The contradictions of the Stoics (26-30)

Having in many places said, that those who have a

Chrysippus also says, that the virtues follow one another, and that not only he who has one has all, but also that he who acts according to any one of them acts according to them all; and he affirms, that there is not any man perfect who is not possessed of all the virtues, nor any action perfect to the doing of which all the virtues do not concur. But yet in his Sixth Book of Moral Questions he says, that a good man does not always act valiantly, nor a vicious man always fearfully; for certain objects being presented to the fancies, the one must persist in his judgments, and the other depart from them; and he says that it is not probable a wicked man should be always indulging

He defines Rhetoric to be an art concerning the ornament and the ordering of a discourse that is pronounced. And farther in his First Book he has written thus: And I am not only of opinion that a regard ought to be had to a liberal and simple adorning of words, but also that care is. to be taken for proper delivery, as regards the right elevation of the voice and the compositions of the countenance and hands. Yet he, who is in this place so curious and exact, again in the same book, speaking of the collision of the vowels, says: We ought not only to let these things pass, minding somewhat that is better, but also to neglect certain obscurities and defects, nay, solecisms also, of which others, and those not a few, would be ashamed. Certainly, in one place to allow those who would speak eloquently so carefully to dispose their speech as even to observe a decorum in the very composition of their mouth and hands, and in another place to forbid the taking care of defects and obscurities, and the being ashamed even of committing solecisms, is the property of a man who little cares what he says, but rashly utters whatever comes first into his mouth.

Moreover, in his Natural Positions having warned us not to trouble ourselves but to be at quiet about such things as require experience and investigation, he says: Let us not think after the same manner with Plato, that liquid nourishment is conveyed to the lungs, and dry to the stomach; nor let us embrace other errors like to these. Now it is my opinion, that to reprehend others, and then

Some of the ancients have said, that the same befell Zeno which befalls him who has sour wine which he can sell neither for vinegar nor wine; for his things preferred, as he called them, cannot be disposed of, either as good or as indifferent. But Chrysippus has made the matter yet far more intricate; for he sometimes says, that they are mad who make no account of riches, health, freedom from pain, and integrity of the body, nor take any care to attain them; and having cited that sentence of Hesiod,

Work hard, O God-born Perses,[*]

Work not, O God-born Perses.

And in his book of Lives he affirms, that a wise man will for the sake of gain live with kings, and teach for