78. In becoming in turn a listener to Polemo, Zeno, we may imagine, entered a new world. He left behind the rough manners, the stinging retorts, and the narrow culture of the Cynics and Eristics[47], to sit with other intelligent students[48] at the feet of a man of cultured manners[49] and wide reading, who to a love for Homer and Sophocles[50] had, we must suppose, added an intimate knowledge of the works of Plato and Aristotle, was himself a great writer[51], and yet consistently taught that not learning, but a natural and healthy life was the end to be attained. That Zeno profited much from his studies under Polemo we may conjecture from Polemo’s good-natured complaint, ‘I see well what you are after: you break down my garden wall and steal my teaching, which you dress in Phoenician clothes[52].’ From this time it became a conventional complaint that Stoic doctrine was stolen from that of the Academics: yet the sharp conflict between the two schools shews that this cannot apply to essentials. But in two important matters at least Zeno must have been indebted to Academic teaching. This school had elaborated the doctrine of Anaxagoras, which so attracted Socrates, that the world began with the working of mind upon unordered matter. So too, according to all our authorities, Zeno taught that there are two beginnings, the active which is identified with the deity or Logos, and the passive which is inert matter, or substance without quality[53]. This doctrine appears to pledge Zeno to a dualistic view of the universe.
‘Soul is body.’
79. On the other hand the Platonic teaching on the soul was reversed by Zeno. He denied the opposition between soul and body. ‘Soul is Breath[54],’ he taught, and ‘soul is body[55].’ With Plato’s threefold division of the soul he would have nothing to do; rather he maintained that the soul has eight parts[56], each displaying itself in a distinct power or capacity, whilst all of them are qualities or operations of one soul in various relations[57]. In this part of his philosophy Zeno appears as a strong monist, and his debt to the Platonists is necessarily restricted to details.
Zeno studies Heraclitus.
80. It would seem then that Zeno after seeking for philosophic safety for some twenty years in one harbour after another had so far made shipwreck. But from this shipwreck of his intellectual hopes he could afterwards count the beginning of a fair voyage[58]. As he eagerly discussed with his younger fellow-student Arcesilaus the teaching of their master Polemon, he took courage to point out its weak points[59], and began to quote in his own defence not only his previous teachers Crates and Stilpo, but also the works of Heraclitus[60]. He thus broke down the barrier which Socrates had set up against the Ionic philosophers. From Heraclitus Zeno drew two doctrines of first-rate importance; the first, that of the eternal fire[61] and its mutation into the elements in turn[62]; the second (already referred to) that of the Logos[63]. It is evident that the Heraclitean doctrine of fire breaks down the distinction between God and the world, active and passive, soul and body; and is therefore inconsistent with the dualism which Zeno had partly borrowed from Plato. It is not clear whether Zeno attained to clearness on this point; but in the general teaching of the Stoics the monistic doctrine prevailed[64]. Hence God is not separate from body, but is himself body in its purest form[65]. The Logos or divine reason is the power which pervades and gives shape to the universe[66]; and this Logos is identical with the deity, that is with the primitive and creative Fire[67]. The Logos (ὀρθὸς λόγος, vera ratio) brings into harmony the parts of philosophy; for it is also on the one hand the guide to right reasoning[68]; on the other hand the law which prescribes what is right for the State and for the individual[69].
Zeno opens his school.
81. When Zeno definitely accepted the teaching of Heraclitus, he felt bound to break finally with the school of Polemo, and he founded soon after 300 B.C. a school of his own, which was rapidly crowded. His followers were at first called Zenonians, but afterwards Stoics, from the ‘picture porch’ (so called because it was decorated with paintings by Polygnotus) in which he delivered his lectures. He now applied himself afresh to the problem of ethics. Whilst still adhering to the Cynic views that ‘virtue is the only good,’ and that ‘example is more potent than precept,’ he entirely rejected the intuitional basis which the Cynics had accepted, deciding in favour of the claims of reason. He found his ideal in ‘consistency’ (ὁμολογία, convenientia)[70]; as the Logos or Word rules in the universe, so should it also in the individual. Those who live by a single and harmonious principle possess divine favour and an even flow of life[71]; those that follow conflicting practices are ill-starred[72]. In this consistency there is found virtue, and (here again he follows the Cynics) virtue is sufficient for happiness[73], and has no need of any external support.
His theory of virtue.
82. But whilst the virtue of the Cynics is something detached and self-contained, and is ‘natural’ only in the sense that it is not determined by custom or authority, that of Zeno is bound up with the whole scheme of the universe. For the universe puts before men certain things, which though rightly named ‘indifferent’ by the Cynics, and wrongly named ‘good’ by the Academics, have yet a certain value (ἀξία, aestimatio), and are a natural goal for men’s actions[74]. Such are health, prosperity, good name, and other things which the Academics named ‘things according to nature’ (τὰ κατὰ φύσιν). These Zeno took over, not as a part of his theory of virtue, but as the basis of it[75]; and for things having value introduced the term ‘of high degree’ (προηγμένα), and for their opposites the term ‘of low degree’ (ἀποπροηγμένα), these terms being borrowed from court life. Thus virtue alone is queen, and all things naturally desired are subject to her command[76]. The end of life is therefore to live consistently, keeping in view the aims set before us by nature, or shortly, to live ‘consistently with nature.’ Our authorities do not agree as to whether Zeno or Cleanthes was the first to use this phrase[77]; but there can be no doubt that the doctrine is that of Zeno, that it is a fundamental part of the Stoic system, and that it was maintained unaltered by all orthodox Stoics. On the other hand the Academics and Peripatetics ridiculed these new and barbarous terms προηγμένα and ἀποπροηγμένα, and their view has generally been supported both in ancient and modern times[78]. We cannot however question the right of Zeno to reserve a special term for that which is morally good; he was in fact feeling his way towards the position, still imperfectly recognized, that the language of common life is inadequate to the exact expression of philosophic principles[79].
Zeno’s syllogisms.