they succeed one another, in which case they succeed one another in time, however rapid the succession may be. The movement of the ring relative to the hand is like the movement of one part of the hand relative to another, such as the movement of the fingers relative to the palm, or the nail relative to the fingertip.

As for their statement, “The intellect apprehends this before that,” they should be told: The intellect apprehends things as they really are; otherwise, this would be ignorance, not understanding. If the thing itself is ordered in succession, the intellect apprehends it as ordered; otherwise, its apprehension would be ignorance. Whenever what is apprehended is ordered such that some of it precedes the rest, this is temporal ordering and temporal priority. Given this ordering in external reality, the two cannot occupy the same time. Nor can they be distinct while being indistinguishable in time. Combining opposites is impossible: there is either an ordering involving priority and posteriority, or simultaneity involving neither.

Once this is clear, it becomes apparent that nothing known to human beings precedes something else as its cause or condition while being simultaneous with it. Rather, whatever is said to be prior—whether called a condition, a cause, or something else—if it is simultaneous in time and does not precede it in time, then it is not prior in any respect. But if it is prior in this respect—that is, prior in time—