because it passes on and flows away therewith; it is born with the heavens, because it is one and the same life that simultaneously produces the heavens and time. If, granting its possibility, the life of the Soul were reduced to the unity (of the Intelligence), there would be an immediate cessation of time, which exists only in this life, and the heavens, which exist only through this life. TIME AS THE PRIOR AND POSTERIOR OF THE MOVEMENT OF THIS LIFE WOULD BE ABSURD.