THE FRAGMENTS OF ZENO AND CLEANTHES.* THE Stoic philosophy, as
a completed system, was not the outcome of a single originative mind, but of three. The sect or school of the " Porch " was founded by Zeno of Citium, and its leadership passed in direct and legitimate succession
• The Fragments of Zsno and Cisanilies. An Essay which obtained the Hare Prize in 1889. By A. C. Pearson, M.A. London: C. J. Clay and Sons. 1891.
to his pupil, Cleanthes of Assos, and from him to Chrysippus of Soli. These three thinkers—of Eastern birth, and strangers in Athens—between them established and completed the doctrine of the school as we know it, and as it was accepted by their followers ; and each was apparently an " original contributor " to the common body of that doctrine. Un- fortunately, though each was the author of a number of philosophical treatises, not one of these has come down to us, and for ascertaining what they thought and wrote we are compelled to rely upon the citations and summaries occurring in later writers. These are sufficiently namerous and authentic to make it easy to reconstruct the system as a whole, a task with which the general historians of philosophy have contented themselves. But it is much more difficult to single out the contributions made to the system by each of the Stoic triad severally ; and this is what Mr. Pearson here attempts to do for Zeno and Cleanthes.
The common opinion of antiquity gave a very important position to Chrysippus. " Without Chrysippus there had been no Porch," runs a well-known iambic ; and Cicero describes him as the prop and pillar of the edifice (qui fuleire putatur porticum Stoicorum). He was a voluminous writer, with a passion for logical exposition and metaphysical systematising ; it is further recorded of him that he was accustomed to swell out his writings by quotation in extenso, and he probably incorporated the leading tenets of his two pre- decessors along with what was more properly his own. Zeno and Cleanthes, on the other hand, are represented as especially the great ethical teachers or " prophets " of the school, and as men who taught by their example no less than by their precept ; towards Cleanthes, indeed, tradition has been unkind enough to discredit his intellectual power in comparison with his religious fervour and moral earnestness. They were, ap- parently, just the men to originate the main ethical and theo- logical ideas of the school, the rigid system of half-cynical morality, the famous " paradoxes," the doctrines of pantheism and predestined necessity ; the teaching, in short, which had a direct bearing on man's life and happiness, and which was the distinctive feature of Stoicism, both earlier and later. But it has seemed to many writers neither necessary nor natural to credit them with any large share in the elaborated structure of logical, physical, and metaphysical ideas into which the completed philosophy was built up ; and it was easy to conjecture that the subtle and disciplined intellect of Chrysippus had deduced and formulated all that from the suggestions and implicit tendencies of their thinking.
Recent German criticism, however, has attempted to arrive at a more exact and individual knowledge of the founders of Stoicism. Not content with such a reconstruction and ex- position of the general doctrine as is given by Zeller or Schwegler, the unwearied &udits d'Outre-Rhin have sought, by minutely examining and weighing the ancient evidence, to trace the development of the philosophy under its successive leaders, and to decide how much is really due to the two earlier thinkers. The tendency of these investigations has been to award a considerably higher position to both Zeno and Cleanthes than they had previously held in the history of pure speculation ; it is now claimed for them that they originated and worked out the physics and metaphysics, no less than the ethics, of the school ; Cleanthes especially has been made the subject of a thorough rehabilitation, in the approved modern fashion. And now Mr. Pearson, who has made a complete collection of their fragments, accompanied with a continuous commentary, finds himself able to accept these later views, which he illustrates in detail. We give his summing-up (p. 48)
"The result of our investigation has been to show conclusively that all those doctrines which are most characteristic of the true essence of Stoicism were contributed by Zeno and Cleanthes. To Zeno belong the establishment of the logical criterion, the adaptation of Heraclitean physics, and the introduction of all the leading ethical tenets. Cleanthes revolutionised the study of physics by the theory of tension and the development of pantheism, and by applying his materialistic views to logic and ethics brought into strong light the mutual interdependence of the three branches. The task of Chrysippus was to preserve rather than to originate, to reconcile inconsistencies, to remove superfluous outgrowths, and to maintain an unbroken line of defence against his adversaries."
The evidence for this statement of results is, of course, to be sought in the body of Mr. Pearson's book, which is an admirable specimen of thorough workmanship. He has spared no pains in bringing forward citations and testimonies ; he has arranged the fragments in convenient and lucid order, and has supported his views or interpretations with full dis- cussion. But while there is nothing here which is not of service for the understanding of Stoicism, we cannot help thinking that there is a good deal to which the private claim of Zeno or Cleanthes remains shadowy and uncertain. After all, Zeller's method of treatment has its advantages, and Mr. Pearson and his German guides, Hirzel and Stein, appear sometimes to strain the ancient evidence in their anxiety to distinguish and separate. As it is, among the fragments of minor importance, Mr. Pearson has thought it desirable, for completeness' sake, to include several dicta which are cited in the ancient authorities as the common property of all three philosophers ; there are others, again, that belong (according to those authorities) to both Zeno and Cleanthes, or to Cleanthes and Chrysippus. Such matter is perhaps beet left (where we find it) as part of the joint stock and tradition of the school. In one instance (Zeno, fr. 121) the editor has given a statement ascribed by Plutarch to " the followers of Zeno," with this note :— "Although we cannot with certainty attribute to Zeno a statement, which is only expressed [sic] to belong to of cirO Ziyovo;, yet there is no reason why he should not have taught this." Even when Zeno's name appears alone, the ascription is not always to be trusted ; it is probable, as Schwegler remarks, that that name was freely and loosely used to repre- sent the whole school, and was prefixed to a number of tenets of later origin ; an alternative formula is, " Zeno and his followers" (e.g., fr. 23, 148). There is greater certainty when the opinions of the philosophers are expressly dis- tinguished and contrasted, as in Diogenes's account of the Tixo;., or aim of life, or as when a citation begins (C1., fr. 26) : " Cleanthes alone of the Stoics." But even for the more important doctrines, the evidence is some- times hardly sufficient to decide the question of individual authorship. Two famous technicalities of phrase, the xarranirrix21 gavracia, or "apprehensive impression" (the
criterion of truth), and the t opa, or " things indifferent " (i.e., neither good nor bad), Mr. Pearson maintains to have been introduced by Zeno ; but his elaborate argument does not convince us that the former is earlier than Chrysippus, and there is reason for ascribing the latter (with Hirzel) to Aristo of Chios (whose name, by-the-way, is misprinted " Aristotle " on p. 168). On the other hand, the claim of Cleanthes to the " tension " theory, with its important develop- ments, is clearly made out; and altogether this collection of his fragments suffices to show that the traditional estimate of him needs revision.
We have expressed doubt or " suspension of judgment " on some points that are fairly debateable ; but we feel no doubt as to the value of the book itself. Every page of it gives token of learning and research. Mr. Pearson is equally at home with the ancient philosophers and compilers, and with their modern editors and critics. The philological notes are helpful and interesting. There is a careful and compact introduction of some fifty pages, and full indices are appended. Work like this, so thorough and so little impatient of toilsome detail, is not too common among English scholars. We hope that Mr. Pearson may continue his studies and publish his results. The lesson of the Greeks is not yet exhausted, least of all in philosophy; and skilled interpreters are required in order to elicit its deepest and fullest meaning.
Previous page
