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Adventures in Philosophy

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The Common Nature and Its Reason

by Chrysippus

 

The slightest thing that happens takes place in accordance with nature and its reason.

Common nature is spread throughout all things. Therefore whatever happens in the universe is in accordance with common nature and its reason, and therefore proceeds in an unhindered fashion. There is nothing outside the universe to oppose its working, nor can any of its parts be moved or conditioned in a fashion other than that which is agreeable to common nature.

Sometimes good men suffer misfortunes, not as punishment for wickedness, but in accordance with some other lines of administration.

Just as states which have a surplus population send great numbers of their people out to the colonies, and stir up wars against their neighbor, so God provides occasion for our destruction.

It is unreasonable to say that the deity is the cause of base deeds. Just as law cannot be the cause for misdemeanor, so God cannot be the cause of impiety.

Homer correctly stated: "The will of Zeus is done"; referring to the fate and nature of the universe by which all things are governed.

 

Excerpted from The Common Nature and Its Reason, by Chrysippus

The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics



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