thumb|220px|Heraclitus believed the cosmos "no god nor man did create, but it ever was and is and will be: ever-living fire". The Milesians before Heraclitus had a view called material monism which conceived of certain elements as the arche – Thales with water, Anaximander with apeiron, and Anaximenes with air. Since antiquity, philosophers have concluded that Heraclitus construed of fire as the arche, the ultimate reality or the fundamental element that gave rise to the other elements. Pre-Socratic scholar Eduard Zeller has argued that Heraclitus believed that heat in general and dry exhalation in particular, rather than visible fire, was the arche.
thumb|220px|Heraclitus believed the cosmos "no god nor man did create, but it ever was and is and will be: ever-living fire" The Milesians before Heraclitus had a view called material monism which conceived of certain elements as the arche – Thales with water, Anaximander with apeiron, and Anaximenes with air. Since antiquity, philosophers have concluded that Heraclitus construed of fire as the arche, the ultimate reality or the fundamental element that gave rise to the other elements. Pre-Socratic scholar Eduard Zeller has argued that Heraclitus believed that heat in general and dry exhalation in particular, rather than visible fire, was the arche.