The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

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102 THE STOIC CREED
it could be done. Not in itself; for, being the abso
lutely unrelated, there is, ex hypothesi, no point of
attachment with the related. Not in anything outside ;
for, as things outside are all in relation, they could not
strip themselves of relation so as to come within range
of the non-related. The phrase
unrelated to
thing" is exactly synonymous with the phrase
every
unrelatable
to anything"; while, on the other hand,
lated to anything"
is
synonymous with
relatable
everything."
The fourth position is the assertion of Monism, and
is logically the declaration that one half of the dualism
of our experience is illusion. If we take the idealistic
standpoint here, then we assert that God is all, and
matter, save in appearance, is not ;
if the materialistic
standpoint, then, though we may use the name God, we
empty it of its proper meaning,
re
to
and assert the sole
supremacy of matter. But, either way, we merely
assert ;
we do not prove. And this was what the
Stoics, especially those of the Earlier Stoa, occupying
the materialistic position, did. To them, all is matter.
Thought, reasoning, feeling, will each is material as
;
much so as the human body or inorganic things. God
Himself is matter. But this really explains nothing.
The distinctive feature of life, or of consciousness, or of
thought, is simply ignored when it is swamped in the
same category with what is lifeless, unconscious, or
irrational. It is on the face of it
plausible
to declare
(as Zeno, carrying out his doctrine of strain or tension,
does) that one divine material substance pervades
everything; appearing in the inorganic as "hold" or
cis, in plants as "vital force" or Averts, in animals as