Fragments of the Early Stoics, Volume 3: Chrysippus (Ethics)

1 Diogenes Laertius VII 84. The ethical part of philosophy is divided into the topic concerning impulse, the topic concerning goods and evils, the topic concerning passions, the topic concerning virtue, the topic concerning the end, the topic concerning the first value and actions, and the topic concerning duties original: "kathēkonta" and the things to be encouraged and discouraged. The followers of Chrysippus, Archedemus, Zeno of Tarsus, Apollodorus, Diogenes, Antipater, and Posidonius make further subdivisions in this way. For Zeno of Citium and Cleanthes, being older, handled these matters more simply. But these later thinkers divided both the logical and physical parts as well.

Ethics I.

On the end of goods.

§ 1. The "end of goods" is explained according to the Stoics.

2 Stobaeus, Eclogues II, p. 46 W. (from the epitome of Arius Didymus). It is said by the Stoics in a definitional sense: "The end is that for the sake of which all things are done appropriately, while it itself is done for the sake of nothing." And in that other way: "That for the sake of which other things exist, while it itself exists for the sake of nothing." And again: "That to which all things done in life appropriately take their reference, while it itself takes its reference to nothing."

3 Stobaeus, Eclogues II 76, 16 W. The end is said to be spoken of in three ways by those of this school. For the final good is called the end in scholarly usage, just as they say agreement is the end. They also call the goal the end, for instance, when they speak of a life lived in agreement, referring it to the adjacent predicate. According to the third meaning, they call the end the final point of desires, to which all other things are to be referred.

4 Diogenes Laertius VII 87. Again, living in accordance with virtue is equal to living in accordance with experience of the things that happen by nature, as Chrysippus says in his first book On Ends. For our natures are parts of the nature of the whole. Therefore, the end becomes living in agreement with nature, which is...