[3] Hyp. I. 30; Diog.  IX. 11, 61.

    [4] Adv.  Math. XI. 146-160.

    [5] Hyp. I. 27.

    [6] Hyp. I. 28.

Ataraxia came to the Sceptic as success in painting the foam on a horse’s mouth came to Apelles the painter.  After many attempts to do this, and many failures, he gave up in despair, and threw the sponge at the picture that he had used to wipe the colors from the painting with.  As soon as it touched the picture it produced a representation of the foam.[1] Thus the Sceptics were never able to attain to ataraxia by examining the anomaly between the phenomena and the things of thought, but it came to them of its own accord just when they despaired of finding it.

The intellectual preparation for producing ataraxia, consists in placing arguments in opposition to each other, both in regard to phenomena, and to things of the intellect.  By placing the phenomenal in opposition to the phenomenal, the intellectual to the intellectual, and the phenomenal to the intellectual, and vice versa, the present to the present, past, and future, one will find that no argument exists that is incontrovertible.  It is not necessary to accept any statement whatever as true, and consequently a state of [Greek:  epoche] may always be maintained.[2] Although ataraxia concerns things of the opinion, and must be preceded by the intellectual process described above, it is not itself a function of the intellect, or any subtle kind of reasoning, but seems to be rather a unique form of moral perfection, leading to happiness, or is itself happiness.

    [1] Hyp. I. 28, 29.

    [2] Hyp. I. 32-35.

It was the aim of Scepticism to know nothing, and to assert nothing in regard to any subject, but at the same time not to affirm that knowledge on all subjects is impossible, and consequently to have the attitude of still seeking.  The standpoint of Pyrrhonism was materialistic.  We find from the teachings of Sextus that he affirmed the non-existence of the soul,[1] or the ego, and denied absolute existence altogether.[2] The introductory statements of Diogenes regarding Pyrrhonism would agree with this standpoint.[3]

There is no criterion of truth in Scepticism.  We cannot prove that the phenomena represent objects, or find out what the relation of phenomena to objects is.  There is no criterion to tell us which one is true of all the different representations of the same object, and of all the varieties of sensation that arise through the many phases of relativity of the conditions which control the character of the phenomena.

Every effort to find the truth can deal only with phenomena, and absolute reality can never be known.

    [1] Adv.  Math. VII. 55; Hyp. II. 32.

    [2] Adv.  Math. XI. 140.

    [3] Diog.  IX. 11, 61.

CHAPTER III.