may be affirmed, that the same things which are older or younger cannot
become older or younger in a greater degree than they were at first by the
addition of equal times. But, on the other hand, the one, if older than
others, has come into being a longer time than they have. And when equal
time is added to a longer and shorter, the relative difference between them
is diminished. In this way that which was older becomes younger, and that
which was younger becomes older, that is to say, younger and older than at
first; and they ever become and never have become, for then they would be.
Thus the one and others always are and are becoming and not becoming
younger and also older than one another. And one, partaking of time and
also partaking of becoming older and younger, admits of all time, present,
past, and future--was, is, shall be--was becoming, is becoming, will
become. And there is science of the one, and opinion and name and
expression, as is already implied in the fact of our inquiry.

Yet once more, if one be one and many, and neither one nor many, and also
participant of time, must there not be a time at which one as being one
partakes of being, and a time when one as not being one is deprived of
being? But these two contradictory states cannot be experienced by the one
both together: there must be a time of transition. And the transition is
a process of generation and destruction, into and from being and not-being,
the one and the others. For the generation of the one is the destruction
of the others, and the generation of the others is the destruction of the
one. There is also separation and aggregation, assimilation and
dissimilation, increase, diminution, equalization, a passage from motion to
rest, and from rest to motion in the one and many. But when do all these
changes take place? When does motion become rest, or rest motion? The
answer to this question will throw a light upon all the others. Nothing
can be in motion and at rest at the same time; and therefore the change
takes place 'in a moment'--which is a strange expression, and seems to mean