Stoic physics
Encyclopedia
Stoic physics refers to the natural philosophy
adopted by the Stoic
philosophers of ancient Greece
and Rome
used to explain the natural processes at work in the universe
. To the Stoics the universe is a single pantheistic
God, but one which is also a material
substance. The primitive substance of the universe is a divine essence (pneuma
) which is the basis of everything which exists. The separation of force
from matter
produces a divine fire (aether
) which, as the basis of all matter, is differentiated into elements and shaped by the tension caused by the pneuma working according to the divine reason (logos
) of the universe. These processes are responsible for the formation, the development, and ultimately, the destruction of the universe in a never-ending cycle (palingenesis
). The human soul
is an emanation from the fiery aether which permeates the universe, and sensation is transmission of pneuma-currents from objects, which interact with the substance of the mind
, which is the soul's ruling part. The Stoics also recognised the existence of other gods and divine agents as manifestations of the one primitive God-substance.
, (b) dynamic materialism, and (c) monism
or pantheism
.
had asked whether abstract qualities of the soul, such as justice
and wisdom
, have an independent existence. In particular, could something that was not visible and tangible be said to exist. The Stoics' answer to this dilemma was to assert that everything, including wisdom, justice, etc., are corporeal. Plato had defined being as "that which has the power to act or be acted upon," and for the Stoics this meant that all action proceeds by bodily contact; every form of causation is reduced to the efficient cause, which implies the communication of motion from one body to another. Only Body exists. Stoicism was thus fully materialistic; the answers to metaphysics
are to be sought in physics; particularly the problem of the causes of things for which the Platonic
Theory of Forms
and the Peripatetic "constitutive form" had been put forth as solutions.
. To the Stoics, however, nothing passes unexplained; there is a reason (Logos
) for everything in nature. In everything that exists there are two principles, the active and the passive: everything which exists is capable of acting and being acted upon. By the passive principle a thing is susceptible to motion and modification; matter determines substance (ousia
). The active principle characterizes matter, and gives it its quality. For all that happens there is a cause, and as only body can act on body, this cause is as corporeal as the matter upon which it acts. The active principle or "force" is everywhere coextensive with "matter," pervading and permeating it, and, together with it, occupying and filling space. A thing is no longer, as Plato once thought, hot or hard or bright by partaking in abstract heat or hardness or brightness, but by containing within its own substance the material of these qualities, conceived as air-currents (pneuma
) in various degrees of tension. The virtue
s are corporeal, as indeed are actions. The Stoic quality corresponds to Aristotle
's essential form; in both systems the active principle, "the cause of all that matter becomes," is that which accounts for the existence of a given concrete thing, but in the Stoic system, the principle is itself material. Here, too, the reason of things - that which accounts for them - is no longer some external end to which they are tending; it is something acting within them, "a spirit deeply interfused," germinating and developing from within. By its prompting a thing grows, develops and decays, while this "seminal reason," the element of quality in the thing, remains constant through all its changes.
) the Stoics never used, but always Reason
or God
. The Stoics laid down with rigid accuracy the two chief properties of matter - extension in three dimensions, and resistance, both being traced back to force. There were, it is true, certain conceptions, creations of thought to which nothing real and external corresponded, such as time
, space
, and void
, but though each of these might be said to be something, they could not be said to exist.
A Stoic might maintain that World-Soul, Providence, Destiny and Seminal Reason are not mere synonyms, for they express different aspects of God or different relations of God to things, but there were no different substances underlying the different forces of nature. The pneuma neither increases nor diminishes; but its modes of working, its different currents, can be conveniently distinguished and enumerated as evidence of so many distinct attributes.
of the Stoics is the primitive substance which existed before the universe
. It is the everlasting presupposition of particular things; the totality of all existence; out of it the whole visible universe proceeds, eventually to be consumed by it. It is the creative force (God) which develops and shapes the universal order (cosmos). God is everything that exists.
In the original state, the pneuma-God and the universe are absolutely identical; but even then tension, the essential attribute of matter, is at work. In the primitive pneuma there resides the utmost heat
and tension, within which there is a pressure
, an expansive and dispersive tendency. The pneuma cannot long withstand this intense pressure. Motion backwards and forwards once set up cools the glowing mass of fiery vapour and weakens the tension. Thus follows the first differentiation of primitive substance - the separation of force from matter, the emanation of the world from God. The seminal Logos which, in virtue of its tension, slumbered in pneuma, now proceeds upon its creative task. The primitive substance is not Heraclitus
's fire, but rather it is a fiery breath or aether
, a spiritualized element. The cycle of its transformations and successive condensations constitutes the life of the universe. The universe and all its parts are only different embodiments and stages in the change of primitive being which Heraclitus had called a progress up and down. Out of it is separated, first, elemental fire
, the fire which we know, which burns and destroys; and this, again, condenses into air
or aerial vapour; a further step in the downward path produces water
and earth
from the solidification of air. At every stage the degree of tension is slackened, and the resulting element approaches more and more to "inert" matter. But, just as one element does not wholly transform into another (e.g. only a part of air is transmuted into water or earth), so the pneuma itself does not wholly transform into the elements. The residue that remains in original purity with its tension is the ether in the highest sphere of the visible heavens
, encircling the world of which it is lord and head. From the elements the one substance is transformed into the multitude of individual things in the orderly universe, which is itself a living thing or being, and the pneuma pervading it, and conditioning life
and growth everywhere, is its soul
. But this process of differentiation is not eternal; it continues only until the times of the restoration of all things. For the world which has grown up will in turn decay. The tension which has been relaxed will again be tightened; things will gradually resolve into elements, and the elements into the primary substance, to be consummated in a general conflagration (ekpyrôsis) when once more the world will be absorbed in God. Then in due order a new cycle of the universe begins, reproducing the previous, and so on forever.
