CHAPTER XIV.
IDEA OF DURATION AND ITS SIMPLE MODES.
1.

Duration is fleeting Extension.
There is another sort of distance, or length, the idea whereof we get not from the permanent parts of space, but from the fleeting and perpetually perishing parts of succession.

This we call DURATION; the simple modes whereof are any different lengths of it whereof we have distinct ideas, as HOURS, DAYS, YEARS, &c., TIME and ETERNITY.
2.

Its Idea from Reflection on the Train of our Ideas.
The answer of a great man, to one who asked what time was: Si non rogas intelligo, (which amounts to this; The more I set myself to think of it, the less I understand it,) might perhaps persuade one that time, which reveals all other things, is itself not to be discovered.

Duration, time, and eternity, are, not without reason, thought to have something very abstruse in their nature.