Introduction of "Outlines of Pyrrhonism" SEXTUS EMPIRICUS TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. The Earlier Dogmatic Philosophies II. The Later Dogmatics III. Scepticism and the Sceptics IV. Text and Editions INTRODUCTION I. The Earlier Dogmatic Philosophies The writings of Sextus contain not only an exposition of Scepticism but also a critique of the doctrines of "the Dogmatists." The main task of the Sceptic is, in fact, to expose the folly of every form of positive doctrine; and consequently the bulk of these works of Sextus is controversial. Scattered through his pages there are references to almost every known name in the history of ancient Greek thought, and without some previous acquaintance with the main outlines of that history it is hardly possible to appreceiate the points or estimate the value of his arguments. Accordingly I give here, for the convenience of the reader, a short summary of the history of Greek philosophy 1. The Ionian Physicists. - Of the School of Miletus the founder was Thales (c. 600 B.C.). He declared that the fundamental substance of which the world was made is water. His successor, Anaximander (c. 570 B.C.), described that substance as "the boundless," since out of it were formed "countless" worlds. He regarded this primitive stuff as being in itself indeterminate, or of no one definite quality, and evolving into the forms of earth, fire, etc., by a process of "separation" of hot from cold, moist from dry, etc. also he called his primal substance "divine." Anaximenes (c. 540 B.C.), like Thales, took one definite element as his primary matter, but chose air, or vapour, instead of water. He explained the passage of this in other forms of matter as due to a process of "condensation and rarefaction." 2. Heracleiteans and Eleatics. -- In chronological order the first of the Eleatic School, Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 520 B.C.), comes before Heracleitus. He was less a philospher than a religious reformer who declaimed against traditional mythology and preached a pantheism which identified the One Universe with God. As against this Unity of the Eleatic doctrine, which precludes diversity, Heracleitus of Ephesus (c. 490 B.C.) declared that things are never one and the same but continually changing. Reverting to the view of the Milesians, he looked for one primary world-substance and found it in fire; this, as being also mind-stuff, he called "Reason" and God. By a kind of circular process ("the upward and downward way") the primal fire passes through the forms of air, water and earth, and returns to its own nature again. The World is "a harmony of opposites," since "War is father of all and king of all," and conflict lies at the heart of things. "All things are in flux," and since things have no permanent identity the reports of our senses are delusive, and opposite statements about an object may be equally true or false. In fact, to the eyes of God, life and death, good and evil, and all opposites are identical - there is no dividing line, and they are for ever passing into one another. Thus, as a Dogmatist who dissolves all dogma, Heracleitus is acclaimed by the Sceptics as one of the pioneers of their tradition.(Cf. Pyrr. Hyp. I. 210 ff.) Parmenides of Elea (c. 470 B.C.) defended the unitary doctrine of Xenophanes as against the flux doctine of Heracleitus. In his view "only Being is," and change, motion, and Becoming are illusions. The World is a single self-contained Sphere, uncreated and imperishable. In his great poem "On Nature" Parmenides calls this "the Way of Truth;" but he follows it up by an account of the World and its constituents on the lines of current physical Science (especially that of the Pythagoreans) which he calls "the Way of Opinion," without giving any explanation of how the one "Way" can be related to the other. Zeno of Elea (c. 450 B.C.) supported the doctrine of the Unity of Being by attacking the notions of multiplicity and motion. These notions, he argued, are self-contradictory. As against the possibility of motion he is said to have evolved the arguments known as "The Achilles" (an the tortoise) and "The Flying Arrow." The kernel of his reasoning is that any quantum (as of space or time) must be regarded either as consisting of a plurality of indivisible units or as itself divisible ad infinitum; but in the latter case, how can the sum of infinite parts make up a finite whole? and in the former, the unitary parts of the quantum must themselves be quanta or magnitudes, and as such they cannot be indivisible. Melissus, the Samian admiral (c. 440 B.C.), likewise taught that Being is One, infinite, uncreate and everlasting, motionless and without void. Thus, in spite of their metaphysical dogmatism, the Eleatics were akin to the Sceptics in so far as they rejected the evidence of the senses and criticized the ordinary belief in the phenomenal world. 3. Fifth-century Pluralists. - Hitherto the Cosmologists had attempted to explain the World by assuming either the Unity of its primal substance or its Unity as a static Totality (the Eleatics). And a direct contradiction had arisen between the position of Heracleitus ("All is in motion") and that of Parmenides ("All is at rest"). We come next to a number of theorists who - though otherwise divergent - agree in adopting a plurality of primary substances or principles to explain the world. Also, in relation to the opposing views of Heracleitus and Parmenides, they take up a mediating position. Empedocles of Agrigentum (c. 450 B.C.) assumed as primary indestructible substances "four roots of all things," viz. the four elements, earth, air, fire, and water. He explained all Becoming and change as due to the mixing and unmixing of the elements. As the motive forces effection these opposite processes he assumed the two rival powers Love and Hate, or Harmony and Discord, which oust each other alternately from control of the World. When Love is in full control, all the "roots" are fused together in a compact mass forming the "Sphere," which he terms "a blessed god." When Hate is in full control, all the "roots" are completely separated, each massed apart by itself. But in the world as we know it both forces are in play, so that its constituents are neither wholly in union nor wholly in disunion. The nature of particular things depends upon the proportion of the "roots" of which they are composed. As regards knowledge, Empedocles declared that "like is known by like," fire and water in the eyes (for example) perceiving the fire and water in the objects of sight by means of effluences. He also regarded the blood as the seat of intelligence, it being the best mixture of all the elements. And he shared the Pythagorean belief in the transmigration of souls, saying that he himself had in times past been "a bush and a bird and a mute sea-fish." Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (c. 450 B.C.) lived mostly at Athens, where he was intimate with Pericles and Euripides, until he was condemned on a charge of atheism and escaped to Lampsacus. Like Empedocles, he held that becoming and change are due to composition and decomposition of primary indestructible substances: "Nothing becomes and nothing perishes." But the primary substances ("seeds of all things") are not merely four but numberless, all existing forms of matter (bone, hair, gold, etc.) being equally ultimate. Originally "all things were together," in a chaotic mass of all kinds of matter, then "Reason (Nous) came and set them in order." That is Anaxagora's most important contibution to philosophy - the introduction of Reason or Intelligence as the Moving Cause and the principle of order and harmony in the world. He described Nous as alone "unmixed," and ordering the mixed mass of the world by setting up in it a vortex motion which disintegrated the mass and unites like "seeds" of matter with like. Leucippus of Miletus (?), the first Atomist, was probably a contemporary of Empedocles and Anaxagoras, but we know little that is definite about him. His views were developed by Democritus of Abdera (c. 420 B.C.). He held that the World is made up of "the Full" and "the Empty," i.e. of solid, indivisible molecules of matter, the atoms, and empty space or void. The atoms differ only in size and shape, and the forms and qualities of visible objects depend on their atomic structure. The atoms are supposed to rain down through space and collide with one another owing to the differences in the speed of their movement, their speed varying in proportion to their size. As against Anaxagoras's doctrine of Nous, the Atomists spoke of "necessity" as the governing force of the World, allowing only mechanical causation. Sensation was explained as due to the reception through "pores" of "images" projected from the atoms of the object perceived; but the apparent qualities of objects have only "conventional" reality, the only true reals being the Atoms and the Void. No clear distinction is made between sense and thought, and we can make no assertion about the truth of sense-objects, since these depend on the state of the percipient and the arrangement of the atoms of which he is composed. Belief in gods is due to the "images" projected by certain anthropomorphic beings who dwell in the air. Knowledge is of two kinds, "genuine" and "bastard," the latter being that derived from the senses, the former that of the understanding which discerns the real existents, the atoms and the void. Democritus appears also to have named "Well-being," or tranquil cheerfulness, as the ethical "end" or "good." The relation of Democriteanism to Scepticism is discussed by Sextus in Pyrr. Hyp. i. 213 ff. The Pythagoreans. - Pythagoras (c. 530 B.C.) was a contemporary of Xenophanes, born at Samos, but mainly resident at Crotona in South Italy. There he founded a religious Order, and a Way of Life akin to that of the Orphics in its asceticism, its belief in re-incarnation, and its precepts for the salvation of the soul from its "body-tomb." But nothing is known of Pythagoras himself as scientist or philosopher, and as a philosophy Pythagoreanism seems to date from the fifth century, its chief exponent being Philolaus (c. 440 B.C.). Thus Pythagoreanism is, in the main, contemporary with the other "pluralist" systems mentioned above. The chief subjects cultivated by the Pythagoreans were mathematics, music, medicine and gymnastics. Their main tenet was "Things are numbers," or "The principle of things are the principles of numbers." And, as all numbers are either odd or even, the world is made up of opposites, which can be arranged in ten classes. Even numbers are always divisible by 2 and so are named "Unlimited"; and 1, being the primary odd number, may be called the "Limit." Regarded geometrically, 1 is the point, 2 the line, 3 the plane, 4 the solid. They called 10 (the Decad) the perfect number, as being the sum of the first four numbers ("the Tetractys") and thus containing all the elements of number. "Harmony" is the principle which unites opposites and resolves cosmical as well as musical discords. The Universe consists of ten bodies (the heaven of fixed stars, the five planets, moon, sun, earth, "counter-earth") revolving around the "central fire" or cosmic "hearth;" it is surrounded by air which it breathes in and out. Its life lasts for a "Great Year" (10,000 years), at the end of which it starts anew on the same course; and in every such period history repeats itself. Soul was defined as a harmony, and the virtues identified with special numbers. 4. The fifth-century Sophists. - While the thinkers hitherto mentioned dealt with the world of Nature, the group known as "Sophist" were chiefly concerned with Humanity. It was "the Age of Enlightenment" in Greece when old beliefs and customs were being challenged by a new spirit of doubt and inquiry. With the rise of democracy every citizen became a potential politican, and instruction to fit men for public life was in general demand. This demand the Sophists laid themselves out to supply. They were the professional Educators of the public, and what they taught was "Virtue," as they called it, i.e. civic excellence, and the arts which enable a man to succeed in life. And since, for a political career and to achieve success in law-courts, debating power is of supreme inportance, the art of Rhetoric is the most useful aid to "Virtue"; and we find that the Sophists cultivated it in particular. The earliest of the sophist was Protagoras of Abdera (c. 440 B.C.) who resided for some time at Athens until he was convicted of impiety and had to flee. He is chiefly noted for his dictum - "Man is the measure of all things; of what is, that it is; of what is not, that is not" (cf. Pyrr. Hyp. i. 216 ff.). This means that the individual man is the criterion of truth, and denies that there is any universal standard or any absolute truth. The subjective impressions of each man are true for him, but not necessarily for anyone else. Hence, all opinions are equally true, and falsehood has no meaning, and contradictory statements are both equally credible. But to reject objective truth is also to reject the possiblity of knowledge, and this consequence of Protagoreanism was futher developed by the second great Sophist, Gorgias of Leontini (c. 440 B.C.). His book "on the Non-ent or Nature" essayed to prove (1) that nothing exists; (2) that if anything exists it is incognizable; (3) that even if cognizable it is incommunicable (cf. Pyrr. Hyp. ii. 59, 64). In this we see the strongest possible expression of the agnostic tendency and a Scepticism more dogmatic than that of the professed Sceptics of a later age. Another important Sophist was Hippias of Elis, the "polymath," who boasted of his ability to give an extempore lecture on any subject, and (like other Sophists) contrasted "law" or convention with "nature" or instinctive impulse. Of Prodicus of Ceos we are told that he specialized in linguistics, the precise use of synonyms, and ethical discourses. Other Sophists of the eristic type, who helped to undermine religious belief and to promote intellectual anarchy, were Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, Critias the Athenian (one of "The Thirty"), and Diagoras of Melos. 5. Socrates and the Minor Socratics. - Socrates (469 - 399 B.C.) was the contemporary of the Sophists and so far akin to them that he held that "the proper study of mankind is man," and was humanist rather than a physicist. But his aim was exactly the reverse of theirs - to establish morality on a sound basis, instead of proclaiming the futility of the moral law. By means of the inductive method and definition he sought to build up a system of conceptual knowledge which should possess objective truth, as contrasted with the merely subjective opinions derived from sense-perception. As an ethical teacher he preached "well-doing," or right conduct, as the aim of life, and urged self-knowledge and self-control as things more valuable than any external goods, his distinctive doctrine being that of the identity of knowledge and virtue, and of vice and ignorance; for " no man," he said, " is voluntarily wicked." But there is much uncertainty about the details of the teaching of Socrates, since the "Socrates " of the Platonic dialogues is by no means always "the historic Socrates," and the evidence of Xenophon (our other chief authority) does not appear to be altogether trustworthy. Four "Minor Socratic" Schools were formed by the disciples of Socrates. Eucleides of Megara founded the Megaric School in which, it would seem, Socratic tenets were combined with Eleatic doctrines, and the indirect method of proof was developed. Its interest was mainly in logic and dialectic; and to Eubulides (Eucleides' successor) is ascribed