Note 8 — Chapter VI · THE STUDY OF NATURE. FUNDAMENTAL POSITIONS.
Oswald J. (Oswald Joseph) Reichel translation
(2) End of the world. As the distinction between matter and force has its origin in time, so it will also have an end in time.8 Matter which primary Being has separated from itself to form its body is being gradually resolved into primary Being again; so that, at the end of the present course of things, a general conflagration of the world will restore all things to their original form, in which everything derivative will have ceased to exist, and pure Deity, or primary fire, will alone remain in its original purity.9 This resolution of the world into fire or ether,10 the Stoics thought, would take place, through the same intermediate stages as its generation from the primary fire.11 Cleanthes, following his peculiar view as to the seat of the governing12 force in the world, supposed that its destruction would come from the sun.13