Fate.
219. The Stoics hold that ‘all things happen by fate[6].’ To this conclusion they are brought by the same reasoning that moved the Chaldaeans. The visible universe is, and has motion. The heavenly bodies move incessantly in their orbits; there is no force either within or without them that can turn them aside a hair’s breadth, or make their pace quicker or slower. No prayers of men, no prerogatives of gods can make them change[7]. Without cause there is no effect; and each effect is in its turn a new cause. Thus is constructed an endless chain, in which all things living and inanimate are alike bound. If a man knew all the causes that exist, he could trace out all the consequences. What will be, will be; what will not be, cannot be. This first Stoic interpretation of the universe is that of Determinism; it reiterates and drives home the principle that is here our starting-point, ‘the universe is.’ ‘Chrysippus, Posidonius, and Zeno say that all things take place according to fate; and fate is the linked cause of things that are, or the system by which the universe is conducted[8].’ This ‘fate’ is only another name for ‘necessity[9]’; fates cannot be changed[10].
The ‘fallacies’ of determinism.
220. The doctrine of fate appears to contradict directly the belief in human free will, and to lead up to the practical doctrine of laziness (ἀργὸς λόγος, ignava ratio). Once we allow it to be true that ‘what will be, will be,’ it becomes useless to make any effort. As at the present time, this argument was familiar in cases of sickness. One says to the sick person, ‘if it is your fate to recover, then you will recover whether you call in the physician or not; and if it is your fate not to recover, then you will not recover in either case. But it is your fate either to recover or not to recover; therefore it will be useless to call in the physician.’ To which another will reply: ‘you may as well argue that if it is your fate to beget a son, you will beget one equally whether you consort with your wife or not; therefore it will be useless to consort with your wife[11].’ With such verbal disputes Chrysippus delighted to deal; his reply to the ‘lazy argument’ was that certain things go together by fate (iuncta fato, confatalia)[12]. Thus in the above cases it may be determined by fate that you should both call in a physician and recover, both consort with your wife and beget a son.
So once more when Nestor says to the watchmen by his ships:
Keep watch, my lads: let sleep seize no man’s eyes,
Lest foes, loud laughing, take us by surprize[13].
Some one then replies, ‘No, they will not, even if we sleep, if it is predestined that the dock be not seized.’ To such an objection any one can give the right answer: ‘all these things are equally predestined, and go together by fate. There is no such thing as a watch kept by sleepers, a victory won by runaways, or a harvest reaped except after sowing good clean soil[14].’
Logic of possibility.
221. The doctrine of fate also seems to conflict with some of the commonest forms of speech. For if it is correct to say ‘Either this will happen, or it will not happen,’ it seems incorrect to say ‘it may happen’; and still more of the past, since we must admit of any event that ‘it has happened’ or ‘it has not happened,’ there seems no room for the statement ‘it might have happened.’ Chrysippus however maintains that the words ‘may’ and ‘might’ are correctly used, or (in other words) that we may assert that it is or was ‘possible’ for things to happen, whether or not they will happen or have happened. For example, the pearl here is breakable, and may be broken, though fate has ordained that it never will be broken. Cypselus might not have been tyrant of Corinth, though the oracle at Delphi declared a thousand years before the time that he would be[15]. This view had been sharply contested by Diodorus the Megarian; and the controversy was summed up in the ‘master argument.’ This is stated as follows: there are three propositions in conflict with one another in the sense that if any two of them are true, the third is false. They are these: (i) every past event is necessary; (ii) the impossible cannot follow on the possible; (iii) there are things possible that neither are nor will be true. Diodorus accepted the first two; he therefore drew the conclusion that there is nothing possible except that which is or will be true; or in other words he denied the existence of any category of ‘things possible’ distinct from that of facts past or future. Cleanthes and Antipater accepted the second and third propositions: Chrysippus accepted the first and third, but denied the second[16]; that is he admitted that the possible thing (e.g. the breaking of the pearl) might become the impossible because fate had decided to the contrary. The choice intimates much; it shows that the Stoics, however strongly they assert the rule of fate or necessity, intend so to interpret these terms as to reconcile them with the common use of words, that is, with the inherited belief in divine and human will, breaking through the chain of unending cause and effect[17].