Encyclopaedia Americana: a popular dictionary of arts, sciences, literature, history, politics and biography, brought down to the present time : including a copious collection of original articles in American biography : on the basis of the seventh edition of the German Conversations-Lexicon (Volume 12).
- Date:
- 1830-33
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Encyclopaedia Americana: a popular dictionary of arts, sciences, literature, history, politics and biography, brought down to the present time : including a copious collection of original articles in American biography : on the basis of the seventh edition of the German Conversations-Lexicon (Volume 12). Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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![must have, when they enter the state of neutrality, has been called by modern chemists stoichiometry. Stoics ; an ancient philosophical sect, founded by Zeno, which received its name from the aroa {porch or portico), called Pacile (q. v.), in Athens, where Zeno taught his doctiines (about B. C. 300). Zeno (q. v.), a contemporary of Epicurus, after having studied the systems of the Socratic, Cynic and Academic schools, opposed to scepticism views resting on rigorous moral principles. Philosophy is, according to him, the way to wisdom; wisdom itself is the knowledge of human and divine things; and virtue is the appli- cation of wisdom to life. The chief heads of his doctrine—logic, physics and mor- als—were connected into a systematic whole. In logic, which he defined the sci- ence of distinguishing truth and falsehood, he made experience the basis of all knowl- edge ; ideas, or conceptions, which, in all respects, resemble their objects, he called true, and the power of judging according to principles, the mark of a sound reason. In liis physics, he refers to nature itself for the highest standeu-d of human duties, and derives the moral precepts from the laws of the universe. He assumes two un- created and eternal, but material princi- ples of all things—the passive matter, and the active intelligence, or God, which re- sides in matter, and animates it. The Deity is the original intelligence, and of an ethe- real, fiery nature: he made the world, as an organic whole, out of matter and form, by the separation of the elements; and' he also rules the world, but is limited in his operations by unchangeable fate or the necessary laws of nature. The universe, according to Zeno, is penetrated by the divine intelUgence as by a soul, and is therefore living and rational, but destined to be destroyed by fire. He considers the heavenly bodies, and the powers of nature, of a divine character, and therefore admits the worship of several gods, and teaches that their connexion with men may be beneficial to the latter. The human soul be considers as produced by the imion of the creative fire with air, and endowed with eight faculties—the five senses, the powers of generation, speech, and reason : the lat- ter, as the active principle, governs the whole soul. The ethics of the Stoics treats the will of Grod (which also animates the soul of man), or nature, as the source of the moral law, which binds man to aim at divine perfection, since this only can lead to a virtuous life, harmonizing with God and nature, which is the only true happi- VOL. XII. 2 ness. Their practical maxhn is, Follow na- ture, live according to nature, or, which amounts to the same thing. Live in ac- cordance writh the laws of consistent rea- son. They considered virtue the highest good, and vice the only evil; every thing else is indiff'erent, or only relatively agree- able or disagreeable. They call human actions honest, when they have a rea- sonable foundation in the nature of tlie agent; perfectly proper, and therefore ob- ligatory, when good in themselves; inter mediate or lawful, in so far as, indifferent in themselves, they are expedient or allowa- ble only in certain relations, but criminal^ when they are inconsistent with the rea- son of the agent. Virtue they according- ly explain as the true harmony of man. with himself, independent of reward or punishment, to be attained by correct moral judgment, and the mastery over the passions and affections: this virtue pre- supposes the highest inward tranquillity and elevation (apathy) above the pleasures and pains of sense ; it makes the wise man not destitute of feeling, but invulner- able, and gives him a dominion over his body which permits even suicide. Vir- tue, therefore, is represented chiefly under the character of self-denial. Zeno, and his celebrated disciple and successor, Cleanthus, both put themselves to death at an advanced age, the latter by starva- tion. Cleanthus, originally a pugilist, gave to the Stoic philosophy its distribu- tion into dialectics, rhetoric, ethics, poli- tics, physics and theology. He enlarged theology by his proof of the existence of God, and expressed his reverence of one God in his admirable Hymn, yet extant, Cleanthi Htfmnus (ed. Sturz, 1785). Chry- sippus of Soli (died 208 or 212 B. C), the successor of Cleanthus, carried logic and dialectics to greater perlection, and, m physics, proved that the influence of fate, or the necessary relation of things, neither destroyed the operation of divine provi- dence nor the free agency of man. In morals, he distinguished, like his ])redc- cessors, a natural and a positive law, and derived the latter from the mutual rela- tions of men, as fellow-creatures of the same nature. His successors were Zeno, Antipater (both of Tarsus), Pansetius of Rhodes, the pupil of Antipater, and Poei- donius of Apamea, in Syria, the disciple of Panaetius. Chrysippus, through his writings, also exerted a most important influence upon the Roman phiTosophers, among whom Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aureiius (see JMoninus), were Stoics. They employed themselves prin-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21136816_0017.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
