Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​They also hold that love is an impulse toward making friends on account of beauty that is manifested; and that it is not for sexual union, but for friendship. At any rate, Thrasonides, although he had the woman he loved in his power, refrained from her because he was hated. Therefore love is of friendship, as Chrysippus also says in his On Love; and it is not sent by a god. They also say that youthful bloom is the flower of virtue. There being three kinds of lives—the contemplative, the practical, and the rational—they say that the third is to be chosen; for the rational animal was brought into being by nature specifically for contemplation and action. And they say that the wise man will reasonably take himself out of life, both for his country and for his friends, and if he should fall into severe pain, or mutilations, or incurable diseases.

​It is also their doctrine that women should be held in common among the wise, so that anyone who meets any woman may consort with her, as Zeno says in the Republic and Chrysippus in On the Republic [and moreover Diogenes the Cynic and Plato]. And we shall cherish all children equally in the manner of fathers, and jealousy over adultery will be done away with. And they hold that the best constitution is the mixed one, composed of democracy, monarchy, and aristocracy. In their ethical doctrines, then, they say such things and more besides, along with their proper demonstrations; but let these matters have been stated by us by way of summary and in elementary form.

​They divide the doctrine of nature into the topic concerning bodies, and that concerning principles, elements, gods, limits, place, and void. In this way it is divided specifically; but generically it is divided into three topics: the one concerning the cosmos, the one concerning the elements, and thirdly the causal topic. And they say that the topic concerning the cosmos is divided into two parts. For those from the mathematical disciplines also share in a part of it in one inquiry, according to which they investigate the fixed stars and the wandering stars, such as whether the sun is as large as it appears, and similarly whether the moon is, and concerning rotation and questions similar to these.

​But there is another inquiry belonging to it that falls to the natural philosophers alone, according to which they investigate its substance [and whether the sun and the stars are made of matter and form], and whether it is generated or ungenerated, and whether animate or inanimate, and whether perishable or imperishable, and whether it is governed by providence, and concerning the rest. And the causal topic is itself also bipartite. In one examination of it, the inquiry of physicians shares, according to which they investigate the governing principle of the soul and the things that occur in the soul, and concerning seeds and things similar to these; but in the other examination those from the mathematical disciplines also lay claim, such as how we see, what is the cause of reflection in mirrors, how clouds are formed, and thunders, rainbows, halos, comets, and the like.

​It is also their doctrine that the principles of all things are two, the active and the passive. Now the passive is the qualityless substance, namely matter, while the active is the reason in it, namely god; for this, being eternal, crafts each thing throughout all matter. Zeno of Citium establishes this doctrine in On Substance, Cleanthes in On Atoms, Chrysippus in the first book of the Physics near the end, Archedemus in On Elements, and Posidonius in the second book of the Physical Doctrine. And they say that principles and elements differ; for the principles are ungenerated and imperishable, whereas the elements perish at the conflagration. Moreover, the principles are incorporeal and formless, whereas the elements have been given form.