A fifth proof of the same truth may be drawn from the reality of the past. Historical facts are real facts, although they are all past. There really was a man called Solomon, who really reigned in Jerusalem; there really was a philosopher called Plato, whose sublime doctrines deserved for him the surname of Divine; there really was a man called Attila, surnamed the Scourge of God. These men existed in different intervals of duration, and they are no more; but their past existence and their distinct duration constitute three distinct facts, which are _real facts_ even to the present day, and such will remain for ever. Now, how can we admit that what has wholly ceased to exist in successive duration is still a real and indelible fact, unless we admit that there is an absolute duration which is, even now, as truly united with the past as it is with the present, and to which the past is not past, but perpetually present? If there is no such duration, then all the past must have been obliterated and buried in absolute nothingness; for if the succession of past things extended upon itself alone, without any distinct ground upon which its flowing could be registered, none of past things could have left behind a real mark of their existence. Against this conclusion some will object that the relation between _before_ and _after_ may be explained by a mere negation of simultaneous existence. But the objection is futile. For the intervals of successive duration can be greater or less, whilst no negation can be greater or less; which shows that the negation of simultaneous existence must not be confounded with the intervals of succession. The following objection is more plausible. The duration of movement suffices to fill up the whole interval of succession and to measure its extent; and therefore the reality which connects the _before_ with the _after_ is movement itself, not standing duration. To this we answer that the duration of movement is essentially successive and relative; and therefore it requires a real foundation in something standing and absolute. In fact, although every movement formally extends and measures its own duration, nevertheless it does not extend it upon itself, but upon a field extrinsic to itself; and this field is permanently the same. It is plain that the beginning and the end of movement cannot be connected in mutual relation through movement alone, because movement is always _in fieri_, and when it passes through one term of its duration it loses the actuality it had in the preceding term; so that, when it reaches its last term, it has nothing left of what it possessed in its initial term or in any other subsequent term. This suffices to show that, although the duration of the movement fills up the whole interval, yet, owing to its very successivity, it cannot be assumed as the ground of the relation intervening between its successive terms.