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the objects is like in its own nature and all by itself, but [only] what it
appears to be like in a relative sense. It follows that we must suspend
judgement about the nature of things.
- [9] We shall give the following kind of account of the mode which
employs constant or rare occurrences, which we say is ninth in order.
The sun is much more astounding than a comet; but since we see the
sun constantly and the comet rarely we are so astounded by the comet
that we regard it as a divine sign, but are not at all astounded by the
sun. If, however, we imagine the sun as appearing rarely and setting
rarely, and illuminating everything all at once and suddenly throwing
everything into shadows, then we shall see that there is a great deal of
astonishment in the thing .... - Since, therefore, the same things sometimes appear astounding
or impressive, and at other times not such, because they occur constantly
or rarely, we reason that we shall perhaps be able to say how each of
things appears in conjunction with constant or rare occurrence, but we
shall not be able to say what each of the external objects is like in itself.
So by this mode too we suspend judgement about them. - [10] The tenth mode, which has a particular application to ethics,
is that which employs the practices [of ordinary life], habits, laws, belief
in myths and dogmatic suppositions. A practice [of ordinary life], then,
is a choice of [way of] life or of some action which is made by some one
person or by many people, for example, by Diogenes or by the Spartans. - A law is a written contract between citizens, the violation of which
is punished; while a habit or custom (there is no difference) is the shared
acceptance by many men of some one thing, the violation of which is
not necessarily punished. For example, it is a law that one should not
commit adultery, but a custom with us that one should not copulate with
a woman in public. 147. Belief in myths is the acceptance of things which
never occurred and are made up, a particularly good example of which
is the myths told about Cronus. For they convince many people. A
dogmatic supposition is the acceptance of something on the basis of
analogical reasoning or some demonstration which seems to be effective,
for example, that atoms or homoiomeries or minimal parts or something
else are the elements of things. - We oppose each of these sometimes to itself and sometimes to
each of the others .... - It would have been possible to take many other examples for each
of above-mentioned oppositions. But these will suffice for a summary
account. But since there is such an inconsistency in things which is shown
by this mode too, we shall not be able to say what each object is like in
its nature, but we shall be able to say how it appears relative to this