Similar to that which Heraclitus had wanted, fire was for the Stoics, the primordial element and God, the Active Principle contained in itself the active forms of all things that are to be. Form and world and then orientates it to its own bosom through a universal conflagation, so that there is an endless series of constructions and destructions of the world. For the Stoics there is a divine providence (pronoia) that governs the universe inflexibly and makes it achieve all its intended ends. This persepctiva is completely contradicted with the cosmology of Epicurus for which everything is casual (outside the existence of atoms). Indeed, in stoic cosmology, there is no place for chance, each entity is necessarily produced and goes towards the term to which it was assigned. Whether as an efficient cause or as an end cause, the divine Logos of the world, because it is Providence is Done, and Destiny.
Consequently, a cosmology of these characteristics implies that the freedom of man does not exist as such. But beyond this negative sense, freedom exists as a superior, the “freedom” of the sage who forms his own desire to that of fact. What is freedom, then for the Stoic? True freedom is to desire what the fact wants, not as slaves but guided by it.