Consequently, the Stoics, who reproach other philosophers (such as
Plato) for making up beings out of non-beings,[290] themselves make up
a non-being out of a being.[291] Indeed (in the system of the Stoics),
the world, such as it is, is not being. It is certainly unreasonable
to insist that matter, which is a subject, should nevertheless be
"being," and that bodies should not, any more than matter be "being";
but it is still more unreasonable to insist that the world is "being,"
not by itself, but only by one of its parts (namely, matter); that the
organism does not owe its being to the soul, but only to matter; and
last, that the soul is only a modification of matter, and is something
posterior to others. From whom then did matter receive animation?
Whence comes the hypostatic existence of the soul? How does, matter
receive form? For, since matter becomes the bodies, the soul is
something else than matter. If the form came from something else than
the soul, quality, on uniting to matter, would produce not the soul,
but inanimate bodies. If something fashion matter and create the soul,
the created soul would have to be preceded by a "creating soul."