Full Idea
Some causes are perfect and principal, others auxiliary and proximate. Hence when we say that everything takes place by fate owing to antecedent causes, what we wish to be understood is not perfect and principal causes but auxiliary and proximate causes.
Gist of Idea
When we say events are fated by antecedent causes, do we mean principal or auxiliary causes?
Source
Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 18.41
Book Reference
Cicero: 'On Fate, Stoic Paradoxes, Oratory', ed/tr. Rackham,H. [Harvard Loeb 1942], p.237
A Reaction
This move is described by Cicero as enabling Chrysippus to 'escape necessity and to retain fate'.