Note 1 — Chapter VI · THE STUDY OF NATURE. FUNDAMENTAL POSITIONS.

Turning from the questions which have hitherto engaged our attention to natural science in the stricter sense of the term, we must first touch upon A. The most general ideas on nature. a few characteristic questions affecting the general conditions of all existence. In these the Stoics hold little that is of a distinctive character. The matter or substance of which all things are made is corporeal.1 All that is corporeal is infinitely divisible, although it is never infinitely divided.2 At the same time, all things are exposed to the action of change, since one material is constantly going over into another.3 Herein the Stoics follow Aristotle, in contrast to the mechanical theory of nature,4 and distinguish change in quality from mere motion in space. They enumerate several varieties of each kind.5 Nevertheless, they look upon motion in space as the primary form of motion.6 Under the conception of motion, they, moreover, include action and suffering.7 The condition of all action is contact;8 and since the motions of different objects in nature are due to various causes, and have a variety of characters, the various kinds of action must be distinguished which correspond with them.9 In all these statements there is hardly a perceptible deviation from Aristotle.