the invention of many logical puzzles (" the Liar," Sorites, etc.). Curiously enough, although Sextus often refers to Diodorus Cronos (circa 300 B.C.), he hardly mentions the earlier Megarics, although many of the Sceptic arguments must have been borrowed from them. The Elean School was founded by Phaedo of Elis, whose teaching seems to have resembled that of Eucleides. It, too, is not referred to by Sextus. Antisthenes founded the Cynic School. It subordinated logic and physics to ethics. Virtue, said Antisthenes, is the only good, all else is indifferent and of no account. Virtue is wisdom, self-control and self- sufficiency: the wise man cuts himself free from all earthly interests-pleasure, society, religion; he stands secure in himself, above all temptation. And, as in their Ethics, so in their Logic the Cynics stood for individuality and independence. Only identical judgements, they said, are possible; contradiction is impossible, and therefore knowledge equally so. Thus they reverted to the Sceptical position of Protagoras and Gorgias. Other notable Cynics were Diogenes (circa 340 B.C.), famed for his blunt coarse speech and his contempt for civilized customs, and Crates (Cf.Pyrr. Hyp. i. 72, 153). The Cyrenaic School was founded by Aristippus of Cyrene, who was succeeded by his daughter Arete, and she by his grandson Aristippus. Later members of the School were Theodorus "the Atheist," Anniceris, Hegesias ("the suasor mortis"). Like the Cynics, the Cyrenaics concentrated on Ethical theory. The summum bonum, they said, is Pleasure, and pleasure consists in "smooth motion," pain being "rough motion," and the neutral state " immobility." These are the three states of consciousness or psychic "affections" in which sensation consists and to which knowledge is confined. As the causes of these internal states are unknown, knowledge is wholly subjective, and each individual is his own standard of truth --the Protagorean position again. As thhe end of life is to gain from it the maximum of pleasurable sensations, the "Wise Man" of the Cyrenaics is he who best knows how to secure enjoyment from all possible sources, and to ward off discomfort and pain. Like the Cynics, the Cyrenaics stood for "nature" as against "convention," but they interpreted nature in a very different way (cf. Pyrr. Hyp. i. 215, Adv. Log. i. I 1). 6. Plato and the Old Academy.-The philosophy of Plato (427 - 347 B.C.) defies a brief summary. Only a few outstanding points can be mentioned. As against the Sophists, he maintained the possibility of knowledge, and the existence of an objective standard of truth; and by identifying the "natural" with the "rational" he suppressed the Sophistic appeal from "law," or convention, to "nature." His theory of knowledge and of Being may be said to be based on a reconciliation of the rival doctrines of Heracleitus and Parmenides. Heracleitus was right in regarding the sense-world as being in a state of continual flux and therefore not a subject of knowledge, but he was wrong in treating it as the only world. Parmenides, too, was right in holding that the world as known must be changeless and self-identical, but he was wrong in trying to force this conception on the phenomenal world. There are, in fact, two distinct worlds and two distinct kinds of apprehension to deal with them. Sensation tells us of the phenomenal and gives rise to "opinion;" Reason and thought deal with objects supersensible. For the content of his "intelligible" world Plato is indebted to Socrates' theory of concepts. The general (Aristotelian) view is that by "hypostatizing" these concepts he framed his "Ideas." He presents the Ideas as the ultimate Realities, the only objects of knowledge in the strict sense. The logical method which deals with the Ideas is "Dialectic," which combines induction with deduction. The supreme Idea is "the Good." In the physical theory of the Timaeus, the "Demiurge" (God, or Mind) frames the Universe with a view to the most Good, by means of harmony and proportion. Ethics is interwoven with psychology; the soul is a whole with three component parts or faculties (rational, spirited, appetitive), and is defined as "the self-moving" -- the source of all motion. Virtue is the "goodness" of the soul both as a whole and in each of its parts -- so that virtue is fourfold (wisdom, courage, temperance, justice). Virtue in the State corresponds to that in the individual -- each class must be efficient and loyal, and all together must be united in harmony. Thus Plato's Idealism contemplates the rule of Reason, acting for " the Best," in all three spheres -- that of the Individual, of the State, and of the Universe. How far it contains a Sceptical element is discussed in Pyrr. Hyp. i. 221 ff. Speusippus, the nephew of Plato, succeeded him as Head of the Academy (347 - 389 B.C.) and was in turn succeeded by Xenocrates (339 - 314 B.C.). Both seem to have amalgamated Idealism with the Pythagorean doctrine of Numbers. Polemo (314 - 270 B.C.) was the next Head of the Scchool. Other noted members, or allies, of the Academy were Heracleides of Pontus, Philip of Opus, Eudoxus of Cnidus, the astronomer, and the Pythagorean mathematician Archylas of Tarentum. The general character of their teaching, was, it seems, in the direction of lowering the standard of the Idealism of Plato and adapting it to the interests of inferior minds. The most gifted of Plato's disciples was undoubtedly Aristotle, the man who deserted the Academy to found a rival school of his own and to teach a revised Platonism. 7. Aristotle and the Peripatetics (cf. Pyrr. Hyp. iv. 31, 136, 218). -- Aristotle of Stageira (384 - 322 B.C.) joined the Academy in 367 B.C., and after Plato's death, about 335 B.C., founded a School of his own in the Lyceum at Athens, lecturing as he walked about -- whence the name "Peripatetic" ("walking round"). Aristotle was the great systematizer in all branches of philosophy and science. In his Logical treatises ("Organon") he formulates the "Categories," or ten heads of predicables; the rules for the conversion of propositions; the doctrine of the Syllogism, as based on the Laws of Contradiction and Excluded Middle; the meaning of Demonstration or Proof as concerned with necessary causes, and how First Principles, or axiomatic truths, are indemonstrable; problematic or imperfect syllogisms; the various kinds of eristic argument or fallacy. In his Metaphysics he argues, as against Plato, that the Universals, the objects of knowledge, are not separate from the sensibles but in them. The first principles of Being are actuality and potency; and Cause is analysed into four kinds -- material, formal, efficient and final. Form is the essence of things, and the object of cognition, and Form plus Matter compose the concrete substance. God is pure actuality, "thought thinking upon thought," the primum mobile. In his Physics and Psychology he postulated Ether as a fifth element, and the Earth as stationary in the centre of the Cosmos. Life is the power of self-movement, of which Soul is the principle, it being the "form" or "entelechy" of the body. The faculties of Soul are five -- nutritive, sensitive, appetitive, locomotive, rational. In sensation we receive "the form without the matter" of the percept; and besides the five external senses, each with its proper object, there are three internal senses, memory, imagination, and the central communis sensus, with its seat in the heart, by which we note and compare the several reports of the special senses. As the senses deal with the concrete and individual, so the Intellect deals with the abstract and universal; but though distinct from Sense it is dependent on it for its material, being of itself a tabula rasa. The intellect is also described as twofold, active and passive. His Ethics is chiefly notable for his doctrine of Virtue as consisting in "the Mean" between two