Boëthus alone dissented from the pantheism of the Stoics by making a real distinction between God and the world. Agreeing with the other Stoics in considering deity to be an ethereal Substance, [332] he would not allow that it resided, as the Soul, within the whole world, and, consequently, he refused to call the world a living being. [333] Instead of doing so, he placed the seat of deity in the highest of the heavenly spheres, the sphere of the fixed stars, and made it operate upon the world from this abode. [334] The opposite view detracted, in his eyes, from the unchangeable and exalted character of the divine Being. How anxious he was to vindicate that character will also be seen in the way in which he differed from his fellow-Stoics in reference to the destruction of the world. CHAPTER VII. THE STUDY OF NATURE. COURSE, CHARACTER, AND GOVERNMENT OF THE UNIVERSE. [A. The general course of the universe.] [(1) Origin of the world.] By virtue of a law inherent in nature, Primary Being passes over into particular objects; for, involving as it does the conception of a forming and creating force, it must as necessarily develop into a universe, as a seed or ovum must develop into a plant or animal. [335] Primary fire—so taught the Stoics, following Heraclitus—first goes over into vapour, then into moisture; one part of this moisture is precipitated in the form of earth, another remains as water, whilst a third part evaporating constitutes atmospheric air, and air, again, enkindles fire out of itself. By the mutual play of these four elements the world is formed, [336] built round the earth as a centre; [337] heat, as it is developed out of water, [338] moulding the chaotic mass. By the separation of these elements, a distinction between the active and the passive powers of nature—between the soul of the world and the body of the world—becomes apparent. The moisture into which the primary fire was first changed represents the body, just as the heat [339] latent in it represents the soul; [340] or, taking the later fourfold division of the elements, the two lower ones correspond to matter, the two higher ones to acting force. [341] [(2) End of the world.]