28. The Stoic theory raises numberless further objections; but we
halt here lest we ourselves incur ridicule in combating so evident an
absurdity. It suffices if we have demonstrated that these philosophers
mistake non-essence for absolute essence; (putting the cart before
the horse), they assign the First rank to what should occupy the
last. The cause of their error is that they have chosen sensation
as guide, and have consulted nothing else in determining both their
principles, and consequences. Being persuaded that the bodies are
genuine essences,[292] and refusing to believe that they transform
themselves into each other, they believed that what subsisted in
them (in the midst of their changes) is the real essence, just as
one might imagine that place, because it is indestructible, is more
essential than (metabolic) bodies. Although in the system of the
Stoics place remain unaltered, these philosophers should not have
regarded as essence that which subsists in any manner soever; they
should, first, have considered what are the characteristics necessarily
possessed by essence, the presence of which (characteristics) makes
it subsist without undergoing any alteration. Let us indeed suppose
that a shadow would continuously subsist by following something which
changes continuously; the shadow, however, would not be no more
real than the object it follows. The sense-world, taken together
with its multiple objects, is more of an essence than the things it
contains, merely because it is their totality. Now if this subject,
taken in its totality, be non-essence, how could it be a subject? The
most surprising thing, however, is that the (Stoics), in all things
following the testimony of sensation, should not also have affirmed
that essence can be perceived by sensation; for, to matter, they do
not attribute impenetrability, because it is a quality (and because,
according to them, matter has no quality). If they insist that matter
is perceived by intelligence,[293] it could only be an irrational
intelligence which would consider itself inferior to matter, and
attribute to it, rather than to itself, the privilege of constituting
genuine essence. Since in their system intelligence is non-essence, how
could any credibility attach to that intelligence when it speaks of
things superior to it, and with which it possesses no affinity? But we
have said enough of the nature of these subjects, elsewhere.[294]