Sextus Empiricus: General Principles 307
conduct, since we are not able to be completely inactive. It seems that
the rules of everyday conduct are divided into four parts: [1] the guidance
given by nature; [2] compulsion exercised by our states; [3] traditional
laws and customs; [4] the teaching of the crafts. 24. The guidance of
nature is that according to which we can naturally perceive and think.
The compulsion exercised by our states is that according to which hunger
leads us to food and thirst to drink; traditional laws and customs are
those according to which we accept pious living as good and improper
living as bad; the teaching of the crafts is that according to which we
are not inactive in the crafts we adopt. And we say all these things
undogmatically.
Ch. xii What is the Goal of Scepticism?
- Following these matters, we ought next to explain the goal of the
sceptical approach. A goal is that for the sake of which everything is
done or thought about, the goal itself not being for the sake of something
else; or it is that which is ultimately desired. We say most definitely that
the goal of the sceptic is the freedom from disturbance with respect to
matters of belief and also moderate states with respect to things that are
matters of compulsion. 26. For the sceptic, having begun to philosophize
in order to judge presentations and to try to grasp certain things as true
or false so that he could attain freedom from disturbance, tripped up on
the equal weight of incompatible [claims]; thereupon, not being able to
make a judgement, he suspended judgement. Finding himself in this
suspensive state, the freedom from disturbance with respect to beliefs
followed fortuitously. 27. For the one who believes that something is
honourable or bad by nature will be disturbed; whenever the things he
believes to be honourable are not before him, he believes that he has
inflicted upon himself the things that are by nature bad and he goes off
after the things which, according to him, are good; and when he possesses
them he stumbles into more disturbances because of his irrational and
immoderate elation, and fearing that things will soon change he will do
everything he can so that he might not lose the things he believes to be
good. 28. On the other hand, the man who determines nothing in regard
to things honourable or bad by nature does not flee or go after them
excessively. For this reason he has a freedom from disturbance.
In fact, the story about the painter Apelles also applies to the sceptic.
They say that when Apelles was painting a horse and wished to depict
the horse's froth, he was so unsuccessful that he gave up and flung at
the picture the sponge that he used to wipe off his brushes. The mark
made by the sponge produced a representation of the horse's froth. 29.
The sceptics hoped to attain a freedom from disturbance by judging the
