Academica eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 347 pages of information about Academica.

Academica eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 347 pages of information about Academica.

Sec.39. Aliaque in parte:  so Plato, Tim. 69 C, Rep. 436, 441, Arist. De Anima II. 3, etc.; cf. T.D. I. 20. Voluntarias:  the whole aim of the Stoic theory of the emotions was to bring them under the predominance of the will.  How the moral freedom of the will was reconciled with the general Stoic fatalism we are not told. Opinionisque iudicio suscipi:  all emotion arose, said the Stoics, from a false judgment about some external object; cf.  Diog.  VII. 111. [Greek:  ta pathe kriseis einai].  Instances of each in Zeller 233.  For iudicio cf. D.F. III. 35, T.D. III. 61, IV. 14, 15, 18. Intemperantiam:  the same in T.D. IV. 22, Gk. [Greek:  akolasia], see Zeller 232. Quintam naturam:  the [Greek:  pempte ousia] or [Greek:  pempton soma] of Aristotle, who proves its existence in De Coelo I. 2, in a curious and recondite fashion.  Cic. is certainly wrong in stating that Arist. derived mind from this fifth element, though the finest and highest of material substances.  He always guards himself from assigning a material origin to mind.  Cic. repeats the error in T.D. I. 22, 41, 65, D.F. IV. 12.  On this last passage Madv. has an important note, but he fails to recognise the essential fact, which is clear from Stob.  I. 41, 33, that the Peripatetics of the time were in the habit of deriving the mind from [Greek:  aither], which is the very name that Aristotle gives to the fifth element ([Greek:  soma aitherion] in the De Coelo), and of giving this out to be Aristotle’s opinion.  The error once made, no one could correct it, for there were a hundred influences at work to confirm it, while the works of Aristotle had fallen into a strange oblivion.  I cannot here give an exhaustive account of these influences, but will mention a few.  Stoicism had at the time succeeded in powerfully influencing every other sect, and it placed [Greek:  nous en aitheri] (see Plutarch, qu.  R. and P. 375).  It had destroyed the belief in immaterial existence The notion that [Greek:  nous] or [Greek:  psyche] came from [Greek:  aither] was also fostered by the language of Plato.  He had spoken of the soul as [Greek:  aeikinetos] in passages which were well known to Cic. and had taken great hold on his mind One from the Phaedrus 245 C is translated twice, in Somnium Scipionis (De Rep. VI.), and T.D. I. 53 sq.  Now the only thing with Aristotle which is [Greek:  aeikinetos] in eternal perfect circular motion (for to the ancients circular motion is alone perfect and eternal), is the [Greek:  aither] or [Greek:  pempton soma], that fiery external rim of the universe of which the stars are mere nodes, and with which they revolve.  How natural then, in the absence of Aristotle’s works, to conclude that the [Greek:  aeikinetos psyche] of Plato came from the [Greek:  aeikinetos aither] of Aristotle!  Arist. had guarded himself

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