The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius (best free ebook reader txt) 📕

which are derived by us from some one or more senses; and those they call not sensible, which emanate directly from the thought, as for instance, those which relate to incorporeal objects, or any others which are embraced by reason. Again, those which are sensible are produced by a real object, which imposes itself on the intelligence and compels its acquiescence; and there are also some others which are simply apparent, mere shadows, which resemble those which are produced by real objects.

Again, these φαντασίαι are divided into rational and irrational: those which are rational belong to animals capable of reason; those which are irrational to animals destitute of reason. Those which are rational are thoughts; those which are irrational have no name, but are again subdivided into artificial and not artificial. At all events, an image is contemplated in a different light by a man skillful in art, from that in which it is viewed by a man ignorant of art.

By sensation, the Stoics understand a species of breath which proceeds from the dominant portion of the soul to the senses, whether it be a sensible perception, or an organic disposition, which, according to the notions of some of them, is crippled and vicious. They also call sensation the energy, or active exercise, of the sense. According to them, it is to sensation that we owe our comprehension of white and black, and rough and smooth: from reason, that we derive the notions which result from a demonstration, those for instance which have for their object the existence of Gods, and of Divine Providence. For all our thoughts are formed either by indirect perception, or by similarity, or analogy, or transposition, or combination, or opposition. By a direct perception, we perceive those things which are the objects of sense; by similarity, those which start from some point present to our senses, as for instance we form an idea of Socrates from his likeness. We draw our conclusions by analogy, adopting either an increased idea of the thing, as of Tityus, or the Cyclops; or a diminished idea, as of a pigmy. So, too, the idea of the center of the world was one derived by analogy from what we perceived to be the case of the smaller spheres. We use transposition when we fancy eyes in a man’s breast; combination, when we take in the idea of a Centaur; opposition, when we turn our thoughts to death. Some ideas we also derive from comparison, for instance, from a comparison of words and places.

There is also nature; as by nature we comprehend what is just and good. And privation, when for instance, we form a notion of a man without hands. Such are the doctrines of the Stoics on the subject of phantasia, and sensation, and thought.

They say that the proper criterion of truth is the comprehension, φαντασία; that is to say, one which is derived from a real object, as Chrysippus asserts in the twelfth book of his Physics; and he is followed by Antipater and Apollodorus. For Boethus leaves a great many criteria, such as intellect, sensation, appetite, and knowledge; but Chrysippus dissents from his view, and in the first book of his treatise on Reason, says that sensation and preconception are the only criteria. And preconception is, according to him, a comprehensive physical notion of general principles. But others of the earlier Stoics admit right reason as one criterion of the truth; for instance, this is the opinion of Posidonius, and is advanced by him in his essay on Criteria.

On the subject of logical speculation, there appears to be a great unanimity among the greater part of the Stoics, in beginning with the topic of the voice. Now voice is a percussion of the air; or, as Diogenes the Babylonian defines it in his essay on the Voice, a sensation peculiar to the hearing. The voice of a beast is a mere percussion of the air by some impetus: but the voice of a man is articulate, and is emitted by intellect, as Diogenes lays it down, and is not brought to perfection in a shorter period than fourteen years. And the voice is a body according to the Stoics; for so it is laid down by Archedemus in his book on the Voice, and by Diogenes, and Antipater, and also by Chrysippus in the second volume of his Physics. For everything which makes anything is a body; and the voice makes something when it proceeds to those who hear from those who speak.

A word (λέξις), again, is, according to Diogenes, a voice consisting of letters, as “Day.” A sentence (λόγος) is a significant voice, sent out by the intellect, as for instance, “It is day;” but dialect is a peculiar style imprinted on the utterance of nations, according to their race; and causes varieties in the Greek language, being a sort of local habit, as for instance the Attics say θάλαττα and the Ionians say ἡμέρη. The elements of words are the twenty-four letters; and the word letter is used in a triple division of sense, meaning the element itself, the graphical sign of the element, and the name, as “Alpha.” There are seven vowels, α, ε, η, ι, ο, υ, ω; six mutes, β, γ, δ, κ, π, τ. But voice is different from a word, because voice is a sound; but a word is an articulate sound. And a word differs from a sentence, because a sentence is always significative of something, but a word by itself has no signification, as for instance, βλίτρι. But this is not the case with a sentence. Again, there is a difference between speaking and pronouncing; the sounds are pronounced, but what are spoken are things which are