extremes, and for his preference of mental to moral virtues. Also, he included bodily goods (health, wealth, pleasure) as well as virtue in his description of the ethical " End ("Happiness"). In his Political Theory he rejects Plato's communism and abolition of private property, and regards the State as a means for the moral advancement of the citizens and as the guardian of justice. He also wrote treatises on biology and aesthetics and rhetoric. Theophrastus was Head of the Peripatetic School from 322 to 287 B.C., when he was succeeded by Strato, and he in turn by Lyco (269 - 225 B.C.). They, and other leading Peripatetics -- such as Dicaearchus, the Historian, and Aristoxenus, the musician -- cultivated the special sciences rather than the metaphysical and logical aspects of Aristotelianism, and empirical interests tended to outweigh theoretical in the later history of the School. II. THE LATER DOGMATISTS On its theoretical and constructive side the philosophical movement which culminated in the architectonic systems of Plato and Aristotle came to an abrupt end. The philosophic Epigoni of the post-Aristotelian age showed less breadth of vision and but little originality of mind: the glory had departed from Israel. This was, no doubt, partly due to the depressing social and political conditions which prevailed in the Greek-speaking world during the third and following centuries. These conditions tended to make men concentrate their thoughts on purely human interests -- the welfare, destiny, salvation of the individual -- to the neglect of the other departments of philosophy and science. In so far as they were cultivated at all, those other departments came to be treated merely as the handmaids of Ethics, thus reviving the mainly humanistic attitude of the Sophists. Philosophy, in fact, became the substitute for an out-of-date and exploded Religion, and had for its aim, not the attainment of objective truth, but the provision of a subjective spiritual salvation from the manifold ills of life. Its task was no longer theoretical, but the very practical and urgent one of supplying distressed humanity with "arms against a sea of troubles," with shield and buckler against "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." Truth was now a matter for the heart rather than the head; philosophy, like faith, was to be judged by its "works;" it was bound to be pragmatical. To meet this situation two great Dogmatic systems were evolved, the Epicurean and the Stoic, and, to counter them, the system of the Sceptics. These three were contemporaneous, all dating from the end of the fourth century B.C. 1. The Epicureans. -- Epicurus of Samos (341 - 270 B.C.) founded his School in his garden (hence "the Garden School") at Athens in 306 B.C. Epicurus reverted to Democritus for his Physics, and to Aristippus for his Ethics, being both an Atomist and a Hedonist. In his physical theory he followed Democritus closely, except in explaining the collision of atoms as due to slight arbitrary deviations from the straight line in their downward course. The Soul, he said, is material, composed (as are the gods) of a finer sort of atoms, and mortal. Sensation, with its immediate evidence, is the only criterion of truth; it is effected by effluent images from the external objects impinging on the sense organs. The aggregation of several sensations forms the notion or concept, and from notions arise opinion and conviction. This theory of knowledge constitutes "Canonic," the Epicureans' name for Logic. Physics and Logic were regarded as subordinate to Ethics, and in Ethics Epicurus, like Aristippus, held that the Good is Pleasure, but he defined pleasure rather differently -- not as a satisfying "smooth motion" but as a state of rest, "painlessness," or absence of all unsatisfied desire, or "unperturbedness." Also he regarded freedom from mental distress, fear and prejudice, as even more important than bodily satisfaction; and it is the task of the "Wise Man" by means of a kind of hedonistic calculus, to estimate the comparative value of the different kinds of pleasurable affections so as to win for himself the maximum of mental satisfaction and repose throughout his life. Virtue, and the special virtues, are of value only in so far as they contribute to this end. Right and wrong become matters of merely subjective feeling. Religion was abolished as the cause of intolerable mental "perturbation," and the gods were banished to the intermundia. Lucretius's great poem De Rerum Natura is our most complete exposition of Epicureanism. 2. The Stoics. - Zeno of Citium, in Cyprus (350 - 258 B.C.), started his School about 305 B.C. in the "Painted Porch at Athens -- whence the name "Stoic." He was succeeded by Cleanthes, author of the famous "Hymn to Zeus," who, in turn, was followed by Chrysippus of Cilicia (280 - 206 B.C.), who systematized the doctrines of the School. With Panaetius of Rhodes (180 - 111 B.C.), Poseidonius of Apamea (130 - 46 B.C.), and the later Stoics, the system tended to become more eclectic, with infiltrations of Peripatetic and Academic doctrine. The main tenets of Stoicism were briefly these :-- In Physics they reverted to Heracleiteanism, and taught a materialistic monism. All that exists is corporeal: only body can act on body, therefore God is as much corporeal as the world, the soul as the body. The primal world-stuff is Fire, which by the "upward and downward way" transforms itself into the other elements and produces the Cosmos, until finally, at the end of the "Great World-Year," it returns to its original form in the World-Conflagration; and this cyclical process of evolution goes on for ever. This primary matter has two aspects, active and passive: as "artistic fiery vapour" it is the Soul of the World, Reason, Thought, Destiny, God. Hence the World, though wholly material, is rational: because governed and permeated by logos (the divine "Word") it exhibits order, harmony and beauty, as the artistic products of creative design. But the Logos is also the Cosmic Law, which binds all things in ihe rigid nexus of cause and effect, the bonds of Destiny. Hence, too, there can be no freedom of the Will for the individual. The Divine Logos contains all the "seminal Logoi," which are the active reproductive principles in all living creatures. Of the four elements, fire and air were contrasted as "active" with earth and water as "passive," and the forms and qualities of things were explained as due to the action of air or "aeriform tension." The unity of inorganic objects was ascribed to "condition," of plants to "nature," of animals to "soul." The souls of living creatures are parts of the Cosmic Soul, and consist of hot vapour or "spirit." Human souls (or at least those of the Wise) persist after death until the Ecpyrosis. The Soul has eight parts or faculties, viz. the five senses, the vocal, the generative, and the hegemonic or ruling. To this "Regent Part" all the rest are attached, it being their source of motion, with its seat in the heart, whence the pneuma radiates to the various local organs. It is in the "Regent Part," too, that perception (presentations and impulses) takes place. For their Logic the Stoics were mainly indebted to Aristotle. They subdivided Logic into Rhetoric and Dialectic. All knowledge comes through the senses, the mind being a tabula rasa upon which sense-impressions are made. The "presentation" is defined as "an affection arising in the soul" or "an impression on the soul" (Zeno) or "an alteration in the soul" (Chrysippus). Of these presentations some come through the senses, others are mental. How are we to distinguish between trustworthy and untrustworthy presentations? What is the Criterion of truth? Here we come to the most distinctive feature of the Stoic doctrine. The Criterion, they said, is to be found in the subjective reaction of the percipient. If the presentation