in contrast to the earlier ones which related almost entirely,
with the exception of the tenth, to material objects. Sextus
claims that these five Tropes also lead to the suspension of
judgment,[4] but their logical result is rather the dogmatic
denial of all possibility of knowledge, showing as Hirzel has
well demonstrated, far more the influence of the New Academy
than the spirit of the Sceptical School.[5] It was the
standpoint of the older Sceptics, that although the search for
the truth had not yet succeeded, yet they were still seekers,
and Sextus claims to be faithful to this old aim of the
Pyrrhonists. He calls himself a seeker,[6] and in reproaching
the New Academy for affirming that knowledge is impossible,
Sextus says, "Moreover, we say that our ideas are equal as
regards trustworthiness and untrustworthiness."[7] The ten
Tropes claim to establish doubt only in regard to a knowledge of
the truth, but the five Tropes of Agrippa aim to logically prove
the impossibility of knowledge. It is very strange that Sextus
does not see this decided contrast in the attitude of the two
sets of Tropes, and expresses his approval of those of Agrippa,
and makes more frequent use of the fifth of these, [Greek: ho
diallelos], in his subsequent reasoning than of any other
argument.[8]

[1] _Hyp._ I. 169.

[2] _Hyp._ I. 170-171.

[3] _Adv. Math._ VIII. 185-186; VIII. 56; VII. 369.

[4] _Hyp._ I. 177.

[5] Hirzel _Op. cit._ p. 131.

[6] _Hyp._ I. 3, 7.

[7] _Hyp._ I. 227.

[8] See Index of Bekker's edition of Sextus' works.

We find here in the Sceptical School, shortly after the time of
Aenesidemus, the same tendency to dogmatic teaching that--so far
as the dim and shadowy history of the last years of the New
Academy can be unravelled, and the separation of Pyrrhonism can
be understood, at the time that the Academy passed over into
eclecticism--was one of the causes of that separation.

It is true that the Tropes of Agrippa show great progress in the
development of thought. They furnish an organisation of the
School far superior to what went before, placing the reasoning
on the firm basis of the laws of logic, and simplifying the
amount of material to be used. In a certain sense Saisset is
correct in saying that Agrippa contributed more than any other
in completing the organisation of Scepticism,[1] but it is not
correct when we consider the true spirit of Scepticism with
which t