Greek Texts & Translations

From a truth a truth follows, according to the Stoics, as e.g. "It is light" from "It is day" ; and from a falsehood a falsehood, as "It is dark" from "It is night," if this latter be untrue. Also a truth may follow from a falsehood ; e.g. from "The earth flies" will follow "The earth exists" ; whereas from a truth no falsehood will follow, for from the existence of the earth it does not follow that the earth flies aloft.

There are also certain insoluble arguments ^note: the Veiled Men, the Concealed, Sorites, Horned Folk, the Nobodies. The Veiled is as follows ^note : . . . "It cannot be that if two is few, three is not so likewise, nor that if two or three are few, four is not so ; and so on up to ten. But two is few, therefore so also is ten." . . . The Nobody argument is an argument whose major premiss consists of an indefinite and a definite clause, followed by a minor premiss and conclusion ; for example, "If anyone is here, he is not in Rhodes ; but there is some one here, therefore there is not anyone in Rhodes." . . .

Such, then, is the logic of the Stoics, by which they seek to establish their point that the wise man is the true dialectician. For all things, they say, are discerned by means of logical study, including whatever falls within the province of Physics, and again whatever belongs to that of Ethics. For else, say they, as regards statement and reasoning Physics and Ethics could not tell how to express themselves, or again concerning the proper use of terms, how the laws have defined various actions. ^note

Moreover, of the two kinds of common-sense inquiry included under Virtue one considers the nature of each particular thing, the other asks what it is called. Thus much for their logic.

The ethical branch of philosophy they divide as follows : (1) the topic of impulse ; (2) the topic of things good and evil ; (3) that of the passions ; (4) that of virtue ; (5) that of the end ; (6) that of primary value and of actions ; (7) that of duties or the befitting ; and (8) of inducements to act or refrain from acting. The foregoing is the subdivision adopted by Chrysippus, Archedemus, Zeno of Tarsus, Apollodorus, Diogenes, Antipater, and Posidonius, and their disciples. Zeno of Citium and Cleanthes treated the subject somewhat less elaborately, as might be expected in an older generation. They, however, did subdivide Logic and Physics as well as Ethics.

An animal's first impulse, say the Stoics, is to selfpreservation, because nature from the outset endears it to itself, as Chrysippus affirms in the first book of his work On Ends : his words are, "The dearest thing to every animal is its own constitution and its consciousness thereof" ; for it was not likely that nature should estrange the living thing from itself or that she should leave the creature she has made without either estrangement from or affection for its own constitution. We are forced then to conclude that nature in constituting the animal made it near and dear to itself ; for so it comes to repel all that is injurious and give free access to all that is serviceable or akin to it.

As for the assertion made by some people that pleasure is the object to which the first impulse of animals is directed, it is shown by the Stoics to be false. For pleasure, if it is really felt, they declare to be a by-product, which never comes until nature by itself has sought and found the means suitable to the animal's existence or constitution ; it is an aftermath comparable to the condition of animals thriving and plants in full bloom. And nature, they say, made no difference originally between plants and animals, for she regulates the life of plants too, in their case without impulse and sensation, just as also certain processes go on of a vegetative kind in us. But when in the case of animals impulse has been superadded, whereby they are enabled to go in quest of their proper aliment, for them, say the Stoics, Nature's rule is to follow the direction of impulse. But when reason by way of a more perfect leadership has been bestowed on the beings we call rational, for them life according to reason rightly becomes the natural life. For reason supervenes to shape impulse scientifically.

This is why Zeno was the first (in his treatise On the Nature of Man) to designate as the end "life in agreement with nature" (or living agreeably to nature), which is the same as a virtuous life, virtue being the goal towards which nature guides us. So too Cleanthes in his treatise On Pleasure, as also Posidonius, and Hecato in his work On Ends. Again, living virtuously is equivalent to living in accordance with experience of the actual course of nature, as Chrysippus says in the first book of his De finibus ; for our individual natures are parts of the nature of the whole universe.