Stoic physics

1.1 Materialism
Philosophers since the time of Plato had asked whether
abstract qualities of the soul, such as justice and wisdom,
have an independent existence.[1] 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 dened being as that which has the power to
act or be acted upon,[2] and for the Stoics this meant
that all action proceeds by bodily contact; every form of
causation is reduced to the ecient 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.
In Stoic physics, the Earth and the universe are all part of a single
whole.

1.2 Dynamism

Stoic physics is 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 re (aether) which,
as the basis of all matter, is dierentiated 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 ery aether which permeates
the universe, and sensation is transmission of pneumacurrents from objects, which interact with the substance
of the mind, which is the souls ruling part. The Stoics also recognised the existence of other gods and divine agents as manifestations of the one primitive Godsubstance.

Materialism was also a doctrine of the Epicureans. The

characteristic dierence 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 atoms. 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 modication; 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 lling 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
virtues are corporeal, as indeed are actions. The Stoic
quality corresponds to Aristotle's essential form; in both
1 Doctrines
systems the active principle, the cause of all that matter
becomes, is that which accounts for the existence of a
Stoic physics can be described in terms of (a) materialism, given concrete thing, but in the Stoic system, the princi(b) dynamic materialism, and (c) monism or pantheism. ple is itself material. Here, too, the reason of things
1

COSMOGONY

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.

1.3

Monism

As to the relation between the active and the passive principles there was no real dierence. The active cause was
always a corporeal current, and therefore matter, although
the nest and subtlest matter. Aristotles technical term
Form (ethos) 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 dierent aspects of God or dierent relations of God to things, but there were no dierent substances underlying the dierent forces of nature. The
pneuma neither increases nor diminishes; but its modes of
working, its dierent currents, can be conveniently distinguished and enumerated as evidence of so many distinct attributes.

Cosmogony

The pneuma 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 ery vapour and weakens the
tension. Thus follows the rst dierentiation 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

In Stoic physics, the universe is shaped by a divine artisan-re.

is not Heraclitus's re, but rather it is a ery 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
dierent embodiments and stages in the change of primitive being which Heraclitus had called a progress up and
down.[3] Out of it is separated, rst, elemental re, the
re 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
solidication 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 dierentiation 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 conagration (ekpyrsis) when once more the
world will be absorbed in God. Then in due order a new

3
cycle of the universe begins, reproducing the previous, and coarsened is the indwelling pneuma of inorganic bodand so on forever.
ies that no trace of elasticity or life remains; it cannot even
aord 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 conrmed 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 int, 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 whirlwinds and inated balloons.
The Logos is quick and powerful, and sharper than any
two-edged sword. Tension itself Cleanthes dened as a
ery 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.

3 Soul
Zeno of Citium, founder of the Stoic school

The inuence 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,[4] which point to a common study of these
writings under Zeno. In Heraclitus the constant ux is a
metaphysical notion replaced by the interchange of material elements which Chrysippus stated as a simple proposition of physics. Heraclitus oers no analogy to the doctrine of four elements as dierent grades of tension; to
the conception of re and air as the form of particulars; nor to the function of organizing re 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 indenitely in quantity and intensity. So condensed

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 re, or, more accurately, ery breath, characterized by vital warmth more than by dryness.
The soul is corporeal, else it would have no real existence,
would be incapable of extension in three dimensions (and
therefore of equable diusion 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 connes 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 ospring, and Seneca can calmly insist that, if man
and God are not on perfect equality, the superiority rests
rather on our side.[5] 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,

4 SENSATION

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
souls activity.

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 minds 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
With this psychology is intimately connected the Stoic not be given indiscriminately; we must determine a criterion of truth, a special formal test whereby reason may
theory of knowledge. From the unity of soul it follows
that all mental processes sensation, assent, impulse recognize the merely plausible and hold fast the true.
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 rst 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 Chrysippus of Soli
clear: it is an inherent property, a mode of its activity,
an emanation from the ery aether which permeates the The earlier Stoics made right reason the standard of
truth.[6] The law which regulates our action is thus the uluniverse.
timate 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
4 Sensation
dependent upon, if not derived from, sense, and (2) that
The Stoics explained perception as a transmission of the the utterances of reason lack consistency. Chrysippus,
perceived quality of an object, by means of the sense or- therefore, substituted for the Logos the new standards of
gan, into the percipients mind. The quality transmitted sensation and general conception, and more clearly deappears as a disturbance or impression upon the corpo- ned and safeguarded his predecessors position. For reareal surface of that thinking thing, the soul. In the ex- son is consistent in the general conceptions in which all
ample of sight, a conical pencil of rays diverges from the people agree. Nor was the term sensation suciently
pupil of the eye, so that its base covers the object seen. denite. Chrysippus xed upon a certain characteristic
A presentation is conveyed, by an air-current, from the of true presentations; provided the sense organ and the
sense organ, here the eye, to the mind, i.e. the souls rul- mind be healthy, provided an external object be really
ing part. The presentation, besides attesting its own ex- seen or heard, the presentation, in virtue of its clearness
istence, gives further information of its object such as and distinctness, has the power to extort the assent which
colour or size. Zeno and Cleanthes compared this pre- it always lies in our power to give or to withhold.
sentation to the impression which a seal bears upon wax, The work of reason was assimilated to the force which
while Chrysippus determined it more vaguely as a hid- binds together the parts of an inorganic body and resists
den modication or mode of mind. But the mind is no their separation. There is nothing in the order of the uni-

5
verse 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, at and open; bending the
ngers was assent; the clenched st was simple apprehension, the mental grasp of an object; knowledge was
the clenched st tightly held in the other hand.[7] 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 dierent grades
of knowledge are dierent 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 souls 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 images, shrines, temples, sacrices,
prayers 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 Platos created gods, as the highest of rational beings, to the forces
of nature, even to deied men; and thus the world was
peopled with divine agencies.

Divination

The practice of divination and the consultation of oracles

aorded a means of communication between God and
man a concession to popular belief, which may be explained when we reect 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. Omens 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 superuous as all events are foreordained, he replied that both divination and our behaviour
under the warnings which it aords are included in the
chain of causation.

7 Notes
[1] Plato, Sophist, 246C .
[2] Plato, Sophist, 247D
[3] Heraclitus, DK B60
[4] Diogenes Lartius, vii. 174, ix. 5, 15
[5] Seneca, Epistles, liii. 1112
[6] Diogenes Lartius, vii. 54
[7] Cicero, Academica, ii. 4

8 References
This article incorporates text from a publication now
in the public domain: R.D. Hicks (1911). Stoics.
In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopdia Britannica (11th
ed.). Cambridge University Press.

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