They affirm too that the best of political constitutions is a mixed one, combined of democracy, and kingly power, and aristocracy. And they say many things of this sort, and more too, in their Ethical Dogmas, and they maintain them by suitable explanations and arguments. But this may be enough for us to say of their doctrines on this head by way of summary, and taking them in an elementary manner.
They divide natural philosophy into the topics of bodies, and of principles, and of elements, and of Gods, and of boundaries, and of place, and of the vacuum. And they make these divisions according to species; but according to genera they divide them into three topics: that of the world, that of the elements, and the third is that which reasons on causes. The topic about the world, they say, is subdivided into two parts: For that in one point of view, the mathematicians also have a share in it; and according to it it is that they prosecute their investigations into the nature of the fixed stars and the planets; as, for instance, whether the sun is of such a size as he appears to be, and similarly, whether the moon is; and in the same way they investigate the question of spherical motion, and others of the same character. The other point of view is that which is reserved exclusively for natural philosophers, according to which it is that the existence and substance of things are examined [for instance, whether the sun and the stars consist of matter and form], and whether the sun is born or not born, whether it is living or lifeless, corruptible or incorruptible, whether it is regulated by Providence, and other questions of this kind.
The topic which examines into causes they say is also divisible into two parts; and with reference to one of its considerations, the investigations of physicians partake of it; according to which it is that they investigate the dominant principle of the soul, and the things which exist in the soul, and seeds, and things of this kind. And its other division is claimed as belonging to them also by the mathematicians, as for instance how we see, what is the cause of our appearance being reflected in a mirror, how clouds are collected, how thunder is produced, and the rainbow, and the halo, and comets, and things of that kind.
They think that there are two general principles in the universe: the active and the passive. That the passive is matter, an existence without any distinctive quality. That the active is the reason which exists in the passive, that is to say, God. For that he, being eternal, and existing throughout all matter, makes everything. And Zeno of Citium lays down this doctrine in his treatise on Essence, and so does Cleanthes in his essay on Atoms, Chrysippus in the first book of his Investigations in Natural Philosophy towards the end, Archedemus in his work on Elements, and Posidonius in the second book of his treatise on Natural Philosophy. But they say that principles and elements differ from one another. For that the one had no generation or beginning, and will have no end; but that the elements may be destroyed by the operation of fire. Also, that the elements are bodies, but principles have no bodies and no forms, and elements too have forms.
Now a body, says Apollodorus in his Natural Philosophy, is extended in a threefold manner: in length, in breadth, in depth; and then it is called a solid body; and the superficies is the limit of the body having length and breadth alone, but not depth. But Posidonius, in the third book of his Heavenly Phenomena, will not allow a superficies either any substantial reality, or any intelligible existence. A line is the limit of a superficies, or length without breadth, or something which has nothing but length. A point is the boundary of a line, and is the smallest of all symbols.
They also teach that God is unity, and that he is called Mind, and Fate, and Jupiter, and by many other names besides. And that as he was in the beginning by himself, he turned into water the whole substance which pervaded the air; and as the seed is contained in the produce, so too, he being the seminal principle of the world, remained behind in moisture, making matter fit to be employed by himself in the production of those things which were to come after; and then, first of all, he made the four elements: fire, water, air, and earth. And Zeno speaks of these in his treatise on the Universe, and so does Chrysippus in the first book of his Physics, and so does Archedemus in some treatise on the Elements.
Now an element is that out of which at first all things which are are produced, and into which all things are resolved at last. And the four elements are all equally an essence without any distinctive quality, namely, matter; but fire is the hot, water the moist, air the cold, and earth the dry—though this last quality is also common to the air. The fire is the highest, and that is called aether, in which first of all the sphere was generated in which the fixed stars are set, then that in which the planets revolve; after that the air, then the water; and the sediment as it were of all is the earth, which is placed in the center of the rest.
They also speak of the world in a threefold sense; at one time meaning God himself, whom they call a being of a certain quality, having for his peculiar manifestation universal substance, a being imperishable, and who never had any generation, being the maker of the arrangement and order that we see; and who, after certain periods of time, absorbs all substance in himself and then reproduces it from himself. And this arrangement of the stars they call the world, and so the third sense is one composed of both the preceding ones. And the world is a thing which is peculiarly of such and such a quality consisting of universal substance, as Posidonius affirms in his Meteorological Elements, being a system compounded of heaven and earth, and all the creatures which exist in them; or it may be called a system compounded of Gods and men, and of the things created on their account. And the heaven is the most remote circumference of the world, in which all the Divine Nature is situated.
