Nature aims at the ending too. An argument against the fear of ceasing: TERMnature "has as its aim" (ἐστόχασται) the end (ἀπόληξις) no less than the beginning (ἀρχή) and the continuance (διεξαγωγή). The end is not a failure of the design but an equal part of it; EXERCISEthe ceasing is planned just as the birth is. The image is a player tossing up a ball (ὁ ἀναβάλλων τὴν σφαῖραν): the throw "intends" the fall as well.

Ball, bubble, lamp. Three images of transience frame a revaluation: what TERM"good" is it to the ball to fly up, and what TERM"harm" to fall? What "good" to the bubble (πομφόλυξ) to hold together, and what "evil" to burst? "The same of a lamp" (ἐπὶ λύχνου — it flares and goes out). Rising and falling, forming and dissolving, are alike indifferent to the thing itself: they are phases of one natural motion, neither good nor evil. Hence DOGMAthe acceptance of the end: my death is like the descent of a thrown ball, "planned" by nature on a par with the ascent (cf. 8.18 — dissolution into the elements without a murmur). The strict terms by the word are φύσις, ἀγαθόν, κακόν. The governing discipline is desire (to accept the ending), the sustaining one assent (not to judge the end an evil).