Page:Philosophical Review Volume 2.djvu/239

No. 2.] in dreams, oracles, clairvoyance, astrology, the flight of birds, etc., etc.

In the organic world plants occupy the lowest place (cf. Aris- totle). Next come the lower animals, between which and the vegetable world there are transitional forms, i.e., plant-animals or zoöphytes. Inasmuch as all life depends on the penetration of matter by the cosmical pneuma, the life of plants must be an ex- pression of this same principle; it is the lowest form in which the principle can appear as life. This power in the plant is confined to nutrition and propagation, and to this faculty the name of vG>v TreYpeus rj THTIV erepois TOIOUTOIS- The reference is not to plants, but to those animals which have a plant-like nature, to zoophytes. To the animal kingdom proper i/^x 7 ? is ascribed. In addition to <vo-is and eirdvfjirjTiKov, Posidonius ascribes the Platonic faculty 0v/*o8e's to the animal kingdom. This, a kind of will-instinct, supplies the impulse to self-preservation and the attainment of the objects of de- sire. To man alone belongs pure reason (Aoyo?, vous). Just as the soul is constituted, so will its moral attitude and activity be; ethics is, therefore, made to depend on psychology. The supreme law of conduct with Posidonius, as with the Stoics generally, was the con- formity of life and conduct to nature. By nature, Posidonius under- stands, not the universal cosmical law, as other Stoics, but rather man's own nature. This, however, is double, consisting of an animal and a rational nature. The latter has rightfully the leadership; accordingly the ethical end of life is an attitude of the soul in accordance with reason. This psychical condition includes both the true and the good in their entire extent, – the true in knowledge and the good in choice. Both are included in the conception of the wise man, who, from Chrysippos on, represented to the Stoics the moral ideal. Posidonius, however, rejects Chrysippos' conception of the wise man as something unattainable. On the contrary, he believed that the virtue exemplified in the 0-0^09 is attainable; with Chrysippos virtue made demands which transcend human power, so that the wise man, as embodying the ideal of virtue, never actually existed, and this conception of virtue which could not be realized,