The influence of Heraclitus
upon Stoicism is a matter of dispute, but the earliest Stoics, such as Cleanthes
, Aristo and Sphaerus
all wrote commentaries on the writings of Heraclitus, which point to a common study of these writings under Zeno
. In Heraclitus the constant flux is a metaphysical notion replaced by the interchange of material elements which Chrysippus
stated as a simple proposition of physics. Heraclitus offers no analogy to the doctrine of four elements as different grades of tension; to the conception of "fire" and "air" as the "form" of particulars; nor to the function of organizing fire which works by methodic plan to produce and preserve the world. Nor, again, is there any analogy to the peculiar Stoic doctrine of universal intermingling.
In Stoicism every character and property of a particular thing is determined solely by the tension in it of a current of pneuma, and pneuma, though present in all things, varies indefinitely in quantity and intensity. So condensed and coarsened is the indwelling pneuma of inorganic bodies that no trace of elasticity or life remains; it cannot even afford them the power of motion; all it can do is to hold them together, pneuma is present in stone
or metal
as a retaining principle. In plants it is manifested as something far purer and possessing greater tension, called a "nature," or principle of growth. A distinction was drawn between irrational animals, and the rational, i.e. gods and humans, leaving room for a divergence, or rather development, of Stoic opinion. The older authorities conceded a vital principle, but denied a soul, to the animals. Later on it was a Stoic tenet to concede a soul, though not a rational soul, throughout the animal kingdom. The universal presence of pneuma was confirmed by observation. A certain warmth, akin to the vital heat of organic being, seems to be found in inorganic nature: vapours from the earth
, hot springs
, sparks
from the flint
, were claimed as the last remnant of pneuma not yet utterly slackened and cold. They appealed also to the speed and expansion of gaseous bodies, to whirlwind
s and inflated balloon
s.
The Logos is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword
. Tension itself Cleanthes defined as a fiery stroke; in his Hymn to Zeus lightning is the symbol of divine activity. As to the fundamental properties of body, extension and resistance, extension results from distance; but distances, or dimensions, are straight lines, i.e. lines of greatest tension. Tension produces expansion, or increase in distance. Resistance, again, is explained by cohesion, which implies binding force. Again, the primary substance has rectilinear motion in two directions, backwards and forwards, at once a condensation, which produces cohesion and substance, and an expansion, the cause of extension and qualities.
The soul
is corporeal, else it would have no real existence, would be incapable of extension in three dimensions (and therefore of equable diffusion all over the body), incapable of holding the body together, herein presenting a sharp contrast to the Epicurean tenet that it is the body which confines and shelters the atoms of soul. This corporeal soul is reason
, mind
, and ruling principle; in virtue of its divine origin Cleanthes can say to Zeus, "We too are thy offspring," and Seneca
can calmly insist that, if man and God are not on perfect equality, the superiority rests rather on our side. What God is for the world, the soul is for humans. The cosmos is a single whole, its variety being referred to varying stages of condensation in pneuma. So, too, the human soul must possess absolute simplicity, its varying functions being conditioned by the degrees of its tension. It follows that of "parts" of the soul, as previous thinkers imagined, there can be no question; all that can consistently be maintained is that from the centre of the body - the heart
- distinct air-currents are discharged to various organs, which are so many modes of the one soul's activity.
With this psychology
is intimately connected the Stoic theory of knowledge. From the unity of soul it follows that all mental processes - sensation, assent, impulse - proceed from reason, the ruling part; the one rational soul alone has sensations, assents to judgments, is impelled towards objects of desire
just as much as it thinks or reasons. Not that all these powers at once reach full maturity. The soul at first is empty of content; in the embryo
it has not developed beyond the nutritive principle of a plant; at birth the "ruling part" is a blank tablet
, although ready prepared to receive writing. This excludes all possibility of innate ideas or any faculty akin to intuitive reason. The source of all our knowledge is experience and discursive thought, which manipulates the materials of sense
. Our ideas are copied from stored-up sensations.
Just as a relaxation in tension brings about the dissolution of the universe; so in the body, a relaxation of tension, accounts for sleep
, decay, and death
for the human body
. After death the disembodied soul can only maintain its separate existence, even for a limited time, by mounting to that region of the universe which is akin to its nature. It was a moot point whether all souls so survive, as Cleanthes thought, or the souls of the wise and good alone, which was the opinion of Chrysippus; in any case, sooner or later individual souls are merged in the soul of the universe, from which they originated.
