Cleomedes' Circular Theory

...there were a void outside the world, the essence flowing through it would be scattered into the immense and dissipated. But we respond that not even this can happen. Since it has a certain force by which it is held and preserved. Moreover, the void that embraces it does nothing; it, however, endowed with a certain huge faculty, protects and preserves itself, now by contracting itself, now by diffusing itself again through the void: and according to its natural changes, sometimes it is poured into fire, sometimes it bursts forth toward the constitution of the world. It is also foolish what they say: if there is a void outside the world, it must be infinite. But if that void outside the world is infinite, bodies also must be infinite. For it does not follow that if the void is assumed to be infinite, the body is immediately infinite. For the thought of the void finds no end: but in the notion of a body, an end and a limit immediately occur. Nothing also can be beyond the infinite. For how could that which is infinite be contained by another? Many other things are said by them, but similar to these. That, therefore, it is necessary for there to be a void outside the world, is clear from those things which were demonstrated before; that, however, it is most necessary that this itself should reach everywhere into the infinite, we shall now easily learn from these things. Everything that is bounded ends in another kind...

...a void outside the world, the essence flowing through it would be scattered to infinity and dispersed. But we shall say that it cannot suffer even this. For it has a hexis state/holding power that holds and preserves it. And the void surrounding it does nothing. But it, using an overwhelming power, preserves itself, contracting and again flowing into it according to its natural changes, sometimes flowing into fire, sometimes rushing toward the generation of the world. And it is silly to say that if there is a void outside the world, it would have to be infinite. But if the void outside the world is infinite, bodies would also have to be infinite. For it does not follow from the infinity of the void that a body is also infinite. For the conception of the void reaches nowhere. But in the notion of a body, the finite is immediately included. And nothing can be outside the infinite. For how could that which is infinite be held by anything? Other similar things are also said by them. That it is necessary for there to be a void outside the world is known through what was previously demonstrated; that this necessarily extends from every part to infinity, we shall learn from these things. Every bounded thing is bounded by something of a different kind, and which is other than the...