The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

disposition of Pyrrho, without losing his own power of eloquence. And he said too, that Epicurus, who admired the conversation and manners of Pyrrho, was frequently asking him about him. V. He was so greatly honoured by his country, that he was appointed a priest; and on his account all the philosophers were exempted from taxation. He had a great many imitators of his impassiveness; in reference to which Timon speaks thus of him in his Python, and in his Silli:— Now, you old man, you Pyrrho, how could you Find an escape from all the slavish doctrines And vain imaginations of the Sophists? How did you free yourself from all the bonds Of sly chicane, and artful deep persuasion? How came you to neglect what sort of breeze Blows round your Greece, and what’s the origin And end of everything? And again, in his Images, he says:— These things, my heart, O Pyrrho, longs to hear, How you enjoy such ease of life and quiet, The only man as happy as a God. And the Athenians presented him with the freedom of their city, as Diocles tells us, because he had slain Cotys, the Thracian. VI. He also lived in a most blameless manner with his sister, who was a midwife, as Eratosthenes relates, in his treatise on Riches and Poverty; so that he himself used to carry poultry, and pigs too if he could get any, into the market-place and sell them. And he used to clean all the furniture of the house without expressing any annoyance. And it is said that he carried his indifference so far that he even washed a pig. And once, when he was very angry about something connected with his sister (and her name was Philista), and some one took him up, he said, “The display of my indifference does not depend on a woman.” On another occasion, when he was driven back by a dog which was attacking him, he said to some one who blamed him for being discomposed, “That it was a difficult thing entirely to put off humanity; but that a man ought to strive with all his power to counteract circumstances with his actions if possible, and at all events with his reason.” They also tell a story that once, when some medicines of a consuming tendency, and some cutting and cautery was applied to him for some wound, that he never even contracted his brow. And Timon intimates his disposition plainly enough in the letters which he wrote to Python. Moreover, Philo, the Athenian, who was a friend of his, said that he was especially fond of Democritus; and next to him of Homer; whom he admired greatly, and was continually saying:— But as the race of falling leaves decay, Such is the fate of man.[132] He used also, as it is said, to compare men to wasps, and flies, and birds, and to quote the following lines:— Die then, my friend, what boots it to deplore? The great, the good Patroclus is no more. He, far thy better, was foredoom’d to die; And thou, doest thou bewail mortality?[133] And so he would quote anything that bore on the uncertainty and emptiness and fickleness of the affairs of man. Posidonius tells the following anecdote about him: that when some people who were sailing with him were looking gloomy because of a storm, he kept a calm countenance, and comforted their minds, exhibiting himself on deck eating a pig, and saying that it became a wise man to preserve an untroubled spirit in that manner. Numenius is the only writer who asserts that he used to deliver positive dogmas. VII. He had many eminent disciples, and among them Eurylochus, of whom the following defective characteristic is related; for, they say, that he was once worked up to such a pitch of rage that he took up a spit with the meat on it, and chased the cook as far as the market-place. And once in Elis he was so harassed by some people who put questions to him in the middle of his discourses, that he threw down his cloak and swam across the Alpheus. He was the greatest possible enemy to the Sophists, as Timon tells us. But Philo, on the contrary, was very fond of arguing; on which account Timon speaks of him thus:— Avoiding men to study all devoted, He ponders with himself, and never heeds The glory or disputes which harass Philo. Besides these disciples, Pyrrho also had Hecateus of Abdera, and Timon the Phliasian, who wrote the Silli, and whom we shall speak of hereafter; and also Nausiphanes, of Teos, who, as some say, was the master of Epicurus. VIII. All these men were called Pyrrhoneans from their master; and also doubters, and sceptics, and ephectics, or suspenders of their judgment, and investigators, from their principles. And their philosophy was called investigatory, from their investigating or seeking the truth on all sides; and sceptical from their being always doubting (σκέπτομαι), and never finding; and ephectic, from the disposition which they encouraged after investigation, I mean the suspending of their judgment (ἐποχὴ); and doubting, because they asserted that the dogmatic philosophers only doubted, and that they did the same. [And they were called Pyrrhoneans from Pyrrho himself.] But Theodosius, in his Chapters on Scepticism, contends, that we ought not to call the Pyrrhonean school sceptical; for since, says he, the motion and agitation of the mind in each individual is incomprehensible to others, we are unable to know what was the disposition of Pyrrho; and if we do not know it we ought not to be called Pyrrhoneans. He also adds that Pyrrho was not the original inventor of Scepticism, and that he had no particular dogma of any kind; and that, consequently, it can only be called Pyrrhonism from some similarity. Some say that Homer was the original founder of this school; since he at different times gives different accounts of the same circumstance, as much as any one else ever did; and since he never dogmatizes