The relation of the soul of the universe to God is quite clear: it is an inherent property, a mode of its activity, an emanation from the fiery aether which permeates the universe.
as a transmission of the perceived quality of an object, by means of the sense organ, into the percipient's mind. The quality transmitted appears as a disturbance or impression upon the corporeal surface of that "thinking thing," the soul. In the example of sight
, a conical pencil of rays diverges from the pupil of the eye
, so that its base covers the object seen. A presentation is conveyed, by an air-current, from the sense organ, here the eye, to the mind, i.e. the soul's "ruling part." The presentation, besides attesting its own existence, gives further information of its object - such as colour or size. Zeno and Cleanthes compared this presentation to the impression which a seal
bears upon wax
, while Chrysippus determined it more vaguely as a hidden modification or mode of mind. But the mind is no mere passive recipient of impressions from without. Sensation reacts, by a variation in tension, against the current from the sense-organ; and this is the mind's assent or dissent, which is inseparable from the sense presentation. The contents of experience are not all true or valid: hallucination
is possible; here the Stoics agreed with the Epicureans. It is necessary, therefore, that assent should not be given indiscriminately; we must determine a criterion of truth, a special formal test whereby reason may recognize the merely plausible and hold fast the true.
The earlier Stoics made right reason the standard of truth. The law which regulates our action is thus the ultimate criterion of what we know - practical knowledge being understood to be of paramount importance. But this criterion was open to the persistent attacks of Epicureans and Academics
, who made clear (1) that reason is dependent upon, if not derived from, sense, and (2) that the utterances of reason lack consistency. Chrysippus
, therefore, substituted for the Logos
the new standards of sensation and general conception, and more clearly defined and safeguarded his predecessors' position. For reason is consistent in the general conceptions in which all people agree. Nor was the term sensation sufficiently definite. Chrysippus fixed upon a certain characteristic of true presentations; provided the sense organ and the mind be healthy, provided an external object be really seen or heard, the presentation, in virtue of its clearness and distinctness, has the power to extort the assent which it always lies in our power to give or to withhold.
The work of reason was assimilated to the force which binds together the parts of an inorganic body and resists their separation. There is nothing in the order of the universe other than extended mobile bodies and forces in tension in these bodies. So, too, in the order of knowledge there is nothing but sense and the force of reason maintaining its tension and connecting sensations and ideas in their proper sequence. Zeno compared sensation to the outstretched hand
, flat and open; bending the finger
s was assent; the clenched fist was "simple apprehension," the mental grasp of an object; knowledge was the clenched fist tightly held in the other hand. The illustration is valuable for the light it throws on the essential unity of diverse intellectual operations as well as for enforcing once more the Stoic doctrine that different grades of knowledge are different grades of tension. Good and evil, virtues and vices, remarked Plutarch
, are all capable of being perceived; sense, this common basis of all mental activity, is a sort of touch by which the ethereal pneuma which is the soul's substance recognizes and measures tension.
s, shrine
s, temple
s, sacrifice
s, prayer
s and worship
to be of no avail. A really acceptable prayer, he taught, can only have reference to a virtuous and devout mind. The Stoics however attempted to defend and uphold the truth in polytheism
. Not only was the primitive substance God, the one supreme being, but divinity could be ascribed to the manifestations - to the heavenly bodies, which were conceived, like Plato's created gods, as the highest of rational beings, to the forces of nature, even to deified men; and thus the world was peopled with divine agencies.
and the consultation of oracle
s afforded a means of communication between God and man - a concession to popular belief, which may be explained when we reflect that divination was an essential element of Greek religion. Chrysippus did his best to reconcile the superstition with his own rational doctrine of strict causation. Omen
s and portents, he explained, are the natural symptoms of certain occurrences. There must be countless indications of the course of providence
, for the most part unobserved, the meaning of only a few having become known to humanity. To those who argued that divination was superfluous as all events are foreordained, he replied that both divination and our behaviour under the warnings which it affords are included in the chain of causation.
Natural philosophy
Natural philosophy or the philosophy of nature , is a term applied to the study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science...
adopted by the Stoic
STOIC
STOIC was a variant of Forth.It started out at the MIT and Harvard Biomedical Engineering Centre in Boston, and was written in the mid 1970s by Jonathan Sachs...
philosophers of ancient Greece
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
and Rome
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
used to explain the natural processes at work in the universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
. To the Stoics the universe is a single pantheistic
Pantheism
Pantheism is the view that the Universe and God are identical. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal, anthropomorphic or creator god. The word derives from the Greek meaning "all" and the Greek meaning "God". As such, Pantheism denotes the idea that "God" is best seen as a process of...
God, but one which is also a material
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
substance. The primitive substance of the universe is a divine essence (pneuma
Pneuma (Stoic)
In Stoic philosophy, pneuma is the concept of the "breath of life," a mixture of the elements air and fire . Originating among Greek medical writers who locate human vitality in the breath, pneuma for the Stoics is the active, generative principle that organizes both the individual and the cosmos...
) which is the basis of everything which exists. The separation of force
Force
In physics, a force is any influence that causes an object to undergo a change in speed, a change in direction, or a change in shape. In other words, a force is that which can cause an object with mass to change its velocity , i.e., to accelerate, or which can cause a flexible object to deform...
from matter
Matter
Matter is a general term for the substance of which all physical objects consist. Typically, matter includes atoms and other particles which have mass. A common way of defining matter is as anything that has mass and occupies volume...
produces a divine fire (aether
Aether (classical element)
According to ancient and medieval science aether , also spelled æther or ether, is the material that fills the region of the universe above the terrestrial sphere.-Mythological origins:...
) which, as the basis of all matter, is differentiated into elements and shaped by the tension caused by the pneuma working according to the divine reason (logos
Logos
' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...
