POOR I.I APHORISMS. 405 



destroying other systems (as the Ottomans do their brethren) 

 by its disputatious confutations, decided upon everything, and 

 Aristotle himself then raises up questions at will, in order to 

 settle them ; so that everything should be certain and decided, a 

 method now in use among his successors. 



The school of Plato introduced scepticism, first, as it were in 

 joke and irony, from their dislike to Protagoras, Hippias, b and 

 others, who were ashamed of appearing not to doubt upon any 

 subject. But the new academy dogmatised in their scepticism, 

 and held it as their tenet. Although this method be more honest 

 than arbitrary decision (for its followers allege that they by no 

 means confound all inquiry, like Pyrrho and his disciples, but 

 hold doctrines which they can follow as probable, though they 

 cannot maintain them to be true), yet when the human mind 

 has once despaired of dLaum-riug truth, everything begins to 

 Irminiish. Hence men turn a&amp;gt;ide into pleasant controversies and 

 aftcussions, and into a sort of wandering over subjects rather 

 than sustain any rigorous investigation. But as we observed at 

 first, we are not to deny the authority of the human senses and 

 understanding, although weak, but rather to furnish them with 

 assistance. 



LXVIII. We have now treated of each kind of idols, and 

 their qualities, all of which must be abjured and renounced with 

 firm and solemn resolution, and the understanding must be 

 completely freed and cleared of them, so that the access to the 

 kingdom of man, which is founded on the sciences, may resemble 

 that to the kingdom of heaven, where no admission is conceded 

 except to children. 



LXIX. Vicious demonstrations are the muniments and sup 

 port of idols, and those which we possess in logic, merely subject 



* An allusion to the humanity of the Sultas, who, in their earlier 

 histories are represented as signalizing their accession to the throne by 

 the destruction of their family, to remove the danger of rivalry and the 

 terrors of civil war. Ed. 



h The text is &quot;in odium veterum sophistarum, Protagorae, Hippiae, en 

 reliquorum.&quot; Those were called sophists, who, ostcntationis aut questus 

 causa philosopkabantur. (Acad. Prior, ii. 22.) They had corrupted and 

 degraded philosophy before Socrates. Protagoras of Abdera (&quot;Affli/pa), 

 the most celebrated, taught that man is the measure of all things, by 

 which he meant not only that all which can be known is known only as 

 it related to our faculties, but also that apart from our faculties nothing 

 can be known. The sceptics equally held that knowledge was probable 

 only as it related to our faculties, but they stopped there, and did not, 

 like the sophist, dogmatize about the unknown. The works of 

 Protagoras were condemned for their impiety, and publicly burnt by the 

 eediles of Athens, who appear to have discharged the office of common 

 fongmen to the literary blasphemers of their dy. 4. 



