But what now is, is not
future, but present. When then things to come are said to be seen,
it is not themselves which as yet are not (that is, which are to
be), but their causes perchance or signs are seen, which already
are. Therefore they are not future but present to those who now see
that, from which the future, being foreconceived in the mind, is
foretold. Which fore-conceptions again now are; and those who foretell
those things, do behold the conceptions present before them. Let now
the numerous variety of things furnish me some example. I behold the
day-break, I foreshow, that the sun, is about to rise. What I
behold, is present; what I foresignify, to come; not the sun, which
already is; but the sun-rising, which is not yet. And yet did I not in
my mind imagine the sun-rising itself (as now while I speak of it),
I could not foretell it. But neither is that day-break which I discern
in the sky, the sun-rising, although it goes before it; nor that
imagination of my mind; which two are seen now present, that the other
which is to be may be foretold.
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