MEANING AND HISTORY OF THE LOGOS OF PHILOSOPHY. 259 
Hence the inability of the Stoics to liberate effectually their 
theistic views from the traditional dualistic conception of origi- 
nation, 1s sufficiently accounted for ; it was congenial with the 
spirit of their religious teaching to continue to posit as first 
principles, Mind and Matter ; the one the active and formative, 
the other the passive and receptive. And, by an admission 
they are constrained to make, still more evident is it rendered 
that the Logos, as it appears in their cosmogony, has not-yet 
acquired that thoroughly comprehensive and absolute siguifi- 
cance which could not be wanting if the application of the 
term were truly philosophical. The best reply they can make, 
when challenged to reconcile the existence ofseeming blemishes 
and anomalies in the sensible world with the supremacy of 
perfect Reason, is the following unmistakably materialistic 
apology: “The artificer cannot change the nature of the 
material.”* To urge this plea is virtually to admit that the 
so-called Logos alone does not fully account for all phenomena. 
Further tendencies in the direction of materialism likewise 
find their interpretation in that ethical kind of egoism which 
constitutes the distinctive feature of the Stoic philosophy. 
A so-called God, who, regarded as a sovereign, was practically 
synonymous with Fate and universal Law in operation, and 
whose love, like that of Spinoza’s deity, was neither looked for 
nor desired, lacked those attributes which, from a practical 
point of view, may be considered indispensable to personality. 
Thus, the conception of such a being would naturally tend 
towards pantheism, and might easily degenerate into notions 
in which materialism would be developed and pronounced. 
In point of fact, a distinctly materialistic pantheism may be 
discovered at a glance, through the transparent language of 
the Stoics. The Deity, as conceived by Zeno, is Ether ; that is 
to say, a kind of Fire which, reaching upwards and outwards 
in all directions beyond all bounds, is “circumfused from 
every quarter, girding and encompassing the universe.” + 
‘Thus is the teacher’s thought expounded by his disciple 
Cleanthes, who further says that “the world itself is God.” ¢ 
In strict conformity with this notion, human souls were repre- 
sented as being parts (uépn) of the divine essence, and 
portions torn off from it (atoomdopara).§ The term body 
(ca) was applied indifferently to the formative power in 
nature and to the passive material,|| and it was assumed that, 
* Seneca, De Provid., 5,9: “Non potest artifex mutare materiam,” 
+ Cicero, De Nat. Deor., i. 14. t Ibid. 
§ Epictet., Diss., i. 14,6; and M. Aurel, ii. 4. 
|| Sext. Pyrrh., ii. 38. 
