“A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchang’d, Fed on the lawns, and in the forest rang’d; Without unspotted, innocent within, She fear’d no danger, for she knew no sin: Yet had she oft been chas’d with horns and hounds, And Scythian shafts, and many wingèd wounds Aim’d at her heart; was often forc’d to fly, And doom’d to death, tho’ fated not to die.”
Unknown, beloved, thou whose shadow lies Across the sunny threshold of my years; Whom memory with never-resting eyes Seeks thro’ the past, but cannot find for tears; How bitter is the thought that I, thy child, Remember not the touch, the look, the tone, Which made my young life thrill--that I alone Forget the face that o’er my cradle smil’d! And yet I know that if a sudden light Reveal’d thy living likeness, I should find That my poor heart hath pictur’d thee aright. So I will wait, nor think the lot unkind That hides thee from me, till I know by sight The perfect face thro’ love on earth divin’d.
Time and duration are usually considered synonymous, as no duration is perceived by us, except the duration of movement, or of such things as are subject to movement; and such duration is time. But, rigorously speaking, time and duration are not synonymous; for they are to one another in the same relation as place and space. As no place is possible without real absolute space, so no time is possible without real absolute duration; and as place consists of intervals in space, so time consists of intervals in duration. Yet there may be duration independently of time, just as there may be space independent of places; and for this reason the nature of duration must be determined apart from the nature of time. In treating of this subject we shall have to answer a series of questions altogether similar to those which we have answered in treating of space and place. Hence we shall follow the same order and method in our present treatise which we have followed in our articles on space, with this difference, however: that, to avoid useless repetitions, we will omit the development of some of those reasonings which the reader himself can easily transfer from space to duration.
Duration is commonly defined as “the permanence of a being in its actuality”--_Permanentia rei in esse_. The duration of a being which perseveres in existence without any intrinsic change is called “standing duration”--_Duratio stans_. The duration of a being which is actually subject to intrinsic mutations is called “flowing duration”--_Duratio fluens_.