Why are there peacocks? And why are there pigs? 'Nature loves beauty and delights in diversity: that is well shown by the tail of the peacock, for there nature makes it evident that the bird is born for the sake of the tail and not vice versa.' 'Pigs are born to be slaughtered, and god has added a soul to their flesh as a sort of salt, thereby providing us with pork.' Those engagingly dotty opinions were advanced neither by a simpleton nor by a cynic: they were promoted by Chrysippus, the best of the Stoic philosophers and one of the three or four finest logicians in the history of the world. God, Chrysippus maintained, made all things bright and beautiful, and he made them for our benefit and our delight. 'What, even bedbugs?' someone asked. 'In the bedbug,' he replied, 'God has given us a natural alarm clock.'

LRB 5 June 2008 | PDF Download