But here there was an impediment. Admetus did
not believe that the dead could rise. Again Menelaus did not believe
in the real Helen when he found her on the island of Pharos. But here
again there was an impediment. For Menelaus could not have been
expected to know that he had been for ten years fighting for a
phantom. When, however, there was no such impediment, then they said
the gripping phantasy did indeed deserve its name, for it almost took
men by the hair of the head and dragged them to assent.
So far we have used "phantasy" only of real or imaginary impressions
of sense. But the term was not thus restricted by the Stoics, who
divided phantasies into sensible and not sensible. The latter came
through the understanding and were of bodiless things which could
only be grasped by reason. The ideas of Plato they declared existed
only in our minds. Horse, man, and animal had no substantial
existence but were phantasms of the soul. The Stoics were thus what
we should call Conceptualists.
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