dealing with any problem regarding an author on the basis of
internal evidence, we have no right to consider one of his
statements worthy of weight, and another one unworthy, on the
supposition that he expressed himself carelessly in the second
instance. Rather must we attempt to find his true standpoint by
fairly meeting all the difficulties offered in apparently
conflicting passages. This has been attempted by Zeller,
Brochard, Natorp and others, with the general result that all
things considered they think without doubt that Sextus belonged
to the Empirical School.[1] His other references are too strong
to allow his fidelity to it to be doubted. He is called one of
the leaders of Empiricism by Pseudo-Galen, and his only medical
work bore the title [Greek: empeirika hupomnêmata.] The opinion
of the writers above referred to is that the passage which we
have quoted from the _Hypotyposes_ does not necessarily mean
that Sextus was not an Empiricist, but as he was more of a
Sceptic than a physician, he gave preference to those doctrines
that were most consistent with Scepticism, and accordingly
claimed that it was not absolutely necessary that a Sceptic
physician should be an Empiricist. Natorp considers that the
different standpoint from which Sextus judges the Empirical and
Methodical Schools in his different works is accounted for on
the supposition that he was an Empiricist, but disagreed with
that school on the one point only.[2] Natorp points out that
Sextus does not speak more favourably of the medical stand of
the Methodical School, but only compares the way in which both
schools regarded the question of the possibility of knowledge,
and thinks that Sextus could have been an Empiricist as a
physician notwithstanding his condemnation of the attitude of
the Empirical School in relation to the theory of knowledge.