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

continue to exist till they are burnt up; but Chrysippus says that it is only the souls of the wise that endure. And they further teach that there are eight parts of the soul: the five senses, and the generative faculties, and voice, and reason. And we see because of a body of luminous air which extends from the organ of sight to the object in a conical form, as it is asserted by Chrysippus in the second book of his Natural Philosophy, and also by Apollodorus. And the apex of this cone is close to the eye, and its base is formed by the object which is seen; so that that which is seen is as it were reported to the eye by this continuous cone of air extended towards it like a staff. In the same way, we hear because the air between the speaker and the hearer is struck in a spherical manner; and is then agitated in waves, resembling the circular eddies which one sees in a cistern when a stone is dropped into it.

Sleep, they say, is produced by a relaxation of the aesthetic energies with reference to the dominant part of the soul. And the causes of the passions they explain to be the motions and conversions which take place in connection with this spirit or soul.

Seed, they define as a thing of a nature capable of producing other things of the same nature as the thing from which it has been separated. And the seed of man, which man emits, is, together with moisture, mixed up with the parts of the soul by that kind of mixture which corresponds to the capacity of the parents. And Chrysippus says in the second book of his Natural Philosophy that it is a spirit according to substance; as is manifest from the seeds which are planted in the earth; and which, if they are old, do not germinate, because all their virtue has evaporated. And Sphaerus says that seed proceeds from the entire body, and that that is how it is that it produces all the parts of the body.

They also say that the seed of the female is unproductive; for, as Sphaerus says, it is devoid of tone, and small in quantity, and watery.

They also say that that is the dominant part of the soul which is its most excellent part; in which the imaginations and the desires are formed, and whence reason proceeds. And this place is in the heart.

These then are the doctrines on the subject of natural philosophy entertained by them which it seems sufficient for us to detail, having regard to the due proportions of this book. And the following are the points in which some of them disagreed with the rest.

Ariston

Ariston the Bald, a native of Chios, surnamed the Siren, said that the chief good was to live in perfect indifference to all those things which are of an intermediate character between virtue and vice; making not the slightest difference between them, but regarding them all on a footing of equality. For that the wise man resembles a good actor; who, whether he is filling the part of Agamemnon or Thersites, will perform them both equally well.

And he discarded altogether the topic of physics, and of logic, saying that the one was above us, and that the other had nothing to do with us; and that the only branch of philosophy with which we had any real concern was ethics.

He also said that dialectic reasonings were like cobwebs; which, although they seem to be put together on principles of art, are utterly useless.

And he did not introduce many virtues into his scheme, as Zeno did; nor one virtue under a great many names, as the Megaric philosophers did; but defined virtue as consisting in behaving in a certain manner with reference to a certain thing.

And as he philosophized in this manner, and carried on his discussions in the Cynosarges, he got so much influence as to be called a founder of a sect. Accordingly, Miltiades, and Diphilus were called Aristoneans.

He was a man of very persuasive eloquence, and one who could adapt himself well to the humors of a multitude. On which account Timon says of him:

And one who, from Ariston’s wily race,
Traced his descent.

Diocles the Magnesian tells us that Ariston, having fallen in with Polemo, passed over to his school, at a time when Zeno was lying ill with a long sickness. The Stoic doctrine to which he was most attached was the one that the wise man is never guided by opinions. But Persaeus argued against this, and caused one of two twin brothers to place a deposit in his hands, and then caused the other to reclaim it; and thus he convicted him, as he was in doubt on this point, and therefore forced to act on opinion. He was a great enemy of Arcesilaus. And once, seeing a bull of a monstrous conformation, having a womb, he said: “Alas! here is an argument for Arcesilaus against the evidence of his senses.” On another occasion, when a philosopher of the Academy said that he did not comprehend anything, he said to him: “Do not you even see the man who is sitting next to you?” And as he said that he did not, he said:

Who then has blinded you, who’s been so harsh,
As thus to rob you of your beaming eyes?

The following works are attributed to him: Two books of Exhortatory Discourses; Dialogues on the Doctrines of Zeno; six books of Conversations; seven books of Discussions on Wisdom; Conversations on Love; Commentaries on Vain Glory; twenty-five books of Reminiscences; three books of Memorabilia; eleven books of Apothegms; a volume against the Orators; a volume against the Rescripts of Alexinus; three treatises against the Dialecticians; four books of Letters to Cleanthes. But Panaetius and Sosicrates say that his only genuine writings are his letters, and that all the rest are the works