SVF I.141

Original — Ancient Greek

περὶ δὲ ψυχῆς Κλεάνθης μὲν τὰ Ζήνωνος δόγματα παρατιθέμενος πρὸς σύγκρισιν τὴν πρὸς τοὺς ἄλλους φυσικούς φησιν, ὅτι Ζήνων τὴν ψυχὴν λέγει αἰσθητικὴν ἀναθυμίασιν, καθάπερ Ἡράκλειτος· βουλόμενος γὰρ ἐμφανίσαι, ὅτι αἱ ψυχαὶ ἀναθυμιώμεναι νοεραὶ ἀεὶ γίνονται, εἴκασεν αὐτὰς τοῖς ποταμοῖς λέγων οὕτως· “ποταμοῖσι τοῖσιν αὐτοῖσιν ἐμβαίνουσιν ἕτερα καὶ ἕτερα ὕδατα ἐπιρρεῖ”· καὶ ψυχαὶ δὲ ἀπὸ τῶν ὑγρῶν ἀναθυμιῶνται. ἀναθυμίασιν μὲν οὖν ὁμοίως τῷ Ἡρακλείτῳ τὴν ψυχὴν ἀποφαίνει Ζήνων, αἰσθητικὴν δὲ αὐτὴν εἶναι διὰ τοῦτο λέγει, ὅτι τυποῦσθαί τε δύναται τὸ μέρος τὸ ἡγούμενον αὐτῆς ἀπὸ τῶν ὄντων καὶ ὑπαρχόντων διὰ τῶν αἰσθητηρίων καὶ παραδέχεσθαι τὰς τυπώσεις· ταῦτα γὰρ ἴδια ψυχῆς ἐστιν.

StoicOs Translation

Concerning the soul, Cleanthes, setting out Zeno's doctrines for comparison with the other natural philosophers, says that Zeno calls the soul a perceptive exhalation, just as Heraclitus does. For wishing to show that souls, as they are exhaled, always become intelligent, Heraclitus compared them to rivers, saying: “Upon those who step into the same rivers, ever different waters flow” — and souls too are exhaled from what is moist. So Zeno, like Heraclitus, declares the soul an exhalation; and he says it is perceptive because its ruling part is able to be imprinted by the things that are and subsist, through the sense organs, and to receive the imprints; for these belong properly to the soul.

Context

Eusebius excerpts the physical doxography of Arius Didymus, which here quotes Cleanthes — Zeno's own pupil and successor — in the act of setting out his teacher's doctrines against the other natural philosophers.

Source notes:Text verified against von Arnim, SVF I (1903), no. 141, p. 39 (OCR of the scanned edition). Von Arnim brackets the words “τὸ μέγεθος” as an intrusion; we omit them accordingly. The embedded river-saying is Heraclitus fr. B12.

What the source actually tells us

One of the best-pedigreed soul testimonia: the reporter is Cleanthes, who heard Zeno teach. It attests Zeno's definition of the soul as perceptive exhalation, his deliberate alignment with Heraclitus, and the doctrine that the ruling part (hēgemonikon) receives imprints through the senses.

Philosophical meaning

Here Zeno's physics and epistemology meet: the soul is a fine, fiery-airy exhalation, and precisely because it is such a body its ruling part can be stamped by real things through the senses — the imprint (typōsis) that grounds the cognitive impression of SVF I.59. The homage to Heraclitus shows where Zeno anchored his physics.

Scholarly uncertainty

The chain of transmission is long — Cleanthes quoted by Arius Didymus, excerpted by Eusebius — and the explanatory paraphrase of Heraclitus may owe as much to Cleanthes as to Zeno. But the core claim, that Zeno called the soul a perceptive exhalation, is expressly marked as Zeno's own doctrine reported by his pupil.

Biographical context

Go deeper

• Read SVF I.59 — the cognitive impression →
• Read SVF I.137 — the soul is a body →