CHAPTER XXXVI ---- FROM WHAT SOURCE THE WORLD IS SUSTAINED.
'ARISTOTLE: if the world receives sustenance, it will also perish; but in fact it needs no sustenance, and therefore is also eternal.
'Plato: the world supplies its own sustenance out of its waste, by a change.
'Philolaus: the decay is twofold, sometimes by fire fallen from heaven, and sometimes from the water of the Moon being thrown off by the revolution of its atmosphere: and the exhalations from these are the sustenance of the world.'