Again, the world is inhabited and regulated according to intellect and providence, as Chrysippus says in his works on Providence, and Posidonius in the thirteenth book of his treatise on Gods, since mind penetrates into every part of the world, just as the soul pervades us; but it is in a greater degree in some parts, and in a less degree in others. For instance, it penetrates as a habit, as for instance, into the bones and sinews; and into some it penetrates as the mind does, for instance, into the dominant principle. And thus the whole world, being a living thing, endowed with a soul and with reason, has the aether as its dominant principle, as Antipater of Tyre says in the eighth book of his treatise on the World. But Chrysippus in the first book of his essay on Providence, and Posidonius in his treatise on Gods, say that the heaven is the dominant principle of the world; and Cleanthes attributes this to the sun. Chrysippus however on this point contradicts himself; for he says in another place that the most subtle portion of the aether, which is also called by the Stoics the first God, is what is infused in a sensible manner into all the beings which are in the air, and through every animal and every plant, and through the earth itself according to a certain habit; and that it is this which communicates to them the faculty of feeling.
They say too, that the world is one and also finite, having a spherical form. For that such a shape is the most convenient for motion, as Posidonius says, in the fifteenth book of his Discussions on Natural Philosophy, and so says Antipater also in his essay on the World. And on the outside there is diffused around it a boundless vacuum, which is incorporeal. And it is incorporeal inasmuch as it is capable of being contained by bodies, but is not so. And that there is no such thing as a vacuum in the world, but that it is all closely united and compact; for that this condition is necessarily brought about by the concord and harmony which exist between the heavenly bodies and those of the earth. And Chrysippus mentions a vacuum in his essay on a Vacuum, and also in the first book of his treatise on the Physical Arts, and so does Apollophanes in his Natural Philosophy, and so does Apollodorus, and so does Posidonius in the second book of his discourses on Natural Philosophy. And they say that these things are all incorporeal and all alike. Moreover, that time is incorporeal, since it is an interval of the motion of the world. And that of time, the past and the future are both illimitable, but the present is limited. And they assert that the world is perishable, inasmuch as it was produced by reason, and is one of the things which are perceptible by the senses; and whatever has its parts perishable, must also be perishable in the whole. And the parts of the world are perishable, for they change into one another. Therefore, the whole world is perishable. And again, if anything admits of a change for the worse it is perishable; therefore, the world is perishable, for it can be dried up, and it can be covered with water.
Now the world was created when its substance was changed from fire to moisture, by the action of the air; and then its denser parts coagulated, and so the earth was made, and the thinner portions were evaporated and became air; and this being rarefied more and more, produced fire. And then, by the combination of all these elements, were produced plants and animals, and other kinds of things. Now Zeno speaks of the creation and of the destruction of the world, in his treatise on the Universe, and so does Cleanthes, and so does Antipater in the tenth book of his treatise on the World. But Panaetius asserts that the world is imperishable.
Again, that the world is an animal, and that it is endued with reason, and life, and intellect, is affirmed by Chrysippus in the first volume of his treatise on Providence, and by Apollodorus in his Natural Philosophy, and by Posidonius; and that it is an animal in this sense, as being an essence endued with life, and with sensation. For that which is an animal is better than that which is not an animal. But nothing is better than the world; therefore the world is an animal. And it is endued with life, as is plain from the fact of our own soul being as it were a fragment broken off from it. But Boethus denies that the world is an animal.
Again, that the world is one is affirmed by Zeno in his treatise on the Universe, and by Chrysippus, and by Apollodorus in his Natural Philosophy, and by Posidonius in the first book of his Discourses on Natural Philosophy. And by the term “the universe,” according to Apollodorus, is understood both the world itself, and also the whole of the world itself and of the exterior vacuum taken together. The world, then, is finite, and the vacuum infinite.
Of the stars, those which are fixed are only moved in connection with the movements of the entire heaven; but the planets move according to their own peculiar and separate motions. And the sun takes an oblique path through the circle of the zodiac, and in the same manner also does the moon, which is of a winding form. And the sun is pure fire, as Posidonius asserts in the seventh book of his treatise on the Heavenly Bodies, and it is larger than the earth, as the same author informs us in the sixteenth book of his Disclosures on Natural Philosophy. Also it is spherical, as he says in another place, being made on the same principle as the world is. Therefore it is fire, because it performs all the functions of fire. And it is larger than the earth, as is proved by the fact of the whole earth being illuminated by it, and also the whole heaven. Also the fact of the earth throwing a conical shadow proves that the sun is greater than it, and the sun is seen in every part because of its magnitude. But the moon is of a more earthy nature than the sun, inasmuch as it is nearer the earth.
