SEXTUS EMPIRICUS. THE PYRRHONISTS. 283 



'cians, astrologers, musicians, and writers on physical and on ethical 

 subjects. 



The Pyrrhonic Institutes have been partially explained byM. Sorbiere 

 in his Lettres et Discours,' and by Le Clerc in his * Bibliotheque 

 Ancienne et Moderne (torn. xiv. p. i.), and have been translated into 

 English by Stanley, in his ' History of Philosophy.' The whole body 

 of ancient and modern Scepticism has been reviewed with considerable 

 attention by M. Crousaz in his ' Examen du Pyrrhonisme ;' a work in 

 which the fallacies of perverse ingenuity are refuted with that sound- 

 ness of reasoning which results from long discipline in habits of rigid 

 logic and accurate research. It is melancholy, however, to reflect, 

 that a keen insinuation, conveyed in one smart sentence, produces an 

 effect on the mind which a folio of elaborate discussion can with 

 difficulty remove. The lively versatility of Bayle is strikingly contrasted 

 by the cautious, and often prolix, and tedious method of his more 

 exact, but less able, opponent. The paradoxes of Sextus are more 

 easily detected and exposed ; but still the absence of that spirited 

 attack, which, neglecting all subordinate errors, seizes at once on the 

 most prominent, and strips them of their attractions with unrelenting 

 severity, render his dissertation, not perhaps less intrinsically valuable, 

 but less interesting and less popular. The first treatise of Sextus was Editions, &c. 

 translated by Henry Stephens, and the second by Gentian Hervet : these 

 translations contain some inaccuracies, arising chiefly from an inadequate 

 acquaintance with the peculiarities of the Stoic dialectics. 1 The best edi- 

 tion of the entire works of Sextus is undoubtedly the following : Sexti 

 Empirici ' Opera. Graece et Latine.' * Pyrrhoniarum Institutionum/ 

 lib. iii. cum Henrici Stephani versione et notis. ' Contra Mathemati- 

 cos, sive disciplinarum Professores,' lib. vi. contra Philosophos, lib. v. 

 cum versione Gentiani Herveti.' Graeca ex MSS. codicibus castigavit, 

 versiones emendavit supplevitque, et toti operi notas addidit Io.' Albert. 

 Fabricius, Lipsiensis, &c. Lipsiae, 1718, fol. Further information 

 may be found in Morhoff, ' Poly hist.' torn. ii. 1. i. c. 6 ; and in Fabri- 

 cii * Bibliotheca Grasca,' torn. v. p. 527, ed. Harles. 



1 Menage, who passes the highest praise on the works of Sextus, seems to have 

 been inclined to comply with the request of a learned friend, who urged him to 

 write observations on them : it is to be regretted that he was prevented from exe- 

 cuting a task for which his varied erudition rendered him eminently qualified. 

 See his Obs. in Diog. Laert. lib. ix. sec. 116. 