) of the universe. These processes are responsible for the formation, the development, and ultimately, the destruction of the universe in a never-ending cycle (palingenesis
Palingenesis
Palingenesis is a concept of rebirth or re-creation, used in various contexts in philosophy, theology, politics, and biology. Its meaning stems from Greek palin, meaning again, and genesis, meaning birth....
). The human soul
Soul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
is an emanation from the fiery aether which permeates the universe, and sensation is transmission of pneuma-currents from objects, which interact with the substance of the mind
Mind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
, which is the soul's ruling part. The Stoics also recognised the existence of other gods and divine agents as manifestations of the one primitive God-substance.
Doctrines
Stoic physics can be described in terms of (a) materialismMaterialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
, (b) dynamic materialism, and (c) monism
Monism
Monism is any philosophical view which holds that there is unity in a given field of inquiry. Accordingly, some philosophers may hold that the universe is one rather than dualistic or pluralistic...
or pantheism
Pantheism
Pantheism is the view that the Universe and God are identical. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal, anthropomorphic or creator god. The word derives from the Greek meaning "all" and the Greek meaning "God". As such, Pantheism denotes the idea that "God" is best seen as a process of...
.
Materialism
Philosophers since the time of PlatoPlato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
had asked whether abstract qualities of the soul, such as justice
Justice
Justice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics; justice is the act of being just and/or fair.-Concept of justice:...
and wisdom
Wisdom
Wisdom is a deep understanding and realization of people, things, events or situations, resulting in the ability to apply perceptions, judgements and actions in keeping with this understanding. It often requires control of one's emotional reactions so that universal principles, reason and...
, have an independent existence. In particular, could something that was not visible and tangible be said to exist. The Stoics' answer to this dilemma was to assert that everything, including wisdom, justice, etc., are corporeal. Plato had defined being as "that which has the power to act or be acted upon," and for the Stoics this meant that all action proceeds by bodily contact; every form of causation is reduced to the efficient cause, which implies the communication of motion from one body to another. Only Body exists. Stoicism was thus fully materialistic; the answers to metaphysics
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
are to be sought in physics; particularly the problem of the causes of things for which the Platonic
Platonism
Platonism is the philosophy of Plato or the name of other philosophical systems considered closely derived from it. In a narrower sense the term might indicate the doctrine of Platonic realism...
Theory of Forms
Theory of Forms
Plato's theory of Forms or theory of Ideas asserts that non-material abstract forms , and not the material world of change known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality. When used in this sense, the word form is often capitalized...
and the Peripatetic "constitutive form" had been put forth as solutions.
Dynamism
Materialism was also a doctrine of the Epicureans. The characteristic difference with the Stoic system was the idea of tension as the essential attribute of body. The Epicureans placed the form and movement of matter in the chance movements of primitive atomsAtomism
Atomism is a natural philosophy that developed in several ancient traditions. The atomists theorized that the natural world consists of two fundamental parts: indivisible atoms and empty void.According to Aristotle, atoms are indestructible and immutable and there are an infinite variety of shapes...
. To the Stoics, however, nothing passes unexplained; there is a reason (Logos
Logos
' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...
) for everything in nature. In everything that exists there are two principles, the active and the passive: everything which exists is capable of acting and being acted upon. By the passive principle a thing is susceptible to motion and modification; matter determines substance (ousia
Ousia
Ousia is the Ancient Greek noun formed on the feminine present participle of ; it is analogous to the English participle being, and the modern philosophy adjectival ontic...
). The active principle characterizes matter, and gives it its quality. For all that happens there is a cause, and as only body can act on body, this cause is as corporeal as the matter upon which it acts. The active principle or "force" is everywhere coextensive with "matter," pervading and permeating it, and, together with it, occupying and filling space. A thing is no longer, as Plato once thought, hot or hard or bright by partaking in abstract heat or hardness or brightness, but by containing within its own substance the material of these qualities, conceived as air-currents (pneuma
Pneuma (Stoic)
In Stoic philosophy, pneuma is the concept of the "breath of life," a mixture of the elements air and fire . Originating among Greek medical writers who locate human vitality in the breath, pneuma for the Stoics is the active, generative principle that organizes both the individual and the cosmos...
) in various degrees of tension. The virtue
Virtue
Virtue is moral excellence. A virtue is a positive trait or quality subjectively deemed to be morally excellent and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being....
s are corporeal, as indeed are actions. The Stoic quality corresponds to Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
's essential form; in both systems the active principle, "the cause of all that matter becomes," is that which accounts for the existence of a given concrete thing, but in the Stoic system, the principle is itself material. Here, too, the reason of things - that which accounts for them - is no longer some external end to which they are tending; it is something acting within them, "a spirit deeply interfused," germinating and developing from within. By its prompting a thing grows, develops and decays, while this "seminal reason," the element of quality in the thing, remains constant through all its changes.
Monism
As to the relation between the active and the passive principles there was no real difference. The active cause was always a corporeal current, and therefore matter, although the finest and subtlest matter. Aristotle's technical term Form (ethosEthos
Ethos is a Greek word meaning "character" that is used to describe the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology. The Greeks also used this word to refer to the power of music to influence its hearer's emotions, behaviors, and even morals. Early Greek stories of...
) the Stoics never used, but always Reason
Reason
Reason is a term that refers to the capacity human beings have to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, and to change or justify practices, institutions, and beliefs. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, ...
or God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
. The Stoics laid down with rigid accuracy the two chief properties of matter - extension in three dimensions, and resistance, both being traced back to force. There were, it is true, certain conceptions, creations of thought to which nothing real and external corresponded, such as time
Time
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
, space
Space
Space is the boundless, three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction. Physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless four-dimensional continuum...