is true, proceeding from a real object, it wins the "assent" or approbation of the percipient: such an "apprehensive presentation" constitutes the Criterion. In the development of knowledge they distinguished four stages - sense-perception, memory or retained presentation of an absent object, experience formed by a plurality of like memories, notions. "Notions" may be either involuntary -- termed "common notions" or "concepts" -- or voluntary, due to the reflex action of the mind. The "concept" is defined as "the natural notion of universals." The reasoning faculty deals with "notions," and all notions, as substances, are corporeal. The concepts were classified under four heads, the Stoic Categories, viz. substance, essential quality, accidental quality, relation. These they called "highest universals" or summa genera, and of these the first is also termed Being. In order to include also Non-being, another, still higher, category was postulated -- " Something." All qualities, as gaseous currents, are corporeal; but essential or intrinsic qualities or "states" are distinguished from imported or accidental qualities or "conditions." Under "relation'" are classed all attributes which imply a connexion between co-existing objects. In their Ethics the Stoics followed the Cynics, declaring Virtue to be the only Good, and presenting, the Ideal "Sage" as the embodiment of virtue. Like all the post-Aristotelian Schools they regarded Ethics as the crown of their philosophy to which Physics and Logic were merely adjuncts, since Ethics deals with the one thing needful -- human happiness and the rules for its attainment. Happiness - the End or Good -- they defined as "Living in conformity with Nature," or without contravening the Cosmic "Law" which is Right Reason, which means obeying God or Necessity. This subjection to the Law of the Logos is ultimately unavoidable, since "volentem fata ducunt, nolentem trahunt." Action in accordance with "Nature" is Virtue, which does not admit of increase or decrease and is termed a "disposition" rather than a "state." The four virtues -- wisdom, temperance, justice, courage -- are defined as four forms of knowledge. Between the extremes of virtue and vice there is no middle state; but an important distinction was made between three classes of conduct -- perfect moral actions, "becoming" actions or "duties," "undutiful" or sinful actions. The first kind is peculiar to the Stoic "Sage," the second proper for those "progressing" towards wisdom. As the only "goods" are the virtues and the only "evils" their opposite vices, there is a large class of things which come under neither of these heads: these "neutral" things -- such as life, health, wealth, beauty, pleasure, and their opposites --- are, strictly speaking, "indifferent." But, even so, they differ in value and were divided into two classes, "the desirable and preferred," and "the undesirable and unpreferred." Non-rational affections are the "passions" or emotions of which there are four kinds -- one being of the body, viz. involuntary sensuous feeling, and the other of the soul, viz. the rational emotion of the Sage, natural and involuntary states which are harmless, and vicious or morbid emotions. In all such mental passions there is an element of intellect and will as well as of feeling. The primary passions are four --desire, fear, pain and pleasure; and one definition of passion is "an excessive impulse." To give way to such an impulse is to "assent" to it, or approve of it by a perverted act of judgement, and hence "passions" were called "judgements" by Chrysippus. The root of evil passions is "intemperance," "a defection of the whole mind from right Reason," and their fruits are the diseases of the soul we call vices and sins. The Ideal Wise Man or Sage, being moved only by rational emotions, is said to be "passionless." In him virtue and wisdom are personified. He only is happy and at peace with himself, unperturbed by fightings without or fears within, indifferent to externals, self-sufficient and self-controlled, master of his fate and captain of his soul. Their portrait of the Ideal Sage is one of the features of Stoicism which attracted world-wide attention, alike from critics and admirers of the School. Horace alludes to the sapiens more than once in his Satires, e.g. ii. 7. 83 ff. : quisnam igitur liber? sapiens sibi qui imperlosus, quem neque pauperies neque mors neque vincula terrent, responsare cupidinibus, contemnere honores fortis, et in se ipso totus, teres atque rotundus. Of "the Wise" it was said also that all were friends of all and that they had all things in common and that the whole world was their city and their home (whence the term "cosmopolitan"). They form one of the two classes into which mankind is divided -- the "good" and the "bad", the sheep and the goats. Here again we note the ingrained ethical dualism of the Stoic system. The "bad," the poor in virtue, we have always with us, a multitude whom no man can number, but where shall wisdom be found and who exactly are the truly "wise"? Socrates, they said, and Antisthenes and Diogenes approximated to the Ideal, but the perfect Sage is nowhere discoverable upon the earth ; either, then, he had his being in the far -- off Golden Age or he remains for ever a "pattern laid up in the heavens." I have enlarged thus much upon the details of Stoic doctrine because it is the type of Dogmatism which the Sceptics criticized most frequently and most severely. We pass on now to the Sceptics themselves. III. SCEPTICISM AND THE SCEPTICS A "Sceptic," in the original sense of the Greek term, is simply an "inquirer" or investigator. But inquiry often leads to an impasse, and ends in incredulity or despair of a solution, so that the "inquirer" becomes a "doubter" or a "disbeliever," and Scepticism receives its usual connotation. All down the history of Greek philosophy we have found traces of sceptical thought in the repeated discrediting of sense-perception and the frequent insistence on the folly of vulgar opinion. But, with the exception of Sophists like Protagoras and Gorgias, all the philosophers agreed in assuming that truth existed and that knowledge of it was possible. When Scepticism was revived and reorganized under the name of "Pyrrhonism" its main task was to challenge this assumption and to maintain, if not the impossibility of knowledge, at least the impossibility of positively affirming its possibility. Its watchword was "Suspend judgement." The history of Scepticism, as a definite tradition or "School," may conveniently be divided into four periods or stages, viz. : (1) Practical Scepticism of Pyrrho of Elis (circa 360 - 275 B.C.), and his pupil Timon of Phlius (circa 315 - 225 B.C.). (2) Critical Scepticism and probabilism of the New Academy - Arcesilas of Pitane (circa 315 - 241 B.C.) and Carnades of Cyrene (circa 213 - 129 B.C.). This ended in the Eclecticism of Philo and Antiochus (ob. 69 B.C.). (3) Pyrrhonism revived, systematized and developed dialectically by Aenesidemus (circa 100 - 40 B.C.) and Agrippa (? first century A.D.). (4) Final development of Empiric Scepticism, culminating in Sextus Empiricus (circa 160 - 210 A.D.). A brief account of each of these stages must here suffice. 