The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

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LOGIC: THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 69
generically the same in all human beings and develops
in the same way, under the practically identical
experiences of life all the world over. They are,
accordingly, distinguished as
"primary
notions
concepts,"
natural
pre- conceptions,"
concepts,"
common
(TrpoX^ei?, KOLVOL eVvotcu).
These form the
criterion of our fundamental beliefs ;
and as they
take a wide range, they refer to intellectual, to moral,
and to religious truth alike. Hence, among them we
find the notion of God, 1 and the leading ethical notions
such as the Good, and the supremacy of the higher
over the lower nature.
Implanted in us," says
Seneca, "are the seeds of all ages and of all arts;
and out of the hidden the master, God, produces our
faculties
(De Beneficiis> iv. 6). Hence, the practical
test of pre-conceptions is consensus gentium
or the
general consent of mankind: "for we are wont to
lay much stress on the conception (prcEsumptioni) of all
men, and among us it is regarded as an index of its
truth, that a thing seems so to all :
as, for example,
that there are gods we infer, among other things,
from this, that a belief in God is implanted in all men ;
nor is there any people so far outside the range of
laws and morals as not to believe in some gods
(Ep. 117).
We must not, however, regard these common notions
as (in the vulgar sense) innate, notwithstanding the
ambiguous epithet "implanted."
There was no such
thing as an "innate idea," according to the teaching
of the Stoic, if
by that term be meant an idea born
with us, brought with us full-grown at our birth, and
1
See Seneca, Ep. 117.