SEXTUS EMPIRICUS. THE SCEPTICAL 

 PHILOSOPHY. 



FLOURISHED circtter A. c. 190. 



THE Sceptical Philosophy, as developed in the writings of Sextus 

 Empiricus, forms one of the most curious portions in the history of 

 the human mind, and it is on this account that we have separated his 

 name from those of the other writers who flourished under the Anto- 

 riini. To mark by what process and through what gradations an 

 entire deviation from the general opinions and feelings of mankind was 

 effected, is in itself a study neither destitute of interest, nor unproduc- 

 tive of utility. But in a work intended to exhibit in one distinct and 

 comprehensive view the rise and advancement, and multifarious rela- 

 tions of science, it is peculiarly necessary to describe the nature of that 

 system which attempts to overthrow the fundamental principles of 

 universal knowledge. To little purpose indeed have we laboured to 

 sketch the magnificent structure which the genius of ages has raised 

 and adorned, if it be but an unsubstantial fabric, which vanishes at the 

 approach of scrutiny. 



The causes, from which a tendency to perpetual doubt was first Causes of 

 derived, have been variously sought, in the affectation of superior p y rrhon)sm - 

 acuteness ; in the confusion of ill-directed studies ; in the habit of 

 sophistical disputation ; in the attractions of brilliant paradox ; and, 

 above all, in the extreme difficulty of separating truth from falsehood, 

 strangely as they are intermixed and scattered in a mass of diversified 

 opinions. But most commonly excessive scepticism springs, as by a 

 kind of reaction from excessive dogmatism. " If a man will begin 

 with certainties, he shall end in doubts," is an observation of the 

 great reformer of learning, in his examination of the different disorders 

 which have checked its growth and perverted its application. 1 And 

 Socrates has shown, 2 with that simplicity and clearness with which he 

 unfolded the most complicated operations of the mind, that, as an un- 

 natural aversion to mankind arises in general from a detection of 

 treachery in those persons in whom confidence had been reposed, so a 

 settled distaste for all reasoning originates in a discovery of unsound- 

 ness in those arguments on which reliance had been placed. It is in- Probable 

 deed impossible to consider that singular union of ignorance, presump- 

 tion, and obstinacy, which characterised the ancient dogmatists, without 



1 Lord Bacon, Of the Advancement of Learning, book i. p. 31. 



2 In Phadon. 



