Book 9
1.8
Coming now to his particular tenets, we may state them as follows: fire is the element, all things are exchange for fire and come into being by rarefaction and condensationCf. Fr. 90 D., 22 B.; but of this he gives no clear explanation. All things come into being by conflict of opposites, and the sum of things flows like a stream. Further, all that is is limited and forms one world. And it is alternately born from fire and again resolved into fire in fixed cycles to all eternity, and this is determined by destiny. Of the opposites that which tends to birth or creation is called war and strife, and that which tends to destruction by fire is called concord and peace.Cf. Fr. 80 D., 62 B. Change he called a pathway up and down, and this determines the birth of the world.
