If, instead of denying the possibility of all
science because of the want of a criterion of the truth of
phenomena, the Pyrrhonists had comprehended the possibility of a
science of phenomena, they might have led the world in
scientific progress.[1] Their service to philosophy lay in the
stimulus to thought that their frequent attacks on dogmatic
beliefs occasioned. Pyrrhonism brought together all the most
prominent theories of the old schools of philosophy to test
their weakness and expose their contradictions, and this very
process of criticism often demonstrated the power of the truth
which they contained.
Sextus Empiricus was often charged