The first and chief whose writings we possess are
Plato and Aristotle, between whom there was no difference, except
that the former, following in the footsteps of his master, Socrates,
ingenuously confessed that he had never yet been able to find
anything certain, and that he was contented to write what seemed to
him probable, imagining, for this end, certain principles by which
he endeavoured to account for the other things. Aristotle, on the
other hand, characterised by less candour, although for twenty years
the disciple of Plato, and with no principles beyond those of his
master, completely reversed his mode of putting them, and proposed
as true and certain what it is probable he himself never esteemed as
such. But these two men had acquired much judgment and wisdom by the
four preceding means, qualities which raised their authority very
high, so much so that those who succeeded them were willing rather
to acquiesce in their opinions, than to seek better for themselves.
The chief question among their disciples, however, was as to whether
we ought to doubt of all things or hold some as certain,--a dispute
which led them on both sides into extravagant errors; for a part of
those who were for doubt, extended it even to the actions of life,
to the neglect of the most ordinary rules required for its conduct;
those, on the other hand, who maintained the doctrine of certainty,
supposing that it must depend upon the senses, trusted entirely to
them.
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