Nothing is cast out of the Universe

As a child my favourite experience was a bonfire, no doubt partly because it was always a profound mystery and partly because I liked the idea of destruction (purification?). It wasn’t so much seeing the insatiable dragon we call fire consuming endless amounts of wood and leaves and old boxes that was mystifying, but rather the fact that the dragon itself, having consumed all that matter, itself became nothing. Where had the fire come from, where had it gone to, and what had happened to everything it had devoured? Can something simply vanish from our world, whether it be a material object, a word, a thought or an emotion?

This passage from Book 8 of Marcus Aurelius’s Matters Addressed to Himself could shed light on the mystery:

Ἐξω του κοσμου το ἀποθανον οὐ πιπτει. εἰ ὡδε μενει, και μεταβαλλει ὡδε και διαλυεται εἰς τα ἰδια, ἁ στοιχεια ἐστι του κοσμου και σα. και αὐτα δε μεταβαλλει και οὐ γογγυζει.  (8.18)

‘That which dies does not fall out of the Universe. As it remains here, it also suffers change here and is broken up into its peculiar constituents, which are the elements of the Universe―and of you. And they themselves suffer change and do not grumble.’

This profound passage goes way beyond physics and was a revelation to me when I first read it. If nothing can be annihilated, and if any change or destruction suffered by a person or object - or the ‘effects’ of that person or object - is ultimately into what is essential, then we have a tremendous responsibility to make sure that we sanctify our words and thoughts and feelings as best we can before we send them out into the furthest reaches of the Universe. For not even the primordial fires of creation can make them vanish.

(P.S. Because the Greek word κοσμος (cosmos) has the primary meaning ‘order’, and only came to mean Universe because of the perfect order at the heart of creation, the first line of the passage above could have been translated, ‘That which dies does not fall out of Order’.)