29. The duration of anything need not be co-existent with the motion we measure it by.
Hence we see that some
men imagine the duration of the world, from its first existence to this present year 1689, to have been 5639 years,
or equal to 5639 annual revolutions of the sun, and others a great deal more; as the Egyptians of old, who in the
time of Alexander counted 23,000 years from the reign of the sun; and the Chinese now, who account the world
3,269,000 years old, or more; which longer duration of the world, according to their computation, though I should
not believe to be true, yet I can equally imagine it with them, and as truly understand, and say one is longer than
the other, as I understand, that Methusalem's life was longer than Enoch's. And if the common reckoning Of 5639
should be true, (as it may be as well as any other assigned,) it hinders not at all my imagining what others mean,
when they make the world one thousand years older, since every one may with the same facility imagine (I do not
say believe) the world to be 50,000 years old, as 5639; and may as well conceive the duration of 50,000 years as
5639. Whereby it appears that, to the measuring the duration of anything by time, it is not requisite that that thing
should be co-existent to the motion we measure by, or any other periodical revolution; but it suffices to this
purpose, that we have the idea of the length of any regular periodical appearances, which we can in our minds
apply to duration, with which the motion or appearance never co-existed.