1. Pyrrho of Elis -- in spite of some later traditions about him -- was probably not at all a full-blown Sceptic, but rather a moralist of an austere and ascetic type -- as Cicero represents him (Acad. Pr. ii. 130, De Fin. iv. 43, 49) -- who cultivated insensibility to externals and superiority to environment. Probably he derived from Democritus a deep distrust of the value of sense-perception, but otherwise he seems to have been imbued with dogmatism, though it was the dogmatism of the will rather than of the intellect. We may fairly assume that the causes which led to the Scepticism of Pyrrho and his immediate followers were twofold -- firstly, the intellectual confusion which resulted from the number of conflicting doctrines and rival schools, and secondly, the political confusion and social chaos which spread through the Hellenic world after Alexander's death, together with the new insight into strange habits and customs which was given by the opening up of the East. The natural result of the situation at the close of the fourth century was to shake men's belief in tradition and custom, to dissolve the old creeds and loyalties, and to produce the demand for a new way of salvation in the midst of a crumbling world. Pyrrho, it would seem, shared this attitude, and stood out as the apostle of disillusionment. He would not seek or promise "happiness," in the usual sense of the word, but he sought and taught the negative satisfaction of freedom from care and worrv by the cultivation of a neutral, noncommittal attitude towards all the problems of life and thought. In self-defence he sought refuge within himself, there to achieve a self-centred "apathy" which his disciples were to acclaim, under the name of "ataraxy," as the Chief End of Man. Probably, then, the main, if not the only, interest of Pyrrho was in the ethical and practical side of Scepticism as the speediest cure for the ills of life. Timon of Phlius spent the latter part of his long life at Athens. In his earlier days he is said to have sat under Stilpo at Megara, as well as under Pyrrho at Elis. His admiration for the latter was unbounded, although it would seem that he did not copy his ascetic habits too closely. He was a voluminous writer of both prose and poetry -- epics, tragedies, satires -- but only a few fragments of two of his works have survived, viz. the " Images " or "Illusions," and the "Silli" or "Lampoons." The latter evidently became very popular because of its mordant wit. It consisted of three books, all deriding the professors of philosophy, and written in hexameters in the Homeric style, beginning thus: Come now, listen to me, ye polypragmatical Sophists. The second and third books were in the form of a dialogue between Timon and Xenoplianes, in which the latter expresses his contempt for nearly all the rival schools of thought. It appears, then, that the only philosophers for whom Timon entertained any respect were the Eleatics, Democritus and Protagoras -- the most severe critics of knowledge in the form of sense-perception. This exposure of the futility of philosophizing served to support the indifferentist attitude of Pyrrho; and Timon by his writings (for Pyrrho wrote nothing) popularized the Sceptical view that the way to make the best of life is to eschew dogma and to cultivate mental repose. It is probably a mistake of Sextus (Adv. Math. iii. 2, vi. 66) to ascribe to Timon formal argumentation concerning "hypotheses" and the "divisibility of time," considering his ridicule of dialectic and his avoidance of "the strife of tongues"; and it is very doubtful whether he (or Pyrrbo) invented or used any of the technical vocabulary of Scepticism (e.g. "Suspension," "No more," " Equipollence") which is commonly ascribed to him or his master. 2. Scepticism in the New Academy (cf. Pyrr. Hyp. i. 220 ff.). -- With Arcesilas Scepticism entered upon a new stage of development. It ceased to be purely practical, and became mainly theoretical. Arcesilas succeeded Crates as Head of the Academy about 270 B.C. He appears to have been influenced by the Megarics as well as by Pyrrho, and was eminent as a dialectician and controversialist. His delight was to argue in utramque partem and balance argument against argument; and he took up the position that to know we know is an impossibility, and to seek for absolute truth an absurdity. His polemic was chiefly directed against the Stoic epistemologyand its doctrine of the "apprehensive presentation" as the "Criterion." He maintained that we can "assent" to no sense-impression as carrying conviction and indubitably true, and that the objective realities are consequently incognizable, and we can only "suspend judgement" about them, unless we content ourselves with fallible "opinion" instead of scientific "knowledge." But the Stoic "Sage" never "opines"; neither can he "know"; therefore he must suspend judgement and turn Sceptic. False and true presentations are indistinguishable: no valid criterion exists: we have no guide but opinion, and we can only think, believe, and act in accordance with what seems reasonable or probably right. Thus, while Pyrrho had renounced and Timon flouted the Dogmatics, Arcesilas started the practice of refuting them scientifically and systematically, and earned thereby the abuse of Timon for his lapse from pure Pyrrhonism. Carneades of Cyrene, like Arcesilas and Pyrrho, left no writings, but his views were preserved by his disciple Cleitomachus (Hasdrubal). He was a brilliant teacher, a formidable dialectician, and perhaps the most talented philosopher of the post-Aristotelian period. His energies were mainly devoted to negative criticism of the theories of the Dogmatists, especially the Stoics. He resumed and developed the arguments with which Arcesilas had attacked the Stoic theory of knowledge, and which Chrysippus had, in the mean-while, attempted to rebut. Neither the senses nor the reason, he argued, can supply any infallible "criterion": there is no specific difference between false "presentations" and true: beside any true presentation you can set a false one which is in no wise different. The dreamer, the drunkard, the madman have illusions of the truth of which they are convinced: you see two eggs or two hairs and cannot tell the one from the other: you cannot distinguish the true impression from the false, or assert that the one rather than the other is produced by a real object. It is in vain, then, to look to the senses for certainty; and it is equally vain to look to the reason since it (as the Stoics held) is wholly dependent on the senses and based on experience. Logic, the product of the reasoning faculty, is discredited because of the number of insoluble fallacies for which it is responsible -- such as "The Liar" ("The Cretan says 'I lie': is he a liar ?"), "The Cornutus" ("Have you shed your horns -- yes or no?"), "The Sorites" or Chain argument ("How many grains make a heap? Take 10, 20, 30, etc., away, is it still a heap ?"). Chrysippus when confronted with the Sorites in a dialectical discussion is said to have called a halt and refused to answer, thus giving in to the Sceptic by "suspending judgement." Reason is thus found to be as fallible as sensation, and certitude impossible. Carneades also attacked the Ethical system of the Stoics, exposing their inconsistency in saving that Virtue is directed to choosing the prime objects of natural desire while denying to these objects the name of "good." He criticized also their Theology, their doctrines of the Divine Nature, of Providence, of Divination and Prophecy. The Stoics were fond of appealing to the consensus gentium, or the universal belief in the existence of the gods: Carneades ridiculed that appeal. For how do we know that the belief is universal? And why appeal to the multitude who -- the Stoics tell us -- are all fools? why call in ignorance as judge? And as to divination and prognostication, they rest on no principles of science but are mere quackery and tricks of the trade. The God of the Stoics is an incredible Being because he is composed of contradictory attributes. If He is to be infinite, omniscient, all-good, and imperishable, He cannot be either composite or corporeal or animate or rationial or virtuous -- all such qualities belonging to objects which lie in the sphere of becoming and perishing. In support of their theory of Providence the Stoics brought forward evidences of design in Nature. Carneades retorted by quoting cases of snake-bites, and wrecks at sea. Reason, said the Stoics, is a gift of Providence