274 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 



Kuster, 1 Menage, 2 and Fabricius; 3 and defended by Hervetus, 4 G. 

 Vossius, 5 and Huet in his sceptical treatise on ' The Weakness of the 

 Human Mind.' The chief argument in its favour is drawn from the 

 circumstance, that the names of both philosophers, and also that of 

 their preceptor, Herodotus, are the same : to which it is easy to reply, 

 that several learned men, the two Zenos for instance, have borne the 

 same name, and that this very coincidence, by perplexing the inter- 

 preters, may have led them to assert that one Herodotus was master 

 to both. And, not to insist on the difference of their sirnames, the 

 rules of conduct which the philosophic emperor acknowledges he had 

 received from Sextus Chaeronensis, 6 rather tend to confirm the opinion 

 of those commentators who infer from a passage, somewhat ambi- 

 guous, in Capitolinus, 7 that he was a Stoic, and certainly seem less 

 likely to have formed the main subject of a Sceptic's instructions. 

 Sextus belonged to that sect in medicine called Empirics, who, judging 

 Nature to be incomprehensible, followed experience in preference to 

 reasoning. 8 His country is unknown : his works refute the assertion 

 of Suidas, that he was a native of Libya, 9 and indeed rather enable us 

 to discover where he did not, than where he didj live. His age may 

 perhaps be referred to the reign of the Emperor Commodus. 10 

 Works of The extant works of Sextus consist of three books of Pyrrhonic 



Institutes or Sketches, and ten, or, according to a different arrange- 

 ment, eleven books against the mathematicians, by which word are 

 meant all who profess any kind of knowledge. The former treatise is 

 designed to be a summary of the principles, method, and end of 

 Scepticism. In pursuance of our plan, therefore, we shall present 

 such an outline of its contents as may assist the reader in forming 

 some idea of the instruments employed by the ancient Pyrrhonists, 

 Avhen they attempted to destroy the basis of reasoning, and in dis- 

 covering the stamina of those modern systems which, in a more 

 expanded shape, have been maintained with the most refined subtilty 

 and address. 



Sextus begins his ' Institutes ' by dividing the ancient philosophers 



1 Ad Suid. torn. iii. p. 299. 2 In Observat. ad Diog. Laert. p. 444. 



3 Biblioth. Grsec. torn. v. p. 527. 4 In Prsef. ad Sext. Empiric. 



5 In Libr. de Phil. p. 99. 6 In Meditat. lib. i. c. 9. 



7 Audivit et Sextum Chseronensem Plutarchi nepotem, Junium Rusticum, Clau- 

 dium Maximum, et Cinnam Catulum, Stoicos. 



8 Sextus, indeed, maintains that the Methodic sect in medicine was more favour- 

 able to Pyrrhonism than the Empirical (Pyrrh. Hyp. lib. i.), whence Marsilius 

 Cognatus contends that he belonged to the former ; in which opinion he is seconded 

 by D. Le Clerc (Hist. Med. part ii. p. 378); but it is justly observed by Fabricius, 

 that the Sceptics never professed to follow their maxims in common life, and there- 

 fore not in the practice of medicine (Bibl. Grgec. ed. Harles. torn. v. p. 527). 



9 In lib. iii. sec. 213, of his Pyrrh. Instit., he contrasts the customs of his country 

 with those of the Libyans. 



10 Fabr. Bibl. Graec. torn. v. p. 527. Menage places Sextus Empiricus about the 

 time of Trajan and Adrian. (Obs. in Diog. Laert. p. 1.) Brucker refers his age to 

 the third century, in the reign of the emperor Severus. (Hist. Grit. Philos. p. 636.) 



