Note 67 — Chapter V · LOGIC OF THE STOICS.

It will thus be understood how the ancients could at one time speak of ὂν, at another of τί, as being the highest conception of the Stoics. The former is found in Diog. 61: γενικώτατον δέ ἐστιν ὃ γένος ὂν γένος οὐκ ἔχει, οἷον τὸ ὄν. Sen. Ep. 58, 8: Nunc autem genus illud primum quærimus, ex quo ceteræ species suspensæ sunt, a quo nascitur omnis divisio, quo universa comprehensa sunt; after noticing the distinction between what is material and what is immaterial, he proceeds: quid ergo erit, ex quo hæc deducantur? illud … quod est [τὸ ὂν] … quod est aut corporale est aut incorporale. Hoc ergo genus est primum et antiquissimum et, ut ita dicam, generale [τὸ γενικώτατον]. It is, however, more usual to find τί. Thus Plotin. Enn. vi. 1, 25: κοινὸν τὶ καὶ ἐπὶ πάντων ἓν γένος λαμβάνουσι. Alex. Aphrod. Top. 155; Schol. 278, b, 20: οὕτω δεικνύοις ἂν ὅτι μὴ καλῶς τὸ τὶ οἱ ἀπὸ στοᾶς γένος τοῦ ὄντος (τὶ as the genus, of which ὂν is a species) τίθενται· εἰ γὰρ τὶ, δῆλον ὅτι καὶ ὂν … ἀλλ’ ἐκεῖνοι νομοθετήσαντες αὐτοῖς τὸ ὂν κατὰ σωμάτων μόνων λέγεσθαι διαφεύγοιεν ἂν τὸ ἠπορημένον· διὰ τοῦτο γὰρ τὸ τὶ γενικώτερον αὐτοῦ φασιν εἶναι κατηγορούμενον οὐ κατὰ σωμάτων μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀσωμάτων. Schol. in Arist. 34, b, 11. Sext. Pyrrh. ii. 86: τὸ τὶ, ὅπερ φασὶν εἶναι πάντων γενικώτατον. Math. x. 234: The Stoics affirm τῶν τινῶν τὰ μὲν εἶναι σώματα τὰ δὲ ἀσώματα. Sen. l.c. 13: Stoici volunt superponere huic etiamnunc aliud genus magis principale … primum genus Stoicis quibusdam videtur quid, for in rerum, inquiunt, natura quædam sunt, quædam non sunt: examples of the latter are centaurs, giants, and similar notions of unreal things. Ritter, iii. 566, remarks, with justice, that the older teaching must have placed the conception of Being at the head; otherwise the objection could not have been raised, that what has not being is thus made an object of thought. Probably the change was made by Chrysippus, although it is not definitely proved by Stob. Ecl. i. 390. Petersen confuses the two views, in thinking (p. 146) that the Stoics divided Something into Being and Not Being, and subdivided Being again into what is material and what is not material. In other respects, too, he confounds the Stoic teaching with the consequences, whereby Plotinus l.c. and Plut. Comm. Not. 30, sought to refute it. ↑