In his Physical Postulates Chrysippus delineates the relationship be- tween ethics and other parts of philosophy as follows: There is no other or more appropriate way of approaching the theory of good and bad things or the virtues or happiness than from universal nature and from the administration of the world . . . For the theor y of good and bad things must be attached to these, since there is no other starting-point or reference to them that is better, and physical speculation is to be adopted for no other purpose than for the differentiation of good and bad things. (Plutarch, On the Contradictions of the Stoics 1035c–d (SVF 3.68, trans. LS 60A))