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The Stoics indulged in a strange fancy that the world reverted after a
mighty cycle of years in all its parts to the same form and structure which
it possessed at the beginning, so that there would be once more a Socrates,
a Plato, and all the men that had lived, each with the same friends and
fellow-citizens, the same experiences, and the same endeavours. At the
termination of each cycle there was a burning up of all things, and
thereafter a renewal of the great round of life.
Nothing incorporeal, they maintained, can be affected by or affect that
which is corporeal; body alone can affect body. The soul therefore must be
corporeal. Death is the separation of soul from body, but it is impossible
to separate what is incorporeal from body; therefore, again, the soul must
be corporeal. In the belief of Cleanthes, the souls of all creatures
remained to the next period of cyclic conflagration; Chrysippus believed
that only the souls of the wise and good remained.
Coming finally to the Ethics of the Stoic philosophy, we find for the chief
end of life this definition, ‘A life consistent with itself,’ or, as it was
otherwise expressed, ‘A life consistent with Nature.’ The two definitions
are really identical; for the law of nature is the law of our nature, and
the reason in our being the reason which also is in God, the supreme Ruler
of the universe. This is substantially in accordance with the celebrated law
of right action laid down by Kant, “Act so that the maxim of thine action be
capable of being made a law of universal action.” Whether a man act thus or
no, by evil if not by good the eternal law will satisfy itself; the question
is of import only for the man’s own happiness. Let his will accord with the
universal will, then the law will be fulfilled, and the man will be happy.
Let his will resist the universal will, then the law will be fulfilled, but
the man will bear the penalty. This was expressed by Cleanthes in a hymn
which ran somewhat thus—
A History of Greek Philosophy /
THE STOICS