, and void
Vacuum
In everyday usage, vacuum is a volume of space that is essentially empty of matter, such that its gaseous pressure is much less than atmospheric pressure. The word comes from the Latin term for "empty". A perfect vacuum would be one with no particles in it at all, which is impossible to achieve in...
, but though each of these might be said to be something, they could not be said to exist.
A Stoic might maintain that World-Soul, Providence, Destiny and Seminal Reason are not mere synonyms, for they express different aspects of God or different relations of God to things, but there were no different substances underlying the different forces of nature. The pneuma neither increases nor diminishes; but its modes of working, its different currents, can be conveniently distinguished and enumerated as evidence of so many distinct attributes.
Cosmogony
The pneumaPneuma (Stoic)
In Stoic philosophy, pneuma is the concept of the "breath of life," a mixture of the elements air and fire . Originating among Greek medical writers who locate human vitality in the breath, pneuma for the Stoics is the active, generative principle that organizes both the individual and the cosmos...
of the Stoics is the primitive substance which existed before the universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
. It is the everlasting presupposition of particular things; the totality of all existence; out of it the whole visible universe proceeds, eventually to be consumed by it. It is the creative force (God) which develops and shapes the universal order (cosmos). God is everything that exists.
In the original state, the pneuma-God and the universe are absolutely identical; but even then tension, the essential attribute of matter, is at work. In the primitive pneuma there resides the utmost heat
Heat
In physics and thermodynamics, heat is energy transferred from one body, region, or thermodynamic system to another due to thermal contact or thermal radiation when the systems are at different temperatures. It is often described as one of the fundamental processes of energy transfer between...
and tension, within which there is a pressure
Pressure
Pressure is the force per unit area applied in a direction perpendicular to the surface of an object. Gauge pressure is the pressure relative to the local atmospheric or ambient pressure.- Definition :...
, an expansive and dispersive tendency. The pneuma cannot long withstand this intense pressure. Motion backwards and forwards once set up cools the glowing mass of fiery vapour and weakens the tension. Thus follows the first differentiation of primitive substance - the separation of force from matter, the emanation of the world from God. The seminal Logos which, in virtue of its tension, slumbered in pneuma, now proceeds upon its creative task. The primitive substance is not Heraclitus
Heraclitus
Heraclitus of Ephesus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom...
's fire, but rather it is a fiery breath or aether
Aether (classical element)
According to ancient and medieval science aether , also spelled æther or ether, is the material that fills the region of the universe above the terrestrial sphere.-Mythological origins:...
, a spiritualized element. The cycle of its transformations and successive condensations constitutes the life of the universe. The universe and all its parts are only different embodiments and stages in the change of primitive being which Heraclitus had called a progress up and down. Out of it is separated, first, elemental fire
Fire (classical element)
Fire has been an important part of all cultures and religions from pre-history to modern day and was vital to the development of civilization. It has been regarded in many different contexts throughout history, but especially as a metaphysical constant of the world.-Greek and Roman tradition:Fire...
, the fire which we know, which burns and destroys; and this, again, condenses into air
Air (classical element)
Air is often seen as a universal power or pure substance. Its supposed fundamental importance to life can be seen in words such as aspire, inspire, perspire and spirit, all derived from the Latin spirare.-Greek and Roman tradition:...
or aerial vapour; a further step in the downward path produces water
Water (classical element)
Water is one of the elements in ancient Greek philosophy, in the Asian Indian system Panchamahabhuta, and in the Chinese cosmological and physiological system Wu Xing...
and earth
Earth (classical element)
Earth, home and origin of humanity, has often been worshipped in its own right with its own unique spiritual tradition.-European tradition:Earth is one of the four classical elements in ancient Greek philosophy and science. It was commonly associated with qualities of heaviness, matter and the...
from the solidification of air. At every stage the degree of tension is slackened, and the resulting element approaches more and more to "inert" matter. But, just as one element does not wholly transform into another (e.g. only a part of air is transmuted into water or earth), so the pneuma itself does not wholly transform into the elements. The residue that remains in original purity with its tension is the ether in the highest sphere of the visible heavens
Firmament
The firmament is the vault or expanse of the sky. According to Genesis, God created the firmament to separate the oceans from other waters above.-Etymology:...
, encircling the world of which it is lord and head. From the elements the one substance is transformed into the multitude of individual things in the orderly universe, which is itself a living thing or being, and the pneuma pervading it, and conditioning life
Life
Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased , or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate...
and growth everywhere, is its soul
Soul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
. But this process of differentiation is not eternal; it continues only until the times of the restoration of all things. For the world which has grown up will in turn decay. The tension which has been relaxed will again be tightened; things will gradually resolve into elements, and the elements into the primary substance, to be consummated in a general conflagration (ekpyrôsis) when once more the world will be absorbed in God. Then in due order a new cycle of the universe begins, reproducing the previous, and so on forever.
Heraclitus
Heraclitus of Ephesus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom...
upon Stoicism is a matter of dispute, but the earliest Stoics, such as Cleanthes
Cleanthes
Cleanthes , of Assos, was a Greek Stoic philosopher and the successor to Zeno as the second head of the Stoic school in Athens. Originally a boxer, he came to Athens where he took up philosophy, listening to Zeno's lectures. He supported himself by working as water-carrier at night. After the...
