In the last of the passages we are introduced to an ethical paradox of the highest importance to Stoicism: that good and evil are set in the will and the intention, and are not dependent upon the action[65]. [Sidenote: Originality of Cleanthes.] =99.= To the ancients Cleanthes was the faithful disciple of Zeno. Persaeus, Aratus, and others had turned aside from the direct pursuit of philosophy, and their contact with science and politics might easily sully the purity of their philosophic creed. Herillus had adopted Academic doctrine, Aristo had fallen back into Cynism, Dionysius had actually seceded to the party of pleasure. It might seem that the far-reaching sweep of Zeno’s intellect had no real hold on his companions. But Cleanthes at least stood firm by the old landmarks. We must not suppose from this that he was a man of no originality[66]; his language and his style at least are his own. Nor on the other hand can we go all the way with some recent writers, who attribute to him exclusively large parts of the Stoic system[67]. Our authorities commonly refer either to Zeno alone, or to Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus jointly, as vouching for accepted Stoic doctrine; and we are hardly entitled to lay great stress on the comparatively few fragments of which the authorship is assigned exclusively to Cleanthes, as evidence for the independence of his teaching; especially as we can in many instances see that our authorities delight in attributing a difference of meaning to the Stoic masters, when in reality there is nothing more to be found than a difference of phrasing[68]. It is however clear that Stoicism did not assume its complete form in the hands of its first propagator; and to a limited extent we can see the directions in which his teaching was amplified by his successors. [Sidenote: Physics of Cleanthes.]