Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.151 — Diogenes Laërtius on the Stoics

Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.151

Reported speech · Diogenes Laërtius on the Stoics

Hence, again, their explanation of the mixture of two substances is, according to Chrysippus in the third book of his Physics, that they permeate each other through and through, and that the particles of the one do not merely surround those of the other or lie beside them. Thus, if a little drop of wine be thrown into the sea, it will be equally diffused over the whole sea for a while and then will be blended with it. Also they hold that there are daemons (δαίμονες) who are in sympathy with mankind and watch over human affairs. They believe too in heroes, that is, the souls of the righteous that have survived their bodies. Of the changes which go on in the air, they describe winter as the cooling of the air above the earth due to the sun’s departure to a distance from the earth;