Justus Lipsius, On Constancy 1.18
The first three kinds of destiny briefly explained. The definition or description of them all. The Stoics slightly and briefly excused.
"I call mathematical destiny that which ties and knits firmly all actions and events to the power of the planets and dispositions of the stars. Of which the Chaldeans and astrologists were the first authors. And among the philosophers that lofty Mercurius is principal and abettor, who subtly and wisely distinguishing providence, necessity, and destiny, says: providence is an absolute and perfect knowledge of the celestial God; which has two faculties nearly allied unto it, necessity and destiny.
"Destiny truly serves and assists providence, and also necessity, but unto destiny itself the stars do minister. For neither may any man avoid the force of fate, nor beware of the power and influence of the stars. For these be the weapons and armor of destiny, at whose pleasure they do and perform all things to nature and men. In this foolish opinion are not only the common crew of astrologers, but, I shame to speak it, some divines.
"I call natural fate the order of natural causes, which, not being hindered, by their force and nature do produce a certain and the selfsame effect. Aristotle is of this sect, if we give credit to Alexander of Aphrodisias his interpreter. Likewise, Theophrastus, who writes plainly, that destiny is the nature of each thing. By their opinion it is destiny that a man begets a man; and so that he dies of inward natural causes and not by violence or force, it is destiny. Contrarily, that a man should engender a serpent or a monster, it is besides destiny: also to be killed with a sword or by fire.
"This opinion is not very offensive, for that indeed it ascends not so high as the force of fate or destiny. And does not everyone escape falling that keeps himself from climbing aloft? Such a one is Aristotle, almost everywhere writing ought of celestial matters, except it be in his book of the world, which is a golden treatise savoring of a more celestial air. I read moreover in a Greek writer that Aristotle thought that fate was no cause, but that chance was in some sort an alteration or change of the cause of such things as were disposed by necessity.
"O the heart of a philosopher: that dares to account fortune and chance among the number of causes but not destiny. But let him pass: I come to the Stoics my friends (for I profess to hold that sect in estimation and account) who were the authors of violent fate, which with Seneca I define to be a necessity of all things and actions, which no force can withstand or break. And with Chrysippus, a spiritual power, governing orderly the whole world.
"These definitions swerve not far from the truth if they be soundly and modestly expounded. Neither, happily, their opinion generally, if the common people had not condemned the same already by a prejudicate conceit. They are charged with two impieties, that they make God subject to the wheel of destiny, and also the actions of our will. I cannot boldly acquit them of both these faults: for out of some of their writings (few being at this day extant) we may gather those sayings, and out of some other we collect more wholesome sentences.
"Seneca, a principal pillar of that sect, stumbles at the first block of his book on providence where he says, the very same necessity binds God: an irrevocable course carries away both human and divine things. The maker and ruler of all things decreed destinies but now follows them; he commanded once, but he obeys forever. And that same indissoluble chain and linking together of causes which binds all things and persons seems plainly to infer force or constraint.
"But the true Stoics never professed such doctrines, and if by chance any like sentence passed from them in the vehemency of their writing or disputing, it was more in words than in substance and sense. Chrysippus, who first corrupted that grave sect of philosophers with crabbed subtleties of questions, clears it from depriving man of free liberty. And our Seneca does not make God subject to fate (he was wiser than so) but God to God, after a certain kind of speech. For those Stoics that came nearest the truth do call destiny sometimes providence and sometimes God.
"Therefore Zeno when he had called destiny a power moving about the same matter, after one and the same manner, he adds, which it boots not whether you call it providence or nature. Likewise Chrysippus elsewhere called destiny the eternal purpose or decree of providence. Panaetius the Stoic said, that God himself was fate, Seneca being of the same mind says, when you list you may call the author of nature and all things, by this or that name: you may justly term him the best and great Jupiter and thundering and Stator, that is stable and standing, not so called as historians deliver because after a vow undertaken, he stayed the Roman army from flying away; but because all things stand by his free benefit, therefore was he named stander or establisher.
"If you call him also fate or destiny, you shall not belie him. For since that destiny is nothing but a folded order of causes, he is the principal and first cause of all whereon the residue does depend. Which last words are so godly spoken that slander itself cannot slander them. In this point dissented not from the Stoics that great writer to a great king: I think that necessity ought not to be called anything else but God, as a steadfast and stable nature. And destiny that which knits together all things and holds his course freely, without let or impediment. Which sayings, if they have any taste of temerity in them, yet not impiety; and being rightly interpreted differ not much from our true fate and destiny.
"I do in good earnest give this commendation to the Stoics, that no other sect of philosophers avowed more the majesty and providence of God, nor drew men nearer to heaven and eternal things. And if in treading this trace of destiny they went somewhat astray, it was through a laudable and good desire they have to withdraw blind men from the blind goddess, I mean fortune: the nature whereof they did not only mightily hiss out of their company, but even the very name."
IMAGE: John William Waterhouse, Destiny (1900)
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