SVF I.529

Original — Ancient Greek

ὁ δὲ Κλεάνθης οὕτως συνηρώτα· εἰ φύσις φύσεώς ἐστι κρείττων, εἴη ἄν τις ἀρίστη φύσις· εἰ ψυχὴ ψυχῆς ἐστι κρείττων, εἴη ἄν τις ἀρίστη ψυχή· καὶ εἰ ζῷον τοίνυν κρεῖττόν ἐστι ζῴου, εἴη ἄν τι κράτιστον ζῷον· οὐ γὰρ εἰς ἄπειρον ἐκπίπτειν πέφυκε τὰ τοιαῦτα.

StoicOs Translation

Cleanthes argued as follows: if one nature is better than another, there would be some best nature; if one soul is better than another, there would be some best soul; and if, then, one living being is better than another, there would be some supreme living being — for such series do not by nature run off to infinity.

Context

Sextus' survey of arguments for the existence of gods places Cleanthes' reasoning directly after Zeno's syllogisms — the sceptic preserves the school's natural theology in order to attack it.

Source notes:Text verified against von Arnim, SVF I (1903), no. 529, pp. 119–120 (OCR of the scanned edition). Excerpted here: the opening steps of the argument as introduced by Sextus (“Cleanthes argued as follows”); the continuation — that the ascent cannot go to infinity and terminates in the best living being, which is god — follows in Sextus M 9.88–91.

What the source actually tells us

Introduced with 'he argued as follows' (synērōta), suggesting a school-formula close to Cleanthes' wording, though embedded in a hostile survey four centuries later. The stepped form parallels Zeno's cosmos-syllogisms (SVF I.111).

Philosophical meaning

Wherever there is better, there is a best: the ladder of natures, souls and living beings cannot climb forever, so it terminates in a supreme living being — and that, the continuation argues, is god. Theology grows here out of biology: god as the summit of the scale of life, not an exception to it.

Scholarly uncertainty

The wording is Sextus' report, not a certified quotation; how much of the stepped formula is Cleanthes' own and how much school-compression cannot be determined. The conclusion is here excerpted from the continuation of Sextus' text.

Go deeper

• Read SVF I.111 — Zeno's syllogisms on the rational cosmos →
• Read SVF I.537 — the Hymn to Zeus →