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 of festival, or war.  That is a common occasion which happens to all men at nearly the same time, as the harvest, the vintage, summer, or winter.  That is a singular occasion, which, on account of some special cause, happens at times to some private individuals, as for instance, a wedding, a sacrifice, a funeral, a feast, sleep.

But the manner, also, is inquired into, in what manner, how, and with what design the action was done?  Its parts are, the doer knowing what he was about, and not knowing.  But the degree of his knowledge is measured by these circumstances whether the doer did his action secretly, openly, under compulsion or through persuasion.  The fact of the absence of knowledge is brought forward as an excuse, and its parts are actual ignorance, accident, necessity.  It is also attributed to agitation of mind, that is, to annoyance, to passion to love, and to other feelings of a similar class.  Facilities, are those circumstances owing to which a thing is done more easily, or without which a thing cannot be done at all.

XXVIII.  And it is understood that there is added to the general consideration of the whole matter, the consideration what is greater than and what is less than, and what is like the affair which is under discussion, and what is equally important with it, and what is contrary to it, and what is negatively opposed to it, and the whole classification of the affair, and the divisions of it, and the ultimate result.  The cases of greater, and less and equally important, are considered with reference to the power, and number and form of the business, as if we were regarding the stature of a human body.