Moreover, they say that all these fiery bodies, and all the other stars, receive nutriment; the sun from the vast sea, being a sort of intellectual appendage; and the moon from the fresh waters, being mingled with the air, and also near the earth, as Posidonius explains it in the sixth book of his Discourses on Natural Philosophy. And all the other stars derive their nourishment from the earth. They also consider that the stars are of a spherical figure, and that the earth is immovable. And that the moon has not a light of her own, but that she borrows it from the sun. And that the sun is eclipsed when the moon runs in front of it on the side towards us, as Zeno describes in his work on the Universe; for when it comes across it in its passage, it conceals it, and again it reveals it; and this is a phenomenon easily seen in a basin of water. And the moon is eclipsed when it comes below the shadow of the earth, on which account this never happens, except at the time of the full moon; and although it is diametrically opposite to the sun every month, still it is not eclipsed every month, because when its motions are obliquely towards the sun, it does not find itself in the same place as the sun, being either a little more to the north, or a little more to the south. When therefore it is found in the same place with the sun, and with the other intermediate objects, then it takes as it were the diameter of the sun, and is eclipsed. And its place is along the line which runs between the crab and the scorpion, and the ram and the bull, as Posidonius tells us.
They also say that God is an animal immortal, rational, perfect, and intellectual in his happiness, unsusceptible of any kind of evil, having a foreknowledge of the world and of all that is in the world; however, that he has not the figure of a man; and that he is the creator of the universe, and as it were, the Father of all things in common, and that a portion of him pervades everything, which is called by different names, according to its powers; for they call him Δία as being the person (δι’ ὃν) everything is, and Ζῆνα, inasmuch as he is the cause of life, (τοῦ Ζῆν), or because he pervades life. And Ἀθηνᾶ, with reference to the extension of his dominant power over the aether (εἰς αἰθέρα). And Ἤρα, on account of his extension through the air (εἰς ἀέρα). And Ἥφαιστος, on account of his pervading fire, which is the chief instrument of art; and Ποσειδῶν, as pervading moisture, and Δημήτηρ, as pervading the earth (Γῆ). And in the same way, regarding some other of his peculiar attributes, they have given him other names.
The substance of God is asserted by Zeno to be the universal world and the heaven; and Chrysippus agrees with this doctrine in his eleventh book on the Gods, and so also does Posidonius in the first book of his treatise on the same subject. Antipater, in the seventh book of his treatise on the World, says that his substance is aerial. And Boethus, in his treatise on Nature, calls the substance of God the sphere of the fixed stars.
And his nature they define to be that which keeps the world together, and sometimes that which produces the things upon the earth. And nature is a habit which derives its movements from itself, perfecting and holding together all that arises out of it, according to the principles of production, in certain definite periods, and doing the same as the things from which it is separated. And it has for its object, suitableness and pleasure, as is plain from its having created man.
But Chrysippus in his treatise on Fate, and Posidonius in the second book of his work on Fate, and Zeno, and Boethus in the eleventh book of his treatise on Fate, say that all things are produced by fate. And fate (εἱμαρμένη) is a connected (εἰρομένη) cause of existing things, or the reason according to which the world is regulated.
They also say that divination has a universal existence, since Providence has; and they define it as an act on account of certain results, as Zeno, and Chrysippus in the second book of his treatise on Divination, and Athenodorus, and Posidonius in the twelfth book of his discourses on Natural Philosophy and in the fifth book of his treatise on Divination, all agree in saying; for Panaetius denies that it has any certain foundation.
And they say that the substance of all existing things is Primary Matter, as Chrysippus asserts in the first book of his Physics; and Zeno says the same. Now matter is that from which anything whatever is produced. And it is called by a twofold appellation: essence and matter; the one as relating to all things taken together, and the other to things in particular and separate. The one which relates to all things taken together, never becomes either greater or less; but the one relating to things in particular, does become greater or less, as the case may be.
Body is, according to them, a substance and finite; as Antipater says, in the second book of his treatise on Substance; and Apollodorus, in his Natural Philosophy, agrees with him. It is also subject to change, as we learn from the same author; for if it were immutable, then the things which have been produced out of it would not have been produced; on which account he also says that it is infinitely divisible: but Chrysippus denies that it is infinite; for that nothing is infinite, which is divisible at all.
He admits, however, that it is infinitely divisible, and that its concretions take place over the whole of it, as he explains in the third book of his Physics, and not according to any circumference or juxtaposition; for a little wine when thrown into the sea will keep its distinctness for a brief period, but after that will be lost.
They also say that there are some Daemons who have a sympathy with mankind, being surveyors of all human affairs; and that there are heroes, which are the souls of virtuous men which have left their bodies.
Of the things which take place in the air, they say that winter is the effect of the air above the earth being cooled, on account of the retirement of the sun to a greater distance than before; that spring is a good temperature of the air, according to the sun’s approach towards us; that summer is the effect of the air above the earth being warmed by the approach of the sun towards the north; that autumn is caused by the retreat of the sun from us … to those places from which they flow.