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The Second Ennead, First Tractate On the Cosmos or on the Heavenly System Section 6 “We may now consider the question whether fire is the sole element existing in that celestial realm and whether there is any outgoing thence with the consequent need of renewal. Timaeus pronounced the material frame of the All to consist primarily of earth and fire for visibility, earth for solidity – and deduced that the stars must be mainly composed of fire, but not solely since there is no doubt they are solid. And this is probably a true account. Plato accepts it as indicated by all the appearances. And, in fact, to all our perception – as we see them and derive from them the impression of illumination – the stars appear to be mostly, if not exclusively, fire: but on reasoning into the matter we judge that since solidity cannot exist apart from earth-matter, they must contain earth as well. But what place could there be for the other elements? It is impossible to imagine water amid so vast a conflagration; and if air were present, it would be continually changing into fire. Admitting [with Timaeus; as a logical truth] that two self-contained entities, standing as extremes to each other need for their coherence two intermediaries; we may still question whether this holds good with regard to physical bodies. Certainly, water and earth can be mixed without any such intermediate. It might seem valid to object that the intermediates are already present in the earth and the water; but a possible answer would be, ‘Yes, but not as agents whose meeting is necessary to the coherence of those extremes.’ None the less we will take it that the coherence of extremes is produced by virtue of each possessing all the intermediates. It is still not proven that fire is necessary to the visibility of earth and earth to the solidarity of fire. On this principle, nothing possesses an essential-nature of its very own; every several thing is a blend, and its name is merely an indication of the dominant constituent. […]Remember that gold – which is water – becomes dense by the accession not of earth but of denseness or consolidation: in the same way fire, with Soul present within it, may consolidate itself upon the power of the Soul; and there are living beings of fire among the Celestials. But, in sum, do we abandon the teaching that all the elements enter into the composition of every living thing? For this sphere, no; but to lift clay into the Heavens is against nature, contrary to the laws of her ordaining: it is difficult, too, to think of that swiftest of circuits bearing along earthly bodies in its course nor could such material conduce to the splendor and white glint of the Celestial Fire.”
