Note 41 — Chapter VI · THE STUDY OF NATURE. FUNDAMENTAL POSITIONS.

(3) The idea of Providence determined. (a) Providence as necessity. But the real kernel of the Stoic fatalism is expressed in the maxim, that nothing can take place without a sufficient cause, nor, under given circumstances, can happen differently from what has happened.41 This were as impossible, according to the Stoics, as for something to come out of nothing;42 were it possible, the unity of the world would be at an end, consisting, as it does, in the chain-like dependence of cause upon cause, and in the absolute necessity of everything and of every change.43 The Stoic doctrine of necessity was the direct consequence of the Stoic pantheism. The divine power which rules the world could not be the absolute uniting cause of all things, if there existed anything in any sense independent of it, and unless one unchanging causal connection governed every thing.