Roman Stoicism: being lectures on the history of the Stoic philosophy with special reference to its development within the Roman EmpireArnold, Edward Vernon
Religion
Roman Stoicism: being lectures on the history of the Stoic philosophy with special reference to its development within the Roman Empire
Arnold, Edward Vernon
Stoics
=174.= The conception of ‘body’ therefore replaces in the Stoic system
the various elements which the Ionic philosophers assumed as the basis
of the universe, and combines both parts of such dualistic elements
as were assumed by Democritus, Anaxagoras and Aristotle. Since it is
the foundation of all things it must be capable of taking very various
shapes. In logic we have met with it under the name of the ‘substratum’
(τὸ ὑπάρχον, _id quod est_)[9], but it none the less includes the
‘subject’ or feeling and reasoning mind. In the universe as a whole it
is ‘essence’ (οὐσία, _essentia_); in its parts it is ‘matter’ (ὕλη,
_silva_)[10]; but it also appears, possessed of intelligence, as the
deity[11], and again is identified with ‘breath’ or ‘spirit[12],’ and
through this with the human soul[13]. Even in ethics it has its place;
for all causes are bodily, and not least ‘the good’ and the respective
virtues, all of which are bodies, for they act upon body[14]; similarly
the emotions such as anger and melancholy, are of the nature of body[15].
[Sidenote: Motion, space and time.]
=175.= The Stoic ‘body’ in all its transformations is active and alert.
It contains in itself the principle or power of movement; for though we
observe that one body is set in motion by another, yet this could not be
the case unless in the beginning there had been a body which had movement
of itself[16]. As to the nature of the primal movement, the Stoics
agree with Anaximenes that it may be described as alternate rarefaction
and condensation. Rarefaction is a wave or ‘spirit’ spreading from the
centre to the extremities; condensation is a contrary movement from the
extremities to the centre[17]. The extension of body is ‘space,’ which
therefore does not exist of itself, but only as a function of body[18].
Where there is no body (and body is limited), there is no space, but only
the ‘boundless void’ beyond the universe[19]; of this we cannot say that
it ‘exists’; rather it ‘not exists.’ Time also does not exist of itself,
but only in the movement of body[20]. Neither space nor time existed
before the universe, but have been all along bound up with it[21].
[Sidenote: Body comprises life and thought.]
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