its inspirations; according to the Epicureans, it frees us from superstition and the spiritualistic prejudices which destroy our happiness. Both schools agree that there is a criterion of truth. Peripatetic dogmatism is opposed by the sceptical reaction which had been inaugurated by Democritus and Protagoras. PYRRHO of Elis,1 a contemporary of Aristotle and a friend of Alexander the Great, represents this movement. He, too, like the Socratics and Epicurus and Zeno, his younger contemporaries, desires àrapatía; but he does not believe that metaphysics can obtain it for us. There are, as a matter of fact, no two schools of philosophy that agree upon the essential problems. Hence, instead of procuring peace, the source of true happiness, speculation brings us trouble and uncertainty, and involves us in end less contradictions. It is useless, because it causes disputer without end; impossible, because we can, in every case, prove both the affirmative and the negative side (avriλoyía, ȧVTíbeσIS TŴv Xoywv). The essence of things is incompre hensible (akaτáληπтоя). Руrrho's sage refrains from mak ing dogmatic statements on either side; he suspends his judgment as much as possible (éπéxe, èπoxń), and bewares against taking part in heated discussions. He avoids absolute negation as well as categorical affirmation, and therefore differs from the dogmatists, who affirm knowledge, and the Sophists, who demonstrate its impossibility.

The physician TIMON,2 an admirer and friend of Pyrrho of Elis, published, among other sceptical writings, a satirical poem (Oi Einλo), in which he emphasizes the contra dictions of the metaphysicians from Thales to the Academician Arcesilaus. Eusebius has preserved the fragments of this work in his Præparatio evangelica. His doctrine

1 Born about 365.

• Mullach, Timonis Phliasii fragmenta, I., pp. 83 ff.; Wachsmuth De Timone Phliasio cæterisque sillographis Græcis, Leipsic, 1859.

may be summarized in three paragraphs: (1) The dogmatic philosophers cannot prove their starting-point, which therefore is merely hypothetical; (2) it is impossible to have an objective knowledge of things: we know how they affect us, we shall never know what they are apart from our intelligence and our senses; (3) hence, in order to be happy, we must abandon barren speculations, and unreservedly obey the law of nature.

In

Pyrrhonism reminded the philosophers, in a pointed way, that the problem of certitude is a fundamental one. consequence of the rivalry existing between the Academy and the younger dogmatic Stoic school, the sceptics soon found themselves established in the chair of Plato. The first appearance of the critical problem inaugurated the age of reason in Greece, its reappearance after the death of Aristotle marks the period of decline in Hellenic philosophy.

§ 21. Academic Scepticism

The scepticism of the Academy is simply an exaggeration of the underlying principle of this school, and, in a measure, a return to the original sources. Scepticism, as we know, formed the starting-point of Socrates and Plato. The names of Arcesilaus and Carneades, the founders of the Middle and the New Academy, are connected with this movement. ARCESILAUS of Pitane,1 the successor of the scholarch Crates, returns to the Socratic method. He does not set up a system of his own, but confines his efforts to developing the minds of his hearers; he teaches them how to think for themselves, to investigate, to separate truth from error. His only dogma is to assume nothing unconditionally. He was at first a critical philosopher,

1 In Aeolia, 818-244; Sources: Diog. L., IV.; Sextus Emp., Hyp. Pyrrh., I.; Adv. math., VII.; Ritter and Preller, pp. 441 ff. [See also Hirzel and Schmekel, opera citata.]

but the dogmatic opposition of Zeno drove him into the arms of extreme scepticism. Zeno makes clear ideas (pav Tаolaι KaтaληTTIKаí) the criterion of truth. Arcesilaus, however, calls attention to the many illusions in which the senses involve us. Socrates had said: One thing alone I know, and that is that I know nothing. Arcesilaus exaggerates his scepticism and declares: I do not even know that with certainty. He does not, however, deduce the final consequences of his principle. Certainty cannot be reached in metaphysics, but it is possible in the domain of ethics, in which he agrees with the Stoics. But his successors are logically compelled to extend their scepticism to ethics.

