288 l//-22
out qualities, so that he says,^15 "cold by custom, hot by custom; atoms
and void in truth," and again, "in truth we know nothing; for truth is
in the depths."^16 Also, Plato who, although he grants truth to the gods
and their sons, seeks [for himself] only a likely explanation.^17
- Euripides says/^8 "Who knows if life is death? Mortals think that
dying is living?" So too Empedocles:^19 "Thus these things are neither
beheld nor heard nor grasped with the mind by men;" and before that,
"each one is persuaded only by that which he confronts." And even
Heraclitus:^20 "Let us not agree carelessly about the most important mat-
ters." And even Hippocrates showed himself a mere doubting mortal.
And before them all was Homer: "Pliant is the tongue of man, full of
many tales" and "There is a great range of words, here and there" and
"Whatever word you utter returns to you in kind,"^21 referring to the
equal force of contradictory words. - The sceptics, then, spent their time overturning all the dogmas of
the schools, whereas they themselves make no dogmatic pronouncements,
and while they presented and set out in detail the views of others, they
themselves expressed no determinate opinions, not even this itself [that
they had no determinate opinions]. Thus, they even abolished the position
of holding no determinate opinion, saying, for example, "we determine
nothing" since otherwise they would be determining something; but,
they say, they produce the pronouncements [of others] to display their
absence of rashness, so that they could show this even if they inclined
[to the view]. Thus, by means of the utterance "we determine nothing,"
they indicate the state of equilibrium [in their souls] and similarly, by
means of the utterance "no more this than that" and the utterance "for
every argument there is an opposing argument" and similar utterances. - Now "no more this than that" can also be understood positively,
indicating that certain things are similar. For example, "the pirate is no
more wicked than is a liar." But the sceptics say this negatively, not
positively, as in refuting someone by saying "Scylla no more exists than
does the Chimera." The words "more than" are sometimes used compara-
tively, as when we say "honey has more sweetness than grapes." Some- - See B 125.
- B 117.
- Timaeus 29c-d.
- Fr. 638 Nauck.
- B 2.7-8, 5.
- B 47.
- Iliad 20.248-250.