Meditations VI.14

Objects admired by the common sort come chiefly under things of the most general kind, which are held together by physical coherence,¹⁸ such as stones and wood, or by a natural unity, such as figs, vines, olives; and those which are admired by persons of a somewhat higher capacity may be classed as things which are held together by a conscious life, such as flocks and herds; and those which are admired by persons still more refined, as things held together by a rational soul; I do not mean rational as part of the Universal Reason, but in the sense of master of an art or expert in some other way, or merely in so far as to own a host of slaves. But he that prizes a soul which is rational, universal, and civic, no longer turns after anything else, but rather than everything besides keeps his own soul, in itself and in its activity, rational and social, and to this end works conjointly with all that is akin to him.

• 18.Compare Sextus Empiricus’s Against the Mathematicians viii. 2; ix. 81: τὰ μὲν ὑπὸ ψιλῆς ἕξεως συνέχεται, τὰ δὲ ὑπὸ φύσεως, τὰ δὲ ὑπὸ ψυχῆς· καὶ ἕξεως μὲν ὡς λίθοι καὶ ξύλα, φύσεως δὲ καθάπερ τὰ φυτά, ψυχῆς δὲ τὰ ζῷα.

  The Greek, in translation: “some things are held together by mere cohesion, some by nature, some by soul: by cohesion, as stones and wood; by nature, as plants; by soul, as animals.” The terms are hexis, physis, and psychē, the Stoic grades of unity in bodies.