hanes, Zeno, and
Democritus, Sceptics, and also Plato,[2] while Sextus, in regard
to all of these men, opposes the idea that they were
Sceptics.[3] Diogenes also calls Heraclitus a Sceptic, and even
Homer,[4] and quotes sceptical sayings from the Seven Wise
Men;[5] he includes in the list of Sceptics, Archilochus,
Euripides, Empedocles, and Hippocrates,[6] and, furthermore,
says that Theodosius, probably one of the younger Sceptics,
objected to the name 'Pyrrhonean' on the ground that Pyrrho was
not the first Sceptic.[7]

[1] _Hyp._ I. 232.

[2] Diog. IX. 11, 17-72.

[3] _Hyp._ I. 213-214; I. 223-225.

[4] Diog. IX. 11, 71.

[5] Diog. IX. 11, 71.

[6] Diog. IX. 11, 71-73.

[7] Diog. IX. 11. 70.

We have given the testimony from many sources to the effect that
before the time of Sextus the Empirical School of Medicine was
considered identical with Scepticism, although not so by Sextus
himself. From all of these things we may infer a narrowing of
the limits of Pyrrhonism in the time of Sextus.

Let us accept with Brochard the development of thought seen in
Aenesidemus from the beginning to the end of his career, without
agreeing with him that Aenesidemus ever consciously changed his
basis. He was a Sceptic in the Academy. He left the Academy on
that account, and he remained a Sceptic to the end, in so far as
a man can be a Sceptic, and take the positive stand that
Aenesidemus did.

Two things might account for his apparent dogmatism--

(i) The eclectic spirit of his time.

(ii) The psychological effect upon himself of this
careful systemisation of the Sceptical teachings.

Let us consider the first of these causes. Aenesidemus, although
not the first of the later Sceptics, was apparently the first to
separate himself from the Academy. He was the founder of a new
movement, the attempt to revive the older Scepticism as taught
by Pyrrho and Timon, and separate it from the dogmatic teachings
of the Stoics which were so greatly affecting the Scepticism of
the New Academy. It was the spirit of his time to seek to
sustain all philosophical teaching by the authority of as many
as possible of the older philosophers, and he could hardly
escape the tendency which his training in the Academy had
unconsciously given him. Therefore we find him trying to prove
that the philosophy of Heraclitus follows from Scepticism. It is
not necessary either to explain the matter, as both Hirzel