Physics
Alexander of Aphrodisias On Mixture
224.32-225.9 (SVF 2.310)173
[11-58]At this point in the argument one might charge that, while saying that
there are two principles for all things, matter and god, the latter being
active and the former passive, they [the Stoics] also say that god is mixed
with matter, extending through all of it and shaping it, forming it and
making it into a cosmos in this manner. If, according to them, god is a
body, being intelligent and everlasting pneuma, and matter too is a body,
then in the first place a body once more will extend through a body; and
second, this pneuma will either be one of the four simple bodies which they
also call elements, or a compound mixture of them, as they themselves also
seem to say, I suppose (for they postulate that pneuma's substance is
composed of air and fire); or, if it is something else, then the divine body
will be some fifth substance.Alexander of Aphrodisias On Mixture
p. 223.25-224.14 (SVF 2.441)[11-59]... This being so, how could it be true that the totality is unified and
held together because some pneuma extends through all of it? Next, it
would be reasonable that the coherence produced by the pneuma should
be found in all bodies; but this is not so. For some bodies are coherent
and some discrete. Therefore, it is more reasonable to say that each of
them is held together and unified with itself by the individual form in
virtue of which each of them has its being, and that their sympathy with
each other is preserved by means of their communion with the matter
and the nature of the divine body which surrounds it, rather than by the
bond of the pneuma. For what is this 'pneumatic tension' by which things
are bound and so both possess coherence with their own parts and are
linked to adjacent objects? For [according to the Stoics] it is when pneuma
is forced by something that it takes on a kind of strength as a result of
the concentrated movement, because it is naturally suited to this (since
owing to its flexibility it can offer no resistance to what moves it). And
being flexible in its own nature it is fluid and easily divisible, and so too
is the nature of all other things with which pneuma is mixed; it is in
virtue of pneuma above all that they are divided so very easily. For this
reason, at any rate, some thought it was something void and an intangible
nature, while others thought it had a lot of void in it.
Moreover, if the pneuma which holds bodies together is the cause of
their persistence and not disintegrating, it is clear that bodies which do
disintegrate would not possess pneuma binding them together.
And how, in the first place, could the divisibility of bodies be preserved,