184 l/-86 to l/-89
dice and scales and many other things which cannot fall or settle in
different ways at different times without some cause or difference, either
something which is entirely in the things themselves or something which
occurs in the external circumstances. For he claims that the uncaused
and the automatic are totally non-existent, and that in these adventitious
[causes] which some philosophers make up and talk about there are
hidden certain non-evident causes and they draw our impulse in one
direction or another without our perceiving it.
Alexander De Anima Mantissa CIAG Supp.
2.1 p. 179.6-18 (SVF 2.967)
[11-87]To say that chance is a cause non-evident to human calculation is not
the position of men who posit some nature called chance, but of men
who say that chance consists in the relational disposition of men to the
causes ... For if they were to say not that chance is the cause which is
non-evident to some men, but the cause which is universally non-evident
to all men, they would not be admitting that chance exists at all, although
they grant that divination exists and suppose that it is able to make known
to other men the things which seemed to be non-evident.
Alexander of Aphrodisias On Fate 26,
196.21-197.3 Bruns (SVF 2.984)
[11-88]Perhaps it would not be a bad idea for us to take in hand and examine
how matters stand with the puzzles they put most confidence in; for
perhaps they will appear not too difficult to solve. One of these [ difficul-
ties] is as follows: If, they say, things are in our power when we can also
do the opposite of those things, and it is upon such things that praise
and blame and encouragement and discouragement and punishment and
honours are bestowed, then it follows that being prudent and virtuous
will not be in the power of those who are prudent and virtuous; for [such
men] are no longer capable of receiving the vices opposite to their virtues.
And the same point applies to the vices of bad men; for it is no longer
in the power of such men to cease being bad. But it is absurd to say that
the virtues and vices are not in our power, and that they are not the
objects of praise and blame. Therefore, 'what is in our power' is not
like that.
Aulus Gellius 7.2 (SVF 2.1000) [11-89]
- Chrysippus, the chief Stoic philosopher, defines fate (heimarmene
in Greek) roughly as follows: "Fate," he says, "is a sempiternal and