As to Immortality, the Stoics precluded themselves, by holding the
theory of the _absorption_ of the individual soul at death into the
divine essence; but, on the other hand, their doctrine of advance and
aspiration is what has in all times been the main natural argument for
the immortality of the soul. For the most part, they kept themselves
undecided as to this doctrine, giving it as an alternative, reasoning
as to our conduct on either supposition, and submitting to the pleasure
of God in this as in all other things.

In arguing for the existence of Divine power and government, they
employed what has been called the argument from Design, which is as old
as Sokrates. Man is conscious that he is in himself an intellectual or
spiritual power, from which, by analogy, he is led to believe that a
greater power pervades the universe, as intellect pervades the human
system.

II.--In the PSYCHOLOGY of the Stoics, two questions, are of interest,
their theory of Pleasure and Pain, and their views upon the Freedom of
the Will.

1. _The theory of Pleasure and Pain_. The Stoics agreed with the
Peripatetics (anterior to Epicurus, not specially against _him_) that
the first principle of nature is (not pleasure or relief from pain,
but) _self-preservation_ or _self-love_; in other words, the natural
appetite or tendency of all creatures is, to preserve their existing
condition with its inherent capacities, and to keep clear of
destruction or disablement. This appetite (they said) manifests itself
in little children before any pleasure or pain is felt, and is moreover
a fundamental postulate, pre-supposed in all desires of particular
pleasures, as well as in all aversions to particular pains. We begin by
loving our own vitality; and we come, by association, to love what
promotes or strengthens our vitality; we hate destruction or
disablement, and come (by secondary association) to hate whatever
produces that effect.[8] The doctrine here laid down associated, and
brought under one view, what was common to man, not merely with the
animal, but also with the vegetable world; a plant was declared to have
an impulse or tendency to maintain itself, even without feeling pain or
pleasure. Aristotle (in the tenth Book of the Ethics) says, that he
will not determine whether we love life for the sake of pleasure, or
pleasure for the sake of life; for he affirms the two to be essentially
yoked together and inseparable; pleasure is the consumm