Note 10 — Chapter VI · THE STUDY OF NATURE. FUNDAMENTAL POSITIONS.

Of a more peculiar character are the views of the Stoics as to the intermingling of substances, to which reference has already been made.10 With regard to Time and Space, they found some innovations on Aristotle’s theory to be necessary. Space (τόπος), according to their view, is the room occupied by a body,11 the distance enclosed within the limits of a body.12 From Space they distinguish the Empty. The Empty is not met with in the universe, but beyond the universe it extends indefinitely.13 And hence they assert that Space is limited, like the world of matter, and that the Empty is unlimited.14 Nay, not only Space, but Time also, is by them set down as immaterial;15 and yet to the conception of Time a meaning as concrete as possible is given, in order that Time may have a real value. Zeno defined Time as the extension of motion; Chrysippus defines it, more definitely, as the extension of the motion of the world.16 The Stoics affirm the infinite divisibility of Time and Space,17 but do not appear to have instituted any deep researches into this point.