Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

Ixx INTRODUCTION SECT.
functions of the physical organisms, are '
parts '
movements of the same life-force.
and
Stoic psychology does not base itself on study and
observation of psychical processes, so much as on de-
termined vindication of the supremacy of the Hegemonic
power or will. The unity and the ascendancy of the
Hegemonicon was held to exclude any psychology such
as the Platonic, which accorded distinct and separable
status to the rational and the irrational nature, to
Reason, Passion, and Desire. The Stoic declined to
recognise rival and independent powers, and regarded
the emotional or sensuous, as well as the rational and
intellectual,
'
activities as parts of the soul.' Physically,
they are conceived as currents of the one life-giving
Pneuma, acting by different channels upon centres of
consciousness, placed in the heart, or by some teachers
in the brain. In this way they are incorporated in the
one soul-energy, and placed absolutely at the disposition
of the directive power. They are set in motion by
external stimuli, but in their realisation as physical or
psychical activities (trdOr), oppat, d/ae^ets) they are actual
affections, functions, and 'parts' of the soul itself,
and their subordination to the intellectual or reasoning
faculty depends upon the fact that their action and
indeed existence rests upon 'judgments,' favourable or
adverse, and that the supreme judgment-forming power,
man's guarantee of freedom, is vested in the reason,
and is able to ignore and override the dictates or the
protests of emotion, sensibility, or passion. In the case
of the animals l we see impulse and instinct, unprovided
1 iii. 16; vi. 16 ; vii. 55.