260 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 



the school of Zeno in the daytime, he was compelled to work for his 

 subsistence during the greater part of the night, as a common carrier 

 and drawer of water. It is related, that his healthy appearance, whilst 

 he was apparently without any means of support, excited the attention 

 of the police ; and when he was summoned to give an account of his 

 means of providing a livelihood, the gardener under whom he drew 

 water, and a woman for whom he ground flour, came forward to attest 

 his extraordinary industry. His faculties were not quick, but his 

 application compensated for the defects or peculiarities of his natural 

 disposition. Zeno admired him for his zeal and perseverance, and 

 instituted him his successor. He wrote fifty-six volumes, all of which 

 are lost. But Cicero has noticed one of his illustrations, and Diogenes 

 Laertius and Stoba?us have preserved a few of his memorable sayings. 

 The illustration given by Cicero is this : *' To place in a conspicuous 

 point of view the impropriety of considering pleasure as the ultimate 

 object of pursuit, and virtue as merely subservient and subsidiary, 

 Cleanthes desired his hearers to suppose a fair tablet placed before 

 their sight, in which pleasure was represented enthroned in majesty, 

 with the virtues ministering to her as attendants upon her state, 

 whispering to her that they were born to do her service, and that 

 their only end and aim in existence was to show her honour by 

 waiting in her train, or executing her commands." 



Chrysippus. Chrysippus was a native of Solis, a town of Cilicia, but early in life 

 B . c. 280. Devoted himself to philosophy, and, fixing his residence in Athens, 

 attended the school of Cleanthes. He soon distinguished himself by 

 that logical subtilty, and that faculty of quick discrimination, which 

 constituted at once the strength and the foible of his character. His 

 ingenuity and address were inexhaustible ; and as he pressed keenly 

 and without reserve upon the weak points of his antagonist's arguments, 

 spoke without reference to any system on his own part, and seemed 

 regardless of everything except the point immediately under discussion, 

 he was found to be a most redoubtable and vexatious disputant, and 

 his character stood high as a leader in that warfare of words in which 

 the Athenians so much delighted. To him the stoical philosophy 

 owes that store of perverse and exaggerated conceits, with which it 

 was embarrassed and disfigured. It procured applause for Chrysippus, 

 and amazed the bystanders, when he advanced that all crimes were of 

 equal magnitude, because all were equally deviations from right ; or 

 maintained that the virtuous man alone was possessed of absolute 

 power, and was incapable of error. To show his logical skill, he 

 adopted and insisted upon many of the most absurd and revolting of 

 the Cynical notions ; and we must refer to Sextus Empiricus for details 

 which may prove Chrysippus to have been a hardy controversialist, 

 but which cannot impress any one with a favourable opinion of him, 

 either as a champion of good sense or as a friend of virtue. 