, Aristo and Sphaerus
Sphaerus
Sphaerus of Borysthenes or the Bosphorus, was a Stoic philosopher.He studied first under Zeno of Citium, and afterwards under Cleanthes. He taught in Sparta, where he acted as advisor to Cleomenes III. He moved to Alexandria at some point, where he lived in the court of Ptolemy IV Philopator...
all wrote commentaries on the writings of Heraclitus, which point to a common study of these writings under Zeno
Zeno of Citium
Zeno of Citium was a Greek philosopher from Citium . Zeno was the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy, which he taught in Athens from about 300 BC. Based on the moral ideas of the Cynics, Stoicism laid great emphasis on goodness and peace of mind gained from living a life of virtue in...
. In Heraclitus the constant flux is a metaphysical notion replaced by the interchange of material elements which Chrysippus
Chrysippus
Chrysippus of Soli was a Greek Stoic philosopher. He was a native of Soli, Cilicia, but moved to Athens as a young man, where he became a pupil of Cleanthes in the Stoic school. When Cleanthes died, around 230 BC, Chrysippus became the third head of the school...
stated as a simple proposition of physics. Heraclitus offers no analogy to the doctrine of four elements as different grades of tension; to the conception of "fire" and "air" as the "form" of particulars; nor to the function of organizing fire which works by methodic plan to produce and preserve the world. Nor, again, is there any analogy to the peculiar Stoic doctrine of universal intermingling.
In Stoicism every character and property of a particular thing is determined solely by the tension in it of a current of pneuma, and pneuma, though present in all things, varies indefinitely in quantity and intensity. So condensed and coarsened is the indwelling pneuma of inorganic bodies that no trace of elasticity or life remains; it cannot even afford them the power of motion; all it can do is to hold them together, pneuma is present in stone
Rock (geology)
In geology, rock or stone is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock. In general rocks are of three types, namely, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic...
or metal
Metal
A metal , is an element, compound, or alloy that is a good conductor of both electricity and heat. Metals are usually malleable and shiny, that is they reflect most of incident light...
as a retaining principle. In plants it is manifested as something far purer and possessing greater tension, called a "nature," or principle of growth. A distinction was drawn between irrational animals, and the rational, i.e. gods and humans, leaving room for a divergence, or rather development, of Stoic opinion. The older authorities conceded a vital principle, but denied a soul, to the animals. Later on it was a Stoic tenet to concede a soul, though not a rational soul, throughout the animal kingdom. The universal presence of pneuma was confirmed by observation. A certain warmth, akin to the vital heat of organic being, seems to be found in inorganic nature: vapours from the earth
Soil
Soil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics...
, hot springs
Hot Springs
Hot Springs may refer to:* Hot Springs, Arkansas** Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas*Hot Springs, California**Hot Springs, Lassen County, California**Hot Springs, Modoc County, California**Hot Springs, Placer County, California...
, sparks
Ember
Embers are the glowing, hot coals made of greatly heated wood, coal, or other carbon-based material that remain after, or sometimes precede a fire. Embers can glow very hot, sometimes as hot as the fire which created them...
from the flint
Flint
Flint is a hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as a variety of chert. It occurs chiefly as nodules and masses in sedimentary rocks, such as chalks and limestones. Inside the nodule, flint is usually dark grey, black, green, white, or brown in colour, and...
, were claimed as the last remnant of pneuma not yet utterly slackened and cold. They appealed also to the speed and expansion of gaseous bodies, to whirlwind
Whirlwind (atmospheric phenomenon)
A whirlwind is a weather phenomenon in which a vortex of wind forms due to instabilities and turbulence created by heating and flow gradients. Whirlwinds occur all over the world and in any season....
s and inflated balloon
Balloon
A balloon is an inflatable flexible bag filled with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, or air. Modern balloons can be made from materials such as rubber, latex, polychloroprene, or a nylon fabric, while some early balloons were made of dried animal bladders, such as the pig...
s.
The Logos is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword
Sword
A sword is a bladed weapon used primarily for cutting or thrusting. The precise definition of the term varies with the historical epoch or the geographical region under consideration...
. Tension itself Cleanthes defined as a fiery stroke; in his Hymn to Zeus lightning is the symbol of divine activity. As to the fundamental properties of body, extension and resistance, extension results from distance; but distances, or dimensions, are straight lines, i.e. lines of greatest tension. Tension produces expansion, or increase in distance. Resistance, again, is explained by cohesion, which implies binding force. Again, the primary substance has rectilinear motion in two directions, backwards and forwards, at once a condensation, which produces cohesion and substance, and an expansion, the cause of extension and qualities.
Soul
In the rational creatures - humans and gods - pneuma is manifested in a high degree of purity and intensity as an emanation from the world-soul, itself an emanation from the primary substance of purest aether - a spark of the celestial fire, or, more accurately, fiery breath, characterized by vital warmth more than by dryness.The soul
Soul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
is corporeal, else it would have no real existence, would be incapable of extension in three dimensions (and therefore of equable diffusion all over the body), incapable of holding the body together, herein presenting a sharp contrast to the Epicurean tenet that it is the body which confines and shelters the atoms of soul. This corporeal soul is reason
Reason
Reason is a term that refers to the capacity human beings have to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, and to change or justify practices, institutions, and beliefs. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, ...