definitively respecting affirmation; they also say that the maxims of the seven wise men were sceptical; such as that, “Seek nothing in excess,” and that, “Suretyship is near calamity;” which shows that calamity follows a man who has given positive and certain surety; they also argue that Archilochus and Euripides were Sceptics; and Archilochus speaks thus:— And now, O Glaucus, son of Leptines, Such is the mind of mortal man, which changes With every day that Jupiter doth send. And Euripides says:— Why then do men assert that wretched mortals Are with true wisdom gifted; for on you We all depend; and we do everything Which pleases you. Moreover, Xenophanes, and Zeno the Eleatic, and Democritus were also Sceptics; of whom Xenophanes speaks thus:— And no man knows distinctly anything, And no man ever will. And Zeno endeavours to put an end to the doctrine of motion by saying: “The object moved does not move either in the place in which it is, or in that in which it is not.” Democritus, too, discards the qualities, where he says: what is cold is cold in opinion, and what is hot is hot in opinion; but atoms and the vacuum exist in reality. And again he says: “But we know nothing really; for truth lies in the bottom.” Plato, too, following them, attributes the knowledge of the truth to the Gods and to the sons of the Gods, and leaves men only the investigation of probability. And Euripides says:— Who now can tell whether to live may not Be properly to die. And whether that Which men do call to die, may not in truth Be but the entrance into real life? And Empedocles speaks thus:— These things are not perceptible to sight, Nor to the ears, nor comprehensible To human intellect. And in a preceding passage he says:— Believing nothing, but such circumstances As have befallen each. Heraclitus, too, says, “Let us not form conjectures at random, about things of the greatest importance.” And Hippocrates delivers his opinion in a very doubtful manner, such as becomes a man; and before them all Homer has said:— Long in the field of words we may contend, Reproach is infinite and knows no end. And immediately after:— Armed, or with truth or falsehood, right or wrong. (So voluble a weapon is the tongue), Wounded we wound, and neither side can fail, For every man has equal strength to rail:[134] Intimating the equal vigour and antithetical force of words. And the Sceptics persevered in overthrowing all the dogmas of every sect, while they themselves asserted nothing dogmatically; and contented themselves with expressing the opinions of others, without affirming anything themselves, not even that they did affirm nothing; so that even discarded all positive denial; for to say, “We affirm nothing,” was to affirm something. “But we,” said they, “enunciate the doctrines of others, to prove our own perfect indifference; it is just as if we were to express the same thing by a simple sign.” So these words, “We affirm nothing,” indicate the absence of all affirmation, just as other propositions, such as, “Not more one thing than another,” or, “Every reason has a corresponding reason opposed to it,” and all such maxims indicate a similar idea. But the phrase, “Not more one thing,” &c., has sometimes an affirmative sense, indicating the equality of certain things, as for instance, in this sentence, “A pirate is not worse than a liar.” But by the sceptics this is said not positively, but negatively, as for instance, where the speaker contests a point and says, “It was not Scylla, any more than it was Chimæra.” And the word “more,” itself, is sometimes used to indicate a comparison, as when we say, “That honey is more sweet than grapes.” And at other times it is used positively, and at the same time negatively, as when we say, “Virtue profits us more than hurts us;” for in this phrase we intimate that virtue does profit, and does not hurt us. But the Sceptics abolish the whole expression, “Not more than it;” saying, that “Prudence has not existence, any more than it has no existence.” Accordingly, then, expression, as Timon says in his Python, indicates nothing more than an absence of all affirmation, or of all assent of the judgment. Also the expression, “Every reason has a corresponding reason,” &c., does in the same manner indicate the suspension of the judgment; for if, while the facts are different, the expressions are equipollent, it follows that a man must be quite ignorant of the real truth. Besides this, to this assertion there is a contrary assertion opposed, which, after having destroyed all others, turns itself against itself, and destroys itself, resembling, as it were, those cathartic medicines which, after they have cleansed the stomach, then discharge themselves, and are got rid of. And so the dogmatic philosophers say, that all these reasonings are so far from overturning the authority of reason that they confirm it. To this the Sceptics reply, that they only employ reason as an instrument, because it is impossible to overturn the authority of reason, without employing reason; just as if we assert that there is no such thing as space, we must employ the word “space,” but that not dogmatically, but demonstratively; and if we assert that nothing exists according to necessity, it is unavoidable that we must use the word “necessity.” The same principle of interpretation did they adopt; for they affirmed that facts are not by nature such as they appear to be, but that they only seem such; and they said, that what they doubt is not what they think, for their thoughts are evident to themselves, but the reality of the things which are only made known to them by their sensations. The Pyrrhonean system, then, is a simple explanation of appearances, or of notions of every kind, by means of which, comparing one thing with