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Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism by Mary Mills Patrick
page 39 of 196 (19%)

[2] _Hyp._ I. 30.

[3] _Hyp._ I. 30; Diog. IX. 11, 61.

[4] _Adv. Math._ XI. 146-160.

[5] _Hyp._ I. 27.

[6] _Hyp._ I. 28.

Ataraxia came to the Sceptic as success in painting the foam on
a horse's mouth came to Apelles the painter. After many attempts
to do this, and many failures, he gave up in despair, and threw
the sponge at the picture that he had used to wipe the colors
from the painting with. As soon as it touched the picture it
produced a representation of the foam.[1] Thus the Sceptics were
never able to attain to ataraxia by examining the anomaly
between the phenomena and the things of thought, but it came to
them of its own accord just when they despaired of finding it.

The intellectual preparation for producing ataraxia, consists in
placing arguments in opposition to each other, both in regard to
phenomena, and to things of the intellect. By placing the
phenomenal in opposition to the phenomenal, the intellectual to
the intellectual, and the phenomenal to the intellectual, and
_vice versa_, the present to the present, past, and future, one
will find that no argument exists that is incontrovertible. It
is not necessary to accept any statement whatever as true, and
consequently a state of [Greek: epochĂȘ] may always be
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