to man: why then, replied Carneades, did not Providence see to it that the majority were endowed with a "right reason" instead of one that only enables them to outdo the brutes in brutishness? Only a few possess right reason; so the Stoic God must be miserly in his gifts! In all this the position of Carneades is purely agnostic. He does not wish to affirm a negative, but merely to show up the untenability of the Stoic dogmas, and to reassert as regards all departments of knowledge the impossibility of attaining absolute certitude. When the pretentious structure of the Stoics had been thus riddled by the arrows of Carneades, their Ideal Sage must have appeared but as a figment to many, and their anthropomorphic Deity as an incredible bundle of contradictions. But there was a constructive as well as a destructive side to the teaching of Carneades. He took over, modified, and developed the theory of Arcesilas that, despite the impossibility of objective knowledge, a sufficient ground for practical choice and action might be found in the "reasonable" or subjectively satisfying. He granted to the Stoics that some sense-impressions or opinions seem to the percipient superior to others, and this apparent superiority provided a sufficient reason for preference and consequential action. Impressions being thus subjectively distinguishable, judgements may be graded in value as more or less "persuasive" or "probable." Carneades then classified presentations in this way: (1) the apparently false; (2) the apparently true, which are of three grades -- (a) the probable in itself; (b) the probable and "uncontradicted" (i.e. by accompanying conditions); (c) the probable and uncontradicted and "closely scrutinized" or "tested." These apparently true impressions produce varying degrees of "conviction" and deserve proportionate "assent" of a relative kind -- the only kind of assent possible for the Sceptic who denies that objective certitude is attainable. In connexion with this doctrine of "probabilism" Carneades defended human freedom, in "assent," choice and action, as against the determinism of the Stoics with their rigid theory of Destiny and Necessity; and he subjected their doctrine on this subject to a searching criticism which exposed its inherent inconsistency. With Carneades the dialectical Scepticism of the New Academy came to an end. His successors, Philo of Larissa (ob. circa 80 B.C.) and Antiochus of Ascalon (ob. 69 B.C.), surrendered his theory of nescience, and reverted to a more dogmatic position. Both were Eclectics -- Antiochus so much so that he asserted the harmony, if not the practical identity, of the doctrines of the Academy with those of the Peripatetics and Stoics, and his teaching was a curious amalgam of them all. This tendency to doctrinal conflation continued to characterize the philosophers of the succeeding generations till the rise of Neoplatonism, excepting only those attached to the Epicurean School andthe Later Sceptics. 5. The first of the "Later Sceptics," who revived the original "Pyrrhonism," was Aenesidemus, a younger contemporary of Antiochus. Cnossus in Crete may have been his birthplace, Alexandria was where he taught. Though originally an Academic, he denounced Arcesilas and Carneades as dogmatists in disguise rather than true Sceptics, since we cannot know that knowledge is impossible. His treatise Pyrrhoean Discourses consisted of eight books in which he explained his dissent from the New Academy, and criticized in detail the logic, ethics, and Physics of Stoicism. In another work, Introductory Outline of Pyrrhonism, he set forth his famous "Ten Tropes," or "Modes" of procedure, for the refuting of Dogmatism in all its forms. Apparently the order in which they are drawn up was not fixed, since Sextus's order differs from that of Diogenes Laertius; nor does it seem to be governed by any logical principle. The Tropes themselves merely formulate arguments in favour of the relativity of knowledge, borrowed from earlier Sceptical teachers -- Sophists, Megarics, Academics; and, as Lotze says, "The ten tropes, or logical grounds of doubt, all come to this, that sensations by themselves cannot discover to us what is the nature of the object which excites them." Besides these ten Tropes, Aenesidemus (in his Pyrrhonean Discourses, bk. 5) summarized the arguments against causality and current theories of "cause" in his "Eight (Aetiological) Tropes." These form a list of fallacious methods of reasoning about "cause." His objections rest mainly on the assumption that "cause" is a thing in itself, and causality a real objective quality inherent therein. Similarly he attacked the Stoic and Epicurean doctrine of "Signs," or "effects" which point back to "causes," arguing that no phenomenon can safely be regarded as a "sign," because "doctors differ" in interpreting symptoms. But, to judge by several remarks of Sextus, Aenesidemus was not consistent in his Scepticism. We are told that he regarded "the Sceptic system as a road leading to the Heracleitean philosophy, on the ground that the (Sceptic) view that opposites apparently belong to the same object is prefatory to the (Heracleitean) view that they really so belong." We are told also that he held that the primary world principle is air, which he identified with time and number; and that he explained the origin of the world in all its variety from this unitary substance by supposing it to be receptive of opposite qualities, and every whole self-identical in all its parts. He is also said to have reduced the six kinds of motion distinguished by Aristotle, and the ten of Plato, to two, viz. locomotion and alteration or transformation; and a peculiar theory of Soul, or reason, is ascribed to him, according to which the reason exists outside the body and is somehow inspired so that it can act from within through the senses. With the theory of reason as external, and therefore not individualized but "common," like the "Logos" of Heracleitus, is connected the further theory, ascribed to Aenesidemus, that some phenomena appear alike to all men "in common," while others appear different to different percipients, and that the former class are "true," the latter " false " -- universality of experience thus being the "Criterion" of truth. How we are to reconcile this hybrid dogmatism with the undoubted Pyrrhonism of Aenesidemus is a puzzling question which has much exercised the historians of philosopby. It has been suggested that Sextus has misunderstood or misrepresented Aenesidemus; or that Aenesidemus did ultimately pass over from the Sceptical to the Dogmatic position; or that his apparent Dogmatism can be explained away, as no real surrender of Scepticism but rather an unconscious yielding to the Eclectic influences of his intellectual environment. None of these suggestions seems wholly satisfactory; but perhaps the least difficult supposition is that Sextus is unintentionally misrepresenting Aenesidemus by a loose use of language when he ascribes the dogmas mentioned above to "Aenesidemus and his followers." If so, we may suppose that while Aenesidemus may have given a start to the dogmatizing tendency by enlarging on the points of similarity between Scepticism and Heracleiteanism and claiming Heracleitus as a forerunner, certain of his adherents pushed that tendency to excess and indulged in an Eclectic dogmatism, after the fashion of Antiochus, which blended Scepticism with Heracleitean and Stoic doctrine. Of the successors of Aenesidemus we know no more than the names until we come to Agrippa, about a century later. To him is attributed the presentation of Sceptical theory in "five Tropes," which are briefly these: (1) Based on the conflict among opinions; (2) Every proof requires a fresh proof in endless regress; (3) Based on the relativity of perceptions; (4) Proof must not presuppose unproved premisses; (5)Reasoning involves a vicious circle. Of these (1) and (3) resume and sum up the former "ten Tropes," which exhibited the fallibility of the senses and the relativity of perceptual knowledge; while (2), (4) and (5) are directed against the Aristotelian theory of "immediate" axioms and the possibility of logical demonstration. Agrippa was followed by Zeuxippus, Zeuxis, and Antiochus, who remain mere names, though we may suppose that they adhered to the tradition of dialectical Scepticism. 