dissolution of all the elements [himself]? for it is according to nature; and nothing is evil that is according to nature.” The Physic of Antoninus is the knowledge of the Nature of the Universe, of its government, and of the relation of man’s nature to both. He names the universe (VI. 1), “the universal substance,” and he adds that “reason” governs the universe. He also (VI. 9) uses the terms “universal nature” or “nature of the universe.” He (VI. 25) calls the universe “the one and all, which we name Cosmos or Order.” If he ever seems to use these general terms as significant of the All, of all that man can in any way conceive to exist, he still on other occasions plainly distinguishes between Matter, Material things, and Cause, Origin, Reason. This is conformable to Zeno’s doctrine that there are two original principles of all things, that which acts and that which is acted upon. That which is acted on is the formless matter: that which acts is the reason, God, who is eternal and operates through all matter, and produces all things. So Antoninus (V. 32) speaks of the reason which pervades all substance, and through all time by fixed periods (revolutions) administers the universe. God is eternal, and Matter is eternal. It is God who gives form to matter, but he is not said to have created matter. According to this view, which is as old as Anaxagoras, God and matter exist independently, but God governs matter. This doctrine is simply the expression of the fact of the existence both of matter and of God. The Stoics did not perplex themselves with the insoluble question of the origin and nature of matter. Antoninus also assumes a beginning of things, as we now know them; but his language is sometimes very obscure. Matter consists of elemental parts of which all material objects are made. But nothing is permanent in form. The nature of the universe, according to Antoninus’ expression (IV. 36), “loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them. For everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be. But thou art thinking only of seeds which are cast into the earth or into a womb: but this is a very vulgar notion.” All things then are in a constant flux and change: some things are dissolved into the elements, others come in their places; and so the “whole universe continues ever young and perfect.”