Stoics held the whole earth organism alive and breathing

Evidence

The living character of the world organism meant not only that the stars and planets were alive, but that the earth too was pervaded by a force giving life and motion to the living beings on it. … Lucius Seneca (4 B.C.-A.D. 65), a Roman Stoic, stated that the earth’s breath nourished both the growths on its surface and the heavenly bodies above by its daily exhalations: How could she nourish all the different roots that sink into the soil in one place and another, had she not an abundant supply of the breath of life? — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 136

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Earthquakes were attributed to the earth breaking wind like a living body — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 141; Newton privately pictured the earth as a great living animal breathing. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 1051; Organic cosmology held all parts of nature mutually suffer together — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 447

Broader Connections

• Newton privately pictured the earth as a great living animal breathing. #corroborates (0.95) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 1051
• Organic cosmology held all parts of nature mutually suffer together #expands (0.85) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 447