Stoic physics

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Often appears with: universal reason · the nature and attributes of God · reason and the intellect · matter, motion, and cause · eternal matter and god · cosmic order

Usually: argument (1) · curiosity (1) · reverence (1)

Quotable

“Matter is eternal. It is God who gives form to matter, but he is not said to have created matter.” Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius · insight

Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius primary

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus · composed during the reign and campaigns of Marcus Aurelius; tradition places major composition in the 2nd century CE
Section. I have also added a “1.” before the first “thought” in each > BOOK XII. (9/22)

A philosophical exposition explains Stoic physics as knowledge of universal nature and providence: reason governs eternal matter, the cosmos is ordered, and all change maintains the whole.

a man have any apprehension about the change and dissolution of all the elements [himself]? for it is according to nature; and nothing is evil that is according to nature.” The Physic of Antoninus is the knowledge of the Nature of the Universe, of its government, and of the relation of man’s nature to both. He names the universe (VI. 1), “the universal substance,” and he adds that “reason” governs the universe. He a…