Conclusion.
191. Such are the fundamental conceptions or postulates with which the Stoics approach the problems of physics. It is not necessary for our purpose to compare their merit with those of Aristotle, or to set a value on the debt that Zeno and his successors owed to the founder of the Peripatetic school. Still less do we suggest that the Stoics have perfectly analyzed the contents of the universe, or have even produced an orderly and rounded scheme. But at least it seems clear that their work shews intellectual power, and that speculation is not necessarily less profound because it is pursued with a practical aim[113]. The founders of the Stoic philosophy had a wide reach; they took all knowledge to be their province; and they worked persistently towards the harmonization of all its parts.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Diog. L. vii 41.
[2] Arnim ii 42 and 44.
[3] Diog. L. vii 40.
[4] Perhaps necessarily: on the definition of monism, see above, § [35], note 22.
[5] See above, §§ [149], [153].
[6] ‘[Zeno] nullo modo arbitrabatur quicquam effici posse ab ea [natura], quae expers esset corporis ... nec vero aut quod efficeret aliquid aut quod efficeretur, posse esse non corpus’ Cic. Ac. i 11, 39; ‘cui tanta vis est, ut inpellat et cogat et retineat et iubeat, corpus est’ Sen. Ep. 106, 9.