that the Sceptic must live according to law and custom; not, however, because one law or custom is better than another in itself, but simply for the sake of peace.  This basis of action was itself a death-blow to all reform in social or political life.  It was a selfish, negative way of seeking what was, after all, a positive thing, the [Greek:  ataraxia] that the Sceptic desired.  Life with the Pyrrhonist was phenomenal, and not phenomenal simply in regard to the outer world, but also subjectively, and no absolute knowledge of the subjective life or of personal existence was possible.

The cause of the downfall of Pyrrhonism lay in the fact that it had nothing to offer to humanity in the place of what it had destroyed.  It made no appeal to human sympathies, and ignored all the highest motives to human action.  The especial materialistic standpoint from which Pyrrhonism judged all that pertains to knowledge and life shut out the ideal, and all possibility of absolute truth.  It was an expression of the philosophic decadence of the age when it flourished, and although it possessed some philosophic worth, yet it bore in itself the causes of its decay.

PYRRHONIC SKETCHES

BY

SEXTUS EMPIRICUS.

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

The Principal Differences between Philosophers.

It is probable that those who seek after anything whatever, will 1 either find it as they continue the search, will deny that it can be found and confess it to be out of reach, or will go on seeking it.  Some have said, accordingly, in regard to the things sought in philosophy, that they have found the truth, while 2 others have declared it impossible to find, and still others continue to seek it.  Those who think that they have found it are those who are especially called Dogmatics, as for example, the Schools of Aristotle and Epicurus, the Stoics and some others.  Those who have declared it impossible to find are Clitomachus, 3 Carneades, with their respective followers, and other Academicians.  Those who still seek it are the Sceptics.  It appears therefore, reasonable to conclude that the three 4 principal kinds of philosophy are the Dogmatic, the Academic, and the Sceptic.  Others may suitably treat of the other Schools, but as for the Sceptical School, we shall now give an outline of it, remarking in advance that in respect to nothing that will be said do we speak positively, that it must be absolutely so, but we shall state each thing historically as it now appears to us.

CHAPTER II.

Ways of Treating Scepticism.