(for it is difficult to define it in a general view of it
with any exactness,) a certain portion of eternity with some fixed
limitation of annual or monthly, or daily or nightly space. In
reference to this we take into consideration the things which are
passed, and those things which, by reason of the time which has
elapsed since, have become so obsolete as to be considered incredible,
and to be already classed among the number of fables, and those things
also which, having been performed a long time ago and at a time remote
from our recollection, still affect us with a belief that they have
been handed down truly, because certain memorials of those facts are
extant in written documents, and those things which have been done
lately, so that most people are able to be acquainted with them. And
also those things which exist at the present moment, and which are
actually taking place now, and which are the consequences of former
actions. And with reference to those things it is open to us to
consider which will happen sooner, and which later. And also generally
in considering questions of time, the distance or proximity of the
time is to be taken into account: for it is often proper to measure
the business done with the time occupied in doing it, and to consider
whether a business of such and such magnitude, or whether such and
such a multitude of things, can be performed in that time. And we
should take into consideration the time of year, and of the month, and
of the day, and of the night, and the watches, and the hours, and each
separate portion of any one of these times.

XXVII. An occasion is a portion of time having in it a suitable
opportunity for doing or avoiding to do some particular thing.
Wherefore there is this difference between it and time. For, as to
genus, indeed, they are both understood to be identical; but in time
some space is expressed in some manner or other, which is regarded
with reference to years, or to a year, or to some portion of a year,
but in an occasion, besides the space of time implied in the word,
there is indicated an especial opportunity of doing something. As
therefore the two are identical in genus it is some portion and
species as it were, in which the one differs, as we have said, from
the other.

Now occasion is distributed into three classes, public, common and
singular. That is a public occasion, which the whole city avails
itself of for some particular cause, as games, a day o