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THE
METAPHYSICS
Professor
OF
THE
STOICS
N. LOSSKY
The
things
as merely
being" (II, 913). This Reason must not be understood
ideal and spiritual, as law and Providence;
the Stoics insist through?
out that Cosmic Reason is corporeal. It is the Fire (irvp) that pene?
trates the universe. To distinguish it from ordinary earthly fire they
often call it rrvp reyw/coV, i.e. a creative fire, or ether, or irvevfia,
and 7Ti>evfjLaevheppiov?the breath of fire. They definitely say that
this principle is a body, the purest and finest conceivable.
This body
is God (I, 153), and all other bodies and the world as a whole proceed
from it.
The ancient Stoics definitely affirmed that all being is corporeal.
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"death
that
He
is
form of materialism.
If one takes
them to
that
I, 532),
(Cleanthes,
active principle in the world.
As already said, this active and rational principle is a "fiery
and embraces all things" (II, 1051).
pneuma which interpenetrates
The interpenetrating
action of the pneuma is tovos, i.e. tension,
See Stein, Die Psychologie der Stoa, v. I, p. 18.
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STOICS
which spreads out from within each thing and returns into it again.
This tension. in so far as it is directed outwards, determines all the
qualities of things, and in so far as it is directed inwards constitutes
the unity and essence of things.1 It is something like a force of
heart
earth's
the world
group of them.
L. Stein in his Die Psychologie der Stoa explains that by a seedlogos the Stoics meant an activity of the pure pneuma which by
rational and purposive
means of tension invited and encouraged
As usual with the Stoics, we have
origination and development.3
of an indissoluble
unity between the ideal and
poreal being; the seed-logos is an organic bodily whole, a
with such a tension that taking possession of lifeless matter
it shape and forms an individual entity. Such an individual
it goes on
may perish, but its seed-logos is indestructible:
here a case
the cor?
pneuma
it gives
entity
forming
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new individuals
of the same species, being, as it were, the spirit of
The world, united and interpenetrated
by the Divine
be
of
which?the
to
found in each
seed-logoi?are
Logos, aspects
the genus.1
living beings. Their parts are subservient to one another, and the
whole, and, vice versa, the whole is subservient to the parts. Thus,
according to Posidonius, the earth "feeds" the plants: "in the coun?
tries where there is no rain she secures for them the due amount of
moisture by means of floods, such, for instance, as we find in the
the Ind; in flood-time the Ind not
case of the Nile, the Euphrates,
the
but
sows
it with seeds of plants."2 Causality
moistens
soil
merely
and teleology are not mutually exclusive; the Stoics conceive of the
divine cosmic Reason on the one hand as a universal law, a strictly
necessary causal bond, and on the other as purposive, rational, and
beneficial Providence. In the words of Zeno, "necessity is the moving
power of matter; it always remains equal to itself, and may also be
or Nature"
called Providence
(I, 176). "The universal law which is
all things, is identical
Reason
(6 6p6os \6yos), penetrating
right
directs
the
with Zeus, who
world-order (I, 162).
also identified the law of nature?"the
eternal,
Chrysippus
coherent,
and
ordered
motion"
with cosmic
Reason
or Providence
THE
METAPHYSICS
OF
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STOICS
State."
To obey the laws and to carry out the purposes of this State
highest good and supreme duty. "Lead me, Zeus and Fate,
wherever it is destined by you that I should go, and I will follow
is man's
to that of Democritus,
contradistinction
it is dynamic materialism.
For Democritus,
bodies consist of impenetrably
hard atoms which
for ever remain what they are; the world process consists in the blind,
soulless
or irrational: they are based upon the sympathy between the different
parts of the world and are rational and purposive. We find thus an
indissoluble
connection
between
extended
existence,
corporeal
states
ideal
or spiritual essence expressed
and
psychical
("sympathy"),
physical embodiment
actually enhances their value and significance
for the world, and in no way affects their essential nature. Thus, for
instance, when our awareness of a humorous situation finds expres?
a
sion in a smile, it acquires,
through that bodily manifestation,
fulness
and
of
while
its
greater
spiritual
reality,
preserving
psychic
content.
The fundamental
principle
of Stoic
metaphysic
is not substance
485
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but force, Svvafjus. This is clearly the case with Posidonius, as Reinhardt has shown. He discovers special forces in all departments
of
the world; thus he speaks of the force of thought, the force of life,
etc. Reinhardt
Stoics
THE
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STOICS
as Luppe
as follows:
of correct
a concrete
cannot be
differentiate
of them as supertemporal
and superspatial
elements?
present in the extended material being, after the manner of Aris?
are indestotle's "forms." Thus, in the first place, the seed-logoi
tructible; material being, on the other hand, is destructible because
it is infinitely divisible, and can always be destroyed through division;
besides, it is continually undergoing profound qualitative
changes:
conceived
fire is turning into air, water, earth, and back again. In the second
place, definite seed-logoi condition the rational purposive structure
of every species of animals and plants, and, indeed, of every indi?
vidual entity. When a creature such as, e.g., an eagle dies, the seed
According
to a dynamistic
theory
of matter,
spatial
II
in
of
manifesta487
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were
logos's
talked
homogeneous
pneuma could make the world into a single whole. But
as against this one can only repeat once more the argument of
Proclus: such a pneuma, occupying a number of points in space, can
itself be a single whole only if its wholeness springs from an ideal
all its
source which
and
combines
superspatial
supertemporal
"tensions"
into an inseverable unity.
The ideal source of the wholeness of an individual thing or event
in
is complex, and two kinds of ideal entities must be distinguished
it: the concretely ideal element or the substantival
agent, and the
abstract ideas, that is, the laws and forms of that agent's manifesta?
tions.
The
well, first, as the singer's self which dominates all this multitude of
events in space and time; secondly, as the abstract form of the
events, their regular structure, and so on; finally, the melody itself
exists not merely as an event in time, but also as an ideal super?
temporal whole, and in order to render it intelligently the singer
488
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STOICS
that existent, so that if one takes into account all the elements that
go to the make up of any concrete existing entity, such an entity will
always prove to be both real and ideal.
I will point out in conclusion that the overwhelming majority of
processes,
Duddington.)
489