and competent to judge as I am.
Opinion we may have, but certainty and knowledge are impossible. Hence
our attitude to things (the third question), ought to be complete
suspense of judgment. We can be certain of nothing, not even of the
most trivial assertions. Therefore we ought never to make any positive
statements on any subject. And the Pyrrhonists were careful to import
an element of doubt even into the most trifling assertions which they
might make in the course of their daily life. They did not say, "it is
so," but "it seems so," or "it appears so to me." Every observation
would be prefixed with a "perhaps," or "it may be."

This absence of certainty applies as much to practical as to
theoretical matters. Nothing is in itself true or false. It only
appears so. In the same way, nothing is in itself good or evil. It is
only opinion, custom, law, which makes it so. When the sage realizes
this, he will cease to prefer one course of action to another, and the
result will be apathy, _"ataraxia."_ All action is the result of
preference, and preference is the belief that one thing is better than
another. If I go to the north, it is because, for one reason or
another, I believe that it is better than going to the south. Suppress
this belief, learn that the one is not in reality better than the
other, but only appears so, and one would go in no direction at all.
Complete suppression of opinion would mean complete {364} suppression
of action, and it was at this that Pyrrho aimed. To have no opinions
was the sceptical maxim, because in practice it meant apathy, total
quietism. All action is founded on belief, and all belief is delusion,
hence the absence of all activity is the ideal of the sage. In this
apathy he will renounce all desires, for desire is the opinion that
one thing is better than another. He will live in complete repose, in
undisturbed tranquillity of soul, free from all delusions. Unhappiness
is the result of not attaining what one desires, or of losing it when
attained. The wise man, being free from desires, is free from
unhappiness. He knows that, though men struggle and fight for what
they desire, vainly supposing some things better than others, such
activity is but a futile struggle about nothing, for all things are
equally indifferent, and nothing matters. Between health and sickness,
life and death, difference there is none. Yet in so far as the sage is
compelled to act, he will follow probability, opin