Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/522

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LATER SCHOOLS, SCEPTICS.
467

express a figure of speech. Of these tropes or Sceptical arguments Sextus enumerates ten as belonging to the earlier Sceptics, of whom Pyrrho was the chief, and five as belonging to the later Sceptics, fifteen in all. Of the ten tropoi of Pyrrho, I may cite two or three specimens. The first is, that the tribes of living creatures, including man, are so various, and are organised so differently, that they must and do derive very different impressions from the same objects, that no one of these impressions has a better title than any other to be regarded as representing the real nature of the object, and that, therefore, we must remain for ever in ignorance of what the object in itself is. A second argument is, that, putting other creatures aside, the senses and intelligences even of human beings are found to differ widely, and therefore, inasmuch as the reports of all of them cannot be true in reference to the same objects, and further, inasmuch as no one man has a better title than any other to set himself up as the standard of what is true, the conclusion is that objective reality is beyond our grasp. A third argument is, that our senses are not consistent with themselves, for one sense will relish what another sense dislikes, and conversely. Hence we cannot say whether the thing is agreeable or disagreeable in itself, (This argument seems a poor one.) A fourth argument is, that things affect us differently, according as we are in health or out of health. To a man suffering from jaundice, all things taste bitter. They are not bitter, however, in