Note 4 — Chapter X · ETHICS. THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE STOIC ETHICS. ABSTRACT THEORY OF MORALITY.

Diog. vii 85: τὴν δὲ πρώτην ὁρμήν φασι τὸ ζῷον ἴσχειν ἐπὶ τὸ τηρεῖν ἑαυτὸ, οἰκειούσης αὑτῶ [αὑτῷ] τῆς φύσεως ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς, καθά φησιν ὁ Χρύσιππος ἐν τῷ πρώτῳ περὶ τελῶν, πρῶτον οἰκεῖον εἶναι λέγων παντὶ ζῴῳ τὴν αὑτοῦ σύστασιν καὶ τὴν ταύτης συνείδησιν. οὔτε γὰρ ἀλλοτριῶσαι εἰκὸς ἦν αὐτοῦ [Cobet incorrectly αὐτὸ] τὸ ζῷον, οὔτε ποιῆσαι ἂν [l. ποιήσασαν sc. τὴν φύσιν] αὐτὸ μήτ’ ἀλλοτριῶσαι μήτ’ οὐκ [must evidently be struck out] οἰκειῶσαι. ἀπολείπεται τοίνυν λέγειν συστησαμένην αὐτὸ οἰκείως πρὸς ἑαυτό· οὕτω γὰρ τά τε βλάπτοντα διωθεῖται καὶ τὰ οἰκεῖα προσίεται. Similarly, Cic. l.c. 5, 16. Antisthenes had already reduced the conception of the good to that of οἰκεῖον, without the fuller explanation. Here the Academic theory of life according to nature, which had been enunciated by Polemo, Zeno’s teacher, is combined therewith. Some difficulty was nevertheless caused by the question whether all living creatures possess a consciousness (συνείδησις, sensus) of their own nature; without such a consciousness, natural self-love seemed to the Stoics impossible. They thought, however, that this question (according to Sen. Ep. 121, 5, conf. Cic. l.c.) could be answered in the affirmative without hesitation, and appealed for evidence to the instinctive activities by which children and animals govern their bodily motions, guard themselves from dangers, and pursue what is to their interest, without denying that the ideas which children and animals have of themselves are very indistinct, that they only know their own constitution, but not its true conception (constitutionis finitio, Sen. p. 11). Constitutio, or σύστασις, was defined by the Stoics, Sen., p. 10. as principale animi quodam modo se habens erga corpus. ↑