WHETHER THE WORLD IS ETERNAL AND INCORRUPTIBLE.
Pythagoras [and Plato], with the Stoics, affirm that the world was
framed by God, and being corporeal is obvious to the senses, and in
its own nature is obnoxious to destruction; but it shall never perish,
it being preserved by the providence of God. Epicurus, that the world
had a beginning, and so shall have an end, as plants and animals have.
Xenophanes, that the world never had a beginning, is eternal and
incorruptible. Aristotle, that the part of the world which is sublunary
is obnoxious to change, and there terrestrial beings find a decay.