St. George Stock (modern guide) · 1850–1922
A Guide to Stoicism 5 ¶14–15 — St. George Stock (modern guide)
From “Physic”
Original English text (1908)
St. George Stock (modern guide), A Guide to Stoicism 5 ¶14–15
Did the Stoics then regard the universe as finite or as infinite? In answering this question we must distinguish our terms, as they did. The All, they said, was infinite, but the Whole was finite. For the 'All' was the cosmos and the void, whereas the 'Whole' was the cosmos only. This distinction we may suppose to have originated with the later members of the school. For Appolodorus noted the ambiguity of the word 'All' as meaning, (1) the cosmos only, (2) cosmos + void If then by the term "universe" we understand the cosmos, or ordered whole, we must say that the Stoics regarded the universe as finite. All being and all body, which was the same thing with being, had necessarily bounds, it was only not being, which was boundless.
Cite this passage
St. George Stock (modern guide), A Guide to Stoicism 5 ¶14–15 (1908)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/a-guide-to-stoicism/5.14
St. George Stock, Stoicism (1908), text of the Haldeman-Julius reprint “A Guide to Stoicism”. Text: Project Gutenberg #7514. Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesThe Stoics separated the All, meaning the cosmos plus the surrounding void, from the Whole, meaning the cosmos alone. The ordered universe is finite, and only the void without being is boundless.
Older wording
- “cosmos”
- — the ordered universe
- “void”
- — empty space
Themes and situations
- Nature and the cosmos
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