4. The last stage in the history of Greek Scepticism is marked by its alliance with medical empiricism (cf. Pyrr. Hyp. i. 236 ff.). Menodotus of Nicomedia and Theodas appear to have been the first of these medical Sceptics, and we may date them about A.D. 150. Galen criticizes the views of both regarding medicine and natural science. Herodotus of Tarsus, who succeeded Menodotus, is thought to have belonged to the "pneumatic" rather than to the "empiric" school of medicine; but in any case he was the teacher of Sextus Empiricus. To one or other of the foregoing Sceptics we may probably attribute two further developments of doctrine, viz. a further reduction of the "Tropes" to two (arguing against the possibility of either immediate or mediate certitude), and a new distinction between "commemorative and "indicative signs " (cf. Pyrr. Hyp. ii. 99). Sextus Empiricus (circa A.D. 200) is our main authority for the history and doctrine of the Sceptic School. We know that he was a Greek physician and that he succeded Herodotus as Head of the School, but we know little else about the details of his life. He seems to have resided for some time in Rome, and to have been acquainted with Athens and Alexandria. Although named "Empiricus" he seems to imply that he adhered rather to the "methodic" than to the "empiric" tradition in medicine. His surviving works are three -- (1) "Outlines of Pyrrhonism" in three books; (2) "Against the Dogmatists in five books, --l and 2 "Against the Logicians," 3 and 4 "Against the Physicists," 5 "Against the Ethicists"; (3) "Against the Professors" in six books -- a book each against Grammarians, Rhetors, Geometers, Arithmeticians, Astrologers, Musicians, in this order. Other works ascribed to him are a treatise "On the Soul" and "Notes on Medicine." Of the surviving works the Hypotyposes, or " Outlines," is a kind of summary of Scepticism, the first book stating and defending the Sceptic position, and the other two books attacking the Dogmatic position. The other two works are usually put together as a whole under the title Adversus Mathematicos -- which we might construe "Against the Professors of all Arts and Sciences," -- and they resume and expand the critical and polemical arguments of books 2 and 3 of the "Outlines." Probably there is but little original matter in these works. Sextus was mainly a compiler: he drew freely on the writings of his predecessors, especially Aensidemus, Cleitomachus (for Carneades), and Menodotus. He was evidently interested in the history of thought, and provides us with much valuable information about the earlier Schools, although he is not wholly reliable. He writes mostly in a plain, dry style, enlivened but rarely by touches of humour. As a controversialist he studies fairness by quoting the opponent's own views, often at great length; but he wearies the reader by his way of piling argument upon argument for the mere sake of multiplying words -- bad argument and good heaped togetherindiscriminately. Obviously his books are not intended to be works of art, but rather immense arsenals stored with all the weapons of offence and defence of every conceivable pattern, old and new, that ever were forged on the anvil of Scepticism by the hammer blows of Eristic dialecticians. From these storehouses the Sceptic engaged in polemics may choose his weapon to suit his need; for (as Sextus naively observes) the Sceptic is a "philanthropic" person who spares his adversary by using against him only the minimum of force necessary to bowl him over, so that the weakest and most flimsy arguments have their uses as well as the weightiest. Or is Sextus here the veiled humorist? IV. TEXT AND EDITIONS The text of Sextus is derived from two main sources -- the Greek Manuscripts and a Latin Translation. For the Hypotyposes the most important MSS. -- as described by the latest editor, Mutschmann - are: M = Monac. gr. 439, late fourteenth century, containiting Pyrr. Hyp. L = Laur. 81. 11, dated A.D. 1465, containing all the works of Sextus. E = Parisinus 1964, late fifteenth century, containing all Sextus. A =Parisirtus 1963, dated 1534, containing all Sextus. B =Berol. Phill. 1518, dated 1542, nearly a duplicate of A. Of these, the last three seem to be closely akin, so that we have three main lines of MS. tradition, derived from the same Archetype, viz. M, L, and EAB. T denotes (in Mutschmann's notation, which is here followed) the Latin Translation, which is preserved in the MS. known as Parisinus lat. 14700 (fol. 83 - 132). It contains the whole of Sextus except for two omissions, viz. p. 51, 11 - 26, and p. 145, 3 - 160, 20. As it was first brought to light by C. Jourdain in 1888, earlier editors were ignorant of its existence, and it is only in the latest Teubner edition that its readings are reported. The Teubner editor, H. Mutselimann, dates it in the thirteenth century, and regards it as equal in importance to any of the Greek MSS., and derived from an independent Archetype. There are three early editions of Sextus -- by P. and J. Choiet (Geneva, 1621); by J. A. Fabricius (Leipzig, 1718), incorporating the Latin version by H. Stephens (Paris, 1562), as well as additional Notes; by I. Bekker (Berlin, 1842), giving the text and index only. The first volume of the Teubner edition (containing Pyrr. Hyp.) was published in 1912, the second volume in 1914. A literal German version of the three books of Pyrr. Hyp., with an Introduction and useful Notes, by E. Pappenheim, appeared in 1877 (Leipzig); and an English version of Pyrr. Hyp., book i., is included in M. Patrick's volume Sextus Einpiricus and Greek Scepticism (Cambridge, 1899). The latest considerable contribution to the textual criticism of Sextus is Werner Heintz's Studien zu Sexius Empiricus (Halle, 1932). The present four volumes include "Outlines of Pyrrhonism" (in Vol. I); "Against the Logicians" (Vol. II); "Against the Physicists" and "Against the Ethicists" (Vol. III); and "Against the Professors" (Vol. IV). "Against the Professors" vii - xi (Adversus Mathematicos vii - xi) iis an alternative title for "Against the Logicians" I - v (Adversus Dogmaticos i - v). The text in these volumes is based on that of Bekker. Bekker, it may be noted, omitted both the Tables of Contents prefixed to the several books in the MSS. and the corresponding Chapter-headings, although the earlier editors had retained both. In these volumes the Chapter-headings are restored, for the convenience of the reader, while the Tables of Contents are, after Bekker, omitted, as a superfluous duplication. In addition to the accounts of Greek Scepticism given in the standard Histories of Ancient Philosophy, attention may be drawn to the special treatment of the subject in The Greek Sceptics by N. MacColl (1869); Les Sceptiques grecs by V. Brochard (1887), copious and clear; Die Geschichte des griechischen Skeptizismus by A. Goedeckemeyer (1905), good for details; Stoic and Epicurean by R. D. Hicks (1910), chapters 8 and 10; Stoics and Sceptics by E. Bevan (1913), less detailed, but scholarly, suggestive and interesting, and thus probably the best introduction to the subject for the general reader. From Kelly A. Thomas - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/8607 Introduction and Book I of Sextus Empiricus' "Outlines of Pyrrhonism" onto this page (Loeb Classical Library, trans. R.G. Bury. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1st print 1933).