IN THE INTELLIGIBLE ANTERIORITY REFERS TO ORDER, NOT TO TIME.
It may be objected that it may happen that the soul will divide and develop something which was unitary. This thing must then already have been divided in intelligence, but such a division is more like an impression. As anteriority or posteriority in ideas does not refer to time, so also will the mental conception of anteriority and posteriority not be subject to temporal conditions, but refer to order (which presides over intelligible things). For instance, on considering a tree's order that extends from the roots to the tree-top, priority and posteriority exists only under the relation of order, inasmuch as the whole plant is perceived at one single glance.