Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/524

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
LATER SCHOOLS, SCEPTICS.
469

constituted intelligence; fourthly, The object of thought or cognition is different from the thought or cognition of which it is the object; the thought or cognition is that alone of which we can be certain; we can have no certainty in regard to the object, for here there is a wide interval between the objective and the subjective; fifthly, There is no standard of morality, because this will shift with the varying tastes and sensibilities of individuals or of nations.

14. You may ask for what end or purpose these arguments leading to these conclusions have been set on foot? The answer is, that these arguments are designed to bring us into a condition of indisturbance or quietude of mind, ἀταραξία. Seeing the fact established by good reasons, that nothing is to be known, that certainty is unattainable, we shall be disposed to settle down in placid contentment with a lot from which there is no escape, and an ill for which there is no remedy. Perceiving our ignorance to be inevitable, we shall live in a state of ἀταραξία, or mental indisturbance; and of μετριοπάθεια, or moderation of the desires. That, say the Sceptics, is the good end which is brought about by our Sceptical exercitations.

15. In this paragraph I shall merely enumerate the names of the schools which flourished between the death of Aristotle and the rise of the Neoplatonic or Alexandrian philosophy. These schools were the Academic, founded by Plato; the Peripatetic, founded