83 



those thinkers ; for instance no Greek philosopher 

 would have separated faith from reason. In the 

 well-known words of Hippocrates, "ovSev erepov 

 erepov Qeiorepov ov& avOpwiriVtorepov, a\\a Trdvra 

 Beta." " The Greek boldly set up his academy by the 

 side of the temple." Even Protagoras never taught 

 the futility of all reason, nor even the inconstancy 

 of sensation which indeed is doctrine rather than 

 scepticism. Neo-platonism had its scepticism in the 

 first two forms, covering even the ground of the 

 modern agnostic. Agnosticism does not deny the 

 existence of the ladder, but asserts that the ladder 

 begins and ends in the clouds ; it is consistent there- 

 fore with ethical and practical activity. When 

 Abelard said "Dubitando enim ad inquisitionem 

 venimus, inquirendo veritatem percipimus," if a 

 sceptic, he was no infidel. Even in the thirteenth 

 century it was never doubted that truth is attain- 

 able, nor indeed that the Faith contained the truth. 

 The scepticism of that age was rather cautious and 

 controversial than faithless, and in practice divine 

 discontent rather than indifference (drapa^ia). 

 Pyrrhonism on the other hand leads to slackness 

 of ethics ; either to the insouciance of Horace and 

 Montaigne, or to the attitude of the seventeenth 



62 



