writer who had spoken in commendation of the work of Chrysippus [Greek:  peri dynaton] ("citatur honorifice apud Arrianum”, Menag. in Laert., I, 7, 341) for assuredly these words, “[Greek:  gegraphe de kai Chrysippos thaumastos], etc., de his rebus mira scripsit Chrysippus”, etc., are not in that connexion a eulogy.  That is shown by the passages immediately before and after it.  Dionysius of Halicarnassus (De Collocat.  Verbor., c. 17, p. m. 11) mentions two treatises by Chrysippus, wherein, under a title that promised something different, much of the logicians’ territory had been explored.  The work was entitled “[Greek:  peri tes syntaxeos ton tou logou meron], de partium orationis collocatione”, and treated only of propositions true and false, possible and impossible, contingent and equivocal, etc., matter that our Schoolmen have pounded down and reduced to its essence.  Take note that Chrysippus recognized that past things were necessarily true, which Cleanthes had not been willing to admit. (Arrian, ubi supra, p. m. 165.) “[Greek:  Ou pan de parelelythos alethes anankaion esti, kathaper hoi peri Kleanthen pheresthai dokousi].  Non omne praeteritum ex necessitate verum est, ut illi qui Cleanthem sequuntur sentiunt.”  We have already seen (p. 562, col. 2) that Abelard is alleged to have taught a doctrine which resembles that of Diodorus.  I think that the Stoics pledged themselves to give a wider range to possible things than to future things, for the purpose of mitigating the odious and frightful conclusions which were drawn from their dogma of fatality.’

It is sufficiently evident that Cicero when writing to Varro the words that have just been quoted (lib. 9, Ep. 4, Ad Familiar.) had not enough comprehension of the effect of Diodorus’s opinion, since he found it preferable.  He presents tolerably well in his book De Fato the opinions of those writers, but it is a pity that he has not always added the reasons which they employed.  Plutarch in his treatise on the contradictions of the Stoics and M. Bayle are both surprised that Chrysippus was not of the same opinion as Diodorus, since he favours fatality.  But Chrysippus and even his master Cleanthes were on that point more reasonable than is supposed. [233] That will be seen as we proceed.  It is open to question whether the past is more necessary than the future.  Cleanthes held the opinion that it is.  The objection is raised that it is necessary ex hypothesi for the future to happen, as it is necessary ex hypothesi for the past to have happened.  But there is this difference, that it is not possible to act on the past state, that would be a contradiction; but it is possible to produce some effect on the future.  Yet the hypothetical necessity of both is the same:  the one cannot be changed, the other will not be; and once that is past, it will not be possible for it to be changed either.