a sect of ancient philosophers, the followers of Zeno, thus called from the Greek stoa, which signifies a porch or portico, in regard Zeno used to teach under a portico or piazza.

To the praise of the Stoics in general, it must be confessed, that, less intent than other philosophers upon frivolous and often dangerous speculations, they devoted their studies to the clearing up of those great principles of morality which were the firmest supports of society; but the dryness and stiffness that prevailed in their writings, as well as in their manners, disfigured most of their readers, and abundantly lessened their utility. Zeno's chief followers, among the Greeks, were Lucippus, Cleanthe, Chrysippus, Diogenes Babylonius, Antipater, Panetius, Posidonius, and Epictetus; among the Romans, Cato, Varro, Cicero, Seneca, the emperor Antoninus, &c. The Stoics cultivated logic, physics, metaphysics, &c., but especially ethics. The principles of their dogma, of the former kinds, are, that there are certain catalepsies or comprehensions, called innate ideas or principles, naturally found in the mind; that God is the seminal cause of the universe; and, with the Platonists, that the world is an animal, by reason of God's inhabiting and informing every part thereof; that nature is an artificial fire tending to generation; and that the world is at last to be destroyed by a conflagration. As for the morality of the Stoics, it was couched much in paradoxes; as, that a wise man is void of all passions, or perturbation of mind; that pain is no real evil, but that a wise man is happy in the midst of torture, is always the same, and is always joyful; that there is none else free; that none else ought to be esteemed king, magistrate, poet, or philosopher; that all wise men are great men; that they are the only friends or lovers; that nothing can happen to them beyond their expectations; that all virtues are inseparably connected together; that all good things are equal, and equally to be desired; that goodness admits of no increase or diminution. They own but one God, whom they however call by various names, as Fate, Jupiter, &c., by which they did not mean various things, but various powers and relations of the same thing. Providence they expressed under the name Fate, which Chrysippus defines to be a natural series or composition of things mutually following each other, by an immutable nexus or tie, fixed from all eternity. They held the immortality of the soul.