Note 3 — Chapter X · ETHICS. THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE STOIC ETHICS. ABSTRACT THEORY OF MORALITY.

Diog. vii. 85; Cic. Fin. iii. 5; Gell. N. A. xii. 5, 7. That the two latter writers follow one and the same authority appears partly from their literal agreement with each other, and partly from their adopting a uniform method in refuting the Epicurean statement, that the desire for pleasure is the primary impulse. That authority is probably the treatise of Chrysippus περὶ τέλους, since it is distinctly referred to by Diogenes. Plut. Sto. Rep. 12, 4, quotes from it: ὡς οἰκειούμεθα πρὸς αὑτοὺς εὐθὺς γενόμενοι καὶ τὰ μέρη καὶ τὰ ἔκγονα ἑαυτῶν. The difference mentioned by Alex. Aphr. De An. 154—that at one time self-love, at another the preservation of one’s own nature, is the impulse—is unimportant. ↑