Zeno

Meaning

In II.1.3 the Stoic Zeno is invoked for fire’s substance being converted through air into water and preserved in that water as a general seed from which things are generated, the proposed first matter of the universe. The citation answers the objection that a hot, dry principle could not be connected with moist generation. Its role is to give an ancient authority for transitions among apparently opposed conditions.

The passage belongs to a cluster of attributions that includes Thales, Heraclitus and Moses. Their formulations are not identical, and the author supplies the synthesis that makes them support his account of active fire and receptive moisture. Zeno's name therefore records a local attribution, not independent verification of a historical doctrine or experimental transformation.