, mind
Mind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
, and ruling principle; in virtue of its divine origin Cleanthes can say to Zeus, "We too are thy offspring," and Seneca
Seneca the Younger
Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero...
can calmly insist that, if man and God are not on perfect equality, the superiority rests rather on our side. What God is for the world, the soul is for humans. The cosmos is a single whole, its variety being referred to varying stages of condensation in pneuma. So, too, the human soul must possess absolute simplicity, its varying functions being conditioned by the degrees of its tension. It follows that of "parts" of the soul, as previous thinkers imagined, there can be no question; all that can consistently be maintained is that from the centre of the body - the heart
Heart
The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system , that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions...
- distinct air-currents are discharged to various organs, which are so many modes of the one soul's activity.
With this psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
is intimately connected the Stoic theory of knowledge. From the unity of soul it follows that all mental processes - sensation, assent, impulse - proceed from reason, the ruling part; the one rational soul alone has sensations, assents to judgments, is impelled towards objects of desire
Desire (emotion)
Desire is a sense of longing for a person or object or hoping for an outcome. Desire is the fire that sets action aflame. The same sense is expressed by emotions such as "craving" or "hankering". When a person desires something or someone, their sense of longing is excited by the enjoyment or the...
just as much as it thinks or reasons. Not that all these powers at once reach full maturity. The soul at first is empty of content; in the embryo
Embryo
An embryo is a multicellular diploid eukaryote in its earliest stage of development, from the time of first cell division until birth, hatching, or germination...
it has not developed beyond the nutritive principle of a plant; at birth the "ruling part" is a blank tablet
Tabula rasa
Tabula rasa is the epistemological theory that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception. Generally proponents of the tabula rasa thesis favour the "nurture" side of the nature versus nurture debate, when it comes to aspects...
, although ready prepared to receive writing. This excludes all possibility of innate ideas or any faculty akin to intuitive reason. The source of all our knowledge is experience and discursive thought, which manipulates the materials of sense
Sense
Senses are physiological capacities of organisms that provide inputs for perception. The senses and their operation, classification, and theory are overlapping topics studied by a variety of fields, most notably neuroscience, cognitive psychology , and philosophy of perception...
. Our ideas are copied from stored-up sensations.
Just as a relaxation in tension brings about the dissolution of the universe; so in the body, a relaxation of tension, accounts for sleep
Sleep
Sleep is a naturally recurring state characterized by reduced or absent consciousness, relatively suspended sensory activity, and inactivity of nearly all voluntary muscles. It is distinguished from quiet wakefulness by a decreased ability to react to stimuli, and is more easily reversible than...
, decay, and death
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
for the human body
Human body
The human body is the entire structure of a human organism, and consists of a head, neck, torso, two arms and two legs.By the time the human reaches adulthood, the body consists of close to 100 trillion cells, the basic unit of life...
. After death the disembodied soul can only maintain its separate existence, even for a limited time, by mounting to that region of the universe which is akin to its nature. It was a moot point whether all souls so survive, as Cleanthes thought, or the souls of the wise and good alone, which was the opinion of Chrysippus; in any case, sooner or later individual souls are merged in the soul of the universe, from which they originated.
The relation of the soul of the universe to God is quite clear: it is an inherent property, a mode of its activity, an emanation from the fiery aether which permeates the universe.
Sensation
The Stoics explained perceptionPerception
Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...
as a transmission of the perceived quality of an object, by means of the sense organ, into the percipient's mind. The quality transmitted appears as a disturbance or impression upon the corporeal surface of that "thinking thing," the soul. In the example of sight
Visual perception
Visual perception is the ability to interpret information and surroundings from the effects of visible light reaching the eye. The resulting perception is also known as eyesight, sight, or vision...
, a conical pencil of rays diverges from the pupil of the eye
Human eye
The human eye is an organ which reacts to light for several purposes. As a conscious sense organ, the eye allows vision. Rod and cone cells in the retina allow conscious light perception and vision including color differentiation and the perception of depth...
, so that its base covers the object seen. A presentation is conveyed, by an air-current, from the sense organ, here the eye, to the mind, i.e. the soul's "ruling part." The presentation, besides attesting its own existence, gives further information of its object - such as colour or size. Zeno and Cleanthes compared this presentation to the impression which a seal
Seal (device)
A seal can be a figure impressed in wax, clay, or some other medium, or embossed on paper, with the purpose of authenticating a document ; but the term can also mean the device for making such impressions, being essentially a mould with the mirror image of the design carved in sunken- relief or...
bears upon wax
Wax
thumb|right|[[Cetyl palmitate]], a typical wax ester.Wax refers to a class of chemical compounds that are plastic near ambient temperatures. Characteristically, they melt above 45 °C to give a low viscosity liquid. Waxes are insoluble in water but soluble in organic, nonpolar solvents...
, while Chrysippus determined it more vaguely as a hidden modification or mode of mind. But the mind is no mere passive recipient of impressions from without. Sensation reacts, by a variation in tension, against the current from the sense-organ; and this is the mind's assent or dissent, which is inseparable from the sense presentation. The contents of experience are not all true or valid: hallucination
Hallucination
A hallucination, in the broadest sense of the word, is a perception in the absence of a stimulus. In a stricter sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid,...
is possible; here the Stoics agreed with the Epicureans. It is necessary, therefore, that assent should not be given indiscriminately; we must determine a criterion of truth, a special formal test whereby reason may recognize the merely plausible and hold fast the true.
