Note 38 — Chapter VI · THE STUDY OF NATURE. FUNDAMENTAL POSITIONS.

(b) Character of this efficient cause. In attempting to form a more accurate notion of this efficient cause, the first point which deserves attention is, that the Stoics believed every kind of action ultimately to proceed from one source. For how could the world be such a self-circumscribed unity, such an harmonious whole, unless it were governed by one and the same force?38 Again, as everything which acts is material, the highest efficient cause must likewise be considered material; and since all qualities and forces are produced by vapour-like or fiery elements, can it be otherwise with the highest acting force?39 Everywhere warmth is the cause of nourishment and growth, life and motion; all things have in themselves their own natural heat, and are preserved and kept in life by the heat of the sun. What applies to parts of the world must apply to the world as a whole; hence heat or fire is the power to which the life and the existence of the world must be referred.40