Chapter XIV. On the Stoic Philosophy, and the Account of First Principles as Rendered by Zeno. From the Seventh Book of Aristocles On Philosophy

[ARISTOCLES] [1] ‘THEY say, like Heracleitus, that the element of the existing world is fire, and that the original principles of fire are matter and god, as Plato says. But the former says that both principles, the active and the passive, are corporeal, while the latter says that the first active cause is incorporeal.

‘Then, moreover, they say that at certain predestined and definite times the whole world is consumed by fire, and afterwards reorganized again. The primordial fire, however, is as it were just a seed, containing the reasons and the causes of all things past, present, and future: and that the combination and sequence of these constitute fate, and knowledge, and truth, and law of all being, from which there is no escape or avoidance. And in this way all things in the world are admirably arranged, just as in any well-ordered state.’