Body and Soul in Ancient Philosophy

Galen and the Stoics: What each could learn from the other 413
system running throughout the body. This emerges clearly in a passage
of Chrysippus’ On the Psyche cited by Galen:
The psyche is pneuma integral to our nature [or ‘connate’, symphyton], extending
continuously throughout the body as long as the regular breath of
life is present in the body. Of the parts of the psyche which are assigned to
each segment of the body, the one that extends to the throat is voice; that
to the eyes, sight; that to the ears, hearing; that to the nostrils, smell; that to
the tongue, taste; that to the entire flesh, touch; and that which extends to
the genital organs, since it has a different principle (logos), is seminal. The
heart is the location of the part where these all meet, which is the governing
part (hÞgemonikon) of the psyche. 14
There is a single centre that operates both as the receiving agent and assessor
of the evidence of the senses, and as the locus of cognitive functions
and source of motivation for movement and action. The controlcentre
operates (by means of pneuma) throughout the body, and the
body, interpenetrated by pneumatic agency, constitutes a single integrated
system. 15 The unified character of this view of embodied psychology
is conveyed through a series of images: a tree-trunk and its
branches, an octopus and its tentacles, a spider in the centre of its
web. 16 The Stoics located this unified centre in the heart. Various factors
influenced this decision, including the widespread belief that anger and
other emotions occurred in the region of the heart and the supposed
linkage between heart, chest, throat and speech-functions, the latter assumed
to be rational ones. 17 A further possible factor is the obvious role
of the heart as the centre of a physical network running throughout the
body, that of blood vessels. However, the Stoics saw as the vehicle of
psychological communication not blood but (psychic) pneuma, which
14 Gal. PHP V.287 – 8, 3.10 –11, p. 170.9 – 16, tr. Long 1999b, 567, slightly
modified.
15 “The psyche as a whole despatches the senses (which are its proper functions)
like branches from the trunk-like control-centre to be reporters of what they
sense, while itself like a monarch passing judgement on their reports”, Long
and Sedley 1987 (= LS) 53 G(7) (= Calcidius fr. 220, SVF (= von Arnim
1903 –1905) 2.879), LS tr. slightly modified.
16 LS 53 G(7) again; also H (=Aëtius 4.21.1 – 4, SVF 2.836).
17 On the argument from anger and other passions, taken by the Stoics to be rational
functions, see Gal. PHP V.268, 2.7.8, V.321, 3.5.2; on speech-functions
see below.