The earlier Stoics made right reason the standard of truth. The law which regulates our action is thus the ultimate criterion of what we know - practical knowledge being understood to be of paramount importance. But this criterion was open to the persistent attacks of Epicureans and Academics
Platonic Academy
The Academy was founded by Plato in ca. 387 BC in Athens. Aristotle studied there for twenty years before founding his own school, the Lyceum. The Academy persisted throughout the Hellenistic period as a skeptical school, until coming to an end after the death of Philo of Larissa in 83 BC...
, who made clear (1) that reason is dependent upon, if not derived from, sense, and (2) that the utterances of reason lack consistency. Chrysippus
Chrysippus
Chrysippus of Soli was a Greek Stoic philosopher. He was a native of Soli, Cilicia, but moved to Athens as a young man, where he became a pupil of Cleanthes in the Stoic school. When Cleanthes died, around 230 BC, Chrysippus became the third head of the school...
, therefore, substituted for the Logos
Logos
' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...
the new standards of sensation and general conception, and more clearly defined and safeguarded his predecessors' position. For reason is consistent in the general conceptions in which all people agree. Nor was the term sensation sufficiently definite. Chrysippus fixed upon a certain characteristic of true presentations; provided the sense organ and the mind be healthy, provided an external object be really seen or heard, the presentation, in virtue of its clearness and distinctness, has the power to extort the assent which it always lies in our power to give or to withhold.
The work of reason was assimilated to the force which binds together the parts of an inorganic body and resists their separation. There is nothing in the order of the universe other than extended mobile bodies and forces in tension in these bodies. So, too, in the order of knowledge there is nothing but sense and the force of reason maintaining its tension and connecting sensations and ideas in their proper sequence. Zeno compared sensation to the outstretched hand
Hand
A hand is a prehensile, multi-fingered extremity located at the end of an arm or forelimb of primates such as humans, chimpanzees, monkeys, and lemurs...
, flat and open; bending the finger
Finger
A finger is a limb of the human body and a type of digit, an organ of manipulation and sensation found in the hands of humans and other primates....
s was assent; the clenched fist was "simple apprehension," the mental grasp of an object; knowledge was the clenched fist tightly held in the other hand. The illustration is valuable for the light it throws on the essential unity of diverse intellectual operations as well as for enforcing once more the Stoic doctrine that different grades of knowledge are different grades of tension. Good and evil, virtues and vices, remarked Plutarch
Plutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
, are all capable of being perceived; sense, this common basis of all mental activity, is a sort of touch by which the ethereal pneuma which is the soul's substance recognizes and measures tension.
Gods
For the Stoics, God is everywhere as the ruler and upholder, and at the same time the law, of the universe. Zeno declared cult imageCult image
In the practice of religion, a cult image is a human-made object that is venerated for the deity, spirit or daemon that it embodies or represents...
s, shrine
Shrine
A shrine is a holy or sacred place, which is dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon or similar figure of awe and respect, at which they are venerated or worshipped. Shrines often contain idols, relics, or other such objects associated with the figure being venerated....
s, temple
Temple
A temple is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites. A templum constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur. It has the same root as the word "template," a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out...
s, sacrifice
Sacrifice
Sacrifice is the offering of food, objects or the lives of animals or people to God or the gods as an act of propitiation or worship.While sacrifice often implies ritual killing, the term offering can be used for bloodless sacrifices of cereal food or artifacts...
s, prayer
Prayer
Prayer is a form of religious practice that seeks to activate a volitional rapport to a deity through deliberate practice. Prayer may be either individual or communal and take place in public or in private. It may involve the use of words or song. When language is used, prayer may take the form of...
s and worship
Worship
Worship is an act of religious devotion usually directed towards a deity. The word is derived from the Old English worthscipe, meaning worthiness or worth-ship — to give, at its simplest, worth to something, for example, Christian worship.Evelyn Underhill defines worship thus: "The absolute...
to be of no avail. A really acceptable prayer, he taught, can only have reference to a virtuous and devout mind. The Stoics however attempted to defend and uphold the truth in polytheism
Polytheism
Polytheism is the belief of multiple deities also usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own mythologies and rituals....
. Not only was the primitive substance God, the one supreme being, but divinity could be ascribed to the manifestations - to the heavenly bodies, which were conceived, like Plato's created gods, as the highest of rational beings, to the forces of nature, even to deified men; and thus the world was peopled with divine agencies.
Divination
The practice of divinationDivination
Divination is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic standardized process or ritual...
and the consultation of oracle
Oracle
In Classical Antiquity, an oracle was a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination....
s afforded a means of communication between God and man - a concession to popular belief, which may be explained when we reflect that divination was an essential element of Greek religion. Chrysippus did his best to reconcile the superstition with his own rational doctrine of strict causation. Omen
Omen
An omen is a phenomenon that is believed to foretell the future, often signifying the advent of change...
s and portents, he explained, are the natural symptoms of certain occurrences. There must be countless indications of the course of providence
Divine Providence
In Christian theology, divine providence, or simply providence, is God's activity in the world. " Providence" is also used as a title of God exercising His providence, and then the word are usually capitalized...
, for the most part unobserved, the meaning of only a few having become known to humanity. To those who argued that divination was superfluous as all events are foreordained, he replied that both divination and our behaviour under the warnings which it affords are included in the chain of causation.