As has been suggested by certain quotations already given the ideas of “immortal Mind” are to be regarded as eternal. They are not subject to time relations or limitations. The Neoplatonists held the same to be true of the ideas or thoughts of intellect. They all are eternal. Knowledge of time and its relations is inferior and limited knowledge.
Mrs. Eddy says: “Ideas are spiritual, harmonious and eternal;”[1] “The spiritual idea, whose substance is in Mind, is eternal;”[2] “It is the prerogative of the ever-present, divine Mind, and of thought which is in rapport with this Mind to know the past, the present, and the future.”[3] She does not mean that the past, present and future are known as specifications, or demarcations of time, but as constituting one eternity; or that the past, present and future are alike real and present to such mind and thought.
Plotinus says that intellect “intellectually perceives, however, eternally;”[4] Ideas “are generated, indeed, so far as they have a principle of their subsistence; but they are not generated (according to the usual acceptation of the term) because they have not a temporal beginning * * * but they always are, in the same manner as the world which is there”[5] (intelligible world or world
- ↑ S. and H. p. 88.
- ↑ S. and H. p. 267.
- ↑ S. and H. p. 84.
- ↑ 6. 7. 35. cf. 5. 1. 4.; 5. 9. 5.; 5. 9. 6. and 5. 9. 7.
- ↑ 2. 4. 5. cf. Proclus, Theo. Ele. 169. and On Tim. Bk. 5. (Vol. II. p. 340.)