The most consistent among them is CARNEADES,1 who differs in nothing from the Sophists of the fifth century. He is an opponent of the Stoics in ethics and religion as well as in ontology and criticism. With wonderful dialectical skill he brings out the contradictions involved in the Stoic theology. The God of the Porch is the soul of the world; like the soul, he possesses feeling. Now a sensation is a modification (éтepoíwois). Hence the Stoic God may be modified. But whatever is changeable may be changed for the worse; it can perish and die. Hence the God of the Stoics is not eternal, their sensational God is not God. Moreover, as a sensible being the God of the Stoa is corporeal, which suffices to make him mutable. If God exists, Carneades goes on to state, he is either a finite or an infinite being. If he is finite, he forms a part of the whole of things, he is a part of the All and not the complete, total, and perfect being. If he is infinite, he is immutable, immovable, and without modification or

1 215-130. Sources: Diog. L., IV.; Sextus Emp, Adv. math., VII.; Ritter and Preller, pp. 444 ff.; Victor Brochard, op. cit.; Constant Martha, Le philosophe Carnéade (Revue des Deux Mondes, Vol. XXIX.). [See also Hirzel and Schmekel.]

sensation; which means that he is not a living and reai being. Hence, God cannot be conceived either as a finite or an infinite being. If he exists, he is either incorporeal or corporeal. If he has no body, he is insensible; if he has a body, he is not eternal. God is virtuous or without virtue; and what is a virtuous God but a God who recognizes the good as a law that is superior to his will, i. e., a god who is not the Supreme Being? And, on the other hand, would not a god without virtue be inferior to man? The notion of God is therefore a contradictory one, however you may conceive it.

Carneades handles the conceptions of right, duty, and responsibility in the same way. Upon being sent to Rome on a political mission, he delivered two sensational speeches, one in favor of justice on the first day, another against it, the next. There is no absolute certitude in morals any more than in metaphysics. In the absence of evidence, we must content ourselves with probability (To Tavóv) in theory as well as in practice.

Neo-Academic scepticism was superseded among the scholarchs who succeeded Carneades by a somewhat ingenious form of critical eclecticism, and then by a syncretism that indiscriminately combined the doctrines of Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Epicurus, and Arcesilaus.

§ 22. Sensationalistic Scepticism.

Idealistic scepticism, which traces its origin to the Eleatics, was opposed by sensationalistic scepticism. This torm of scepticism, which had been taught by Protagoras, Aristippus, and Timon, was continued by a number of thinkers who were for the most part physicians. The invariable result of their investigations is that we have no criterion of truth, no knowledge of things-in-themselves. Arcesilaus and Carneades base their arguments upon dialectics and the inevitable contradictions involved in it; while em

piristic scepticism, the type of modern positivism, appeals also to a series of physiological and experimental facts. In his eight books on Pyrrhonism, valuable fragments of which have been preserved by Sextus,1 one of these doubters, ÆNESIDEMUS of Cnossus, develops the reasons which influenced Pyrrho and induced the author himself to call in question the possibility of certain knowledge. These reasons (TρÓTTо TÓTOL ÉπOXÊS) are as follows: —

(1) The differences in the organization of sensible be ings, and the resulting different and sometimes contradictory impressions produced by the same objects. All things seem yellow to a man suffering from the jaundice. Simi larly, the same object may be seen in different colors and in different proportions by each particular animal.

(2) The differences in the organization of human beings. If all things were perceived by us in the same way, we should all have the same impressions, the same ideas, the same emotions, the same desires; which is not the case.

(3) The differences in the different senses of the same individual. The same object may produce contrary impressions upon two different senses. A picture may impress the eye agreeably, the touch disagreeably; a bird may please the sense of sight and have an unpleasant effect upon the hearing. Besides, every sensible object appears to us as a combination of diverse elements: an apple, for example, is smooth, fragrant, sweet, yellow or red. Now, there are two possibilities. The fruit in question may be a simple object, which as such has neither

1 Sext. Emp., Hyp. Pyrrh., I., Diog. L., IX.; Ritter and Preller, pp. 481 ff.; V. Brochard, op. cit.

• Born in Cnossus in Crete. Enesidemus (Almoídnuos) probably lived in Alexandria at the beginning of the Christian era. [See Saisset, Le Scepticisme. Enésidème, Pascal, Kant, 2d ed., Paris, 1867; Natorp, op. cit. — TB.).