This has induced some of the Stoic school, whose keener sight discerned from a distance the oncoming refutation, to assist their cardinal doctrine when lying as it were at the point of death, but without avail. They said that since fire is the cause of motion and motion the origin of generation, without which it is impossible that anything should be generated, after the conflagration when the new world has to be created all the fire in it is not extinguished but a part of it of some amount remains. For they were filled with great alarm lest, if the whole mass was extinguished, the universe would remain at a standstill and not be reconstructed, since there was no longer anything to cause motion. But these are the fictions of ingenious quibblers who are scheming to overthrow truth. Why so? Because the world when consumed by fire cannot become like live coal, as has been shown, since a lot of earthy matter would be left in which the fire will be bound to lurk encamped, and in that case perhaps we may say that the conflagration has still to establish its power, since the heaviest and most resistant of the elements, namely, earth, remains undissolved. It must therefore either change into fire as Cleanthes or light as Chrysippus thought. But if it becomes flame, once it starts being extinguished it will not be extinguished partially but altogether. For its existence is bound up with its feeder and therefore if that feeder is plentiful it increases and diffuses itself, but if that shrinks it diminishes. We can judge the result from our own experience. A lamp as long as we feed it with oil gives a very brilliant light, but if we cease to do so after using up what little of the feeder remains, it goes out at once as it has no reserve of flame to fall back upon. Alternatively if it becomes light, again the change is total. Why? Because it has no definite existence of its own but is generated from flame, and if the flame is wholly and absolutely extinguished the light must also perish not partially but totally. For what the flame is to the feeder that the light is to the flame. Therefore, just as the flame perishes with its feeder, the light perishes with the flame. Therefore it is impossible that the world should have a rebirth, as no embers of the seminal principle are alive within it, but all have been exhausted, the rest by the fire, the seminal principle by lack of sustenance. These facts show clearly that it continues uncreated and indestructible.
On the Eternity of the World 18
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