Having seen the present. An aphorism drawn from Stoic physics: whoever has seen the present has seen all that was "from everlasting" (ἐξ ἀιδίου) and all that will be "into the infinite" (εἰς τὸ ἄπειρον). Not because the future is literally given, but because it is of the same kind. The governing discipline is desire (a contemplation that quiets the craving to "see more"); the sustaining one is assent.

Homogeneity (ὁμογενῆ καὶ ὁμοειδῆ). The ground is in the closing phrase: "all things are of one kin and one form." The cosmos supplies no radically new forms: the same elements, the same transformations, the same types of events recur. Hence the theme of DOGMArecurrence: one who has caught even a short stretch of being already possesses its "pattern." This is both a consolation (nothing is missed) and a sobering (there is nothing "unprecedented" to await).

Parallels. Med. 2.14 (whoever lives even a little has seen all — the same and the same); Med. 7.49 (surveying the past, you see the future too, by uniformity); 10.27; 11.1 (the soul surveys the whole, knowing the coming is like what has been). The doctrines of DOGMAunity and recurrence; the exercise of the EXERCISEcontemplation of nature.