Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​Therefore the cause as well would only be conceived in thought; since, if indeed it is a cause, it ought to have that of which it is said to be the cause, since [otherwise] it will not be a cause. And just as a father, if that in relation to which he is called a father is not present, would not be a father, so too is the cause; but that in relation to which the cause is conceived is not present, for neither is there generation nor destruction nor anything else; therefore there is no cause. Furthermore, if there is a cause, either a body is the cause of a body, or an incorporeal of an incorporeal; but it is neither of these; therefore there is no cause. A body, then, could not be the cause of a body, since both have the same nature; and if the one is called a cause in so far as it is a body, the remaining one too, being a body, will become a cause.

​And if both are causes in common, there will be nothing that is affected. Nor could an incorporeal be the cause of an incorporeal for the same reason; and an incorporeal is not the cause of a body, since nothing incorporeal produces a body; nor could a body be the cause of an incorporeal, because that which is generated ought to be of passive matter; but that which suffers nothing by virtue of being incorporeal could not even be generated by anything. There is, therefore, no cause. Along with this is co-introduced the thesis that the principles of all things are non-subsistent; for there must be something that produces and acts. Moreover, neither is there motion; for that which moves moves either in the place where it is, or in the place where it is not; and in the place where it is, it does not move, nor does it move in the place where it is not; therefore there is no motion.

​They also used to abolish learning. If indeed, they say, anything is taught, either that which exists is taught by virtue of its being, or that which does not exist by virtue of its not being. But neither is that which exists taught by virtue of its being—for the nature of existing things appears and is known to all—nor is that which does not exist taught by virtue of its not being; for nothing belongs accidentally to that which does not exist, so that neither does being taught. Moreover, they say, neither is there generation. For neither does that which exists come to be, for it already is, nor that which does not exist, for it does not even subsist; and that which neither subsists nor exists has not even attained to coming to be.

​And there is nothing naturally good or bad; for if anything is naturally good and bad, it ought to be good or bad for all, just as snow is cold to all; but there is nothing common to all that is good or bad; therefore there is nothing naturally good or bad. For either all that is opined by someone must be called good, or not all; and all must not be called good, since the same thing is opined to be good by one person, as pleasure by Epicurus, and bad by another, as by Antisthenes. It will follow, therefore, that the same thing is both good and bad. But if we say that not all that is opined by someone is good, it will be necessary for us to judge between the opinions; which is not possible on account of the equipollence of arguments. The naturally good, therefore, is unknown.

​It is also possible to understand the entire manner of their collection from the treatises that have been left behind. For Pyrrho himself left nothing, but his associates Timon, Aenesidemus, Numenius, Nausiphanes, and others of this kind did. Contradicting these, the Dogmatists say that they themselves apprehend and dogmatize; for in that wherein they seem to refute, they apprehend; and indeed, in the very same thing they confirm and dogmatize. For even when they say that they determine nothing and that to every argument an argument is opposed, these very things they both determine and dogmatize.