Volume 3 / Book 2 — CHAPTER V. WHENCE DOES THE WORLD RECEIVE ITS NUTRIMENT?
Reading edition
Aristotle says that, if the world be nourished, it will likewise be dissolved; but it requires no aliment, and will therefore be eternal. Plato, that this very world prepares for itself a nutriment, by the alteration of those things which are corruptible in it. Philolaus believes that a destruction happens to the world in two ways; either by fire falling from heaven, or by the lunary water being poured down through the whirling of the air; and the exhalations proceeding from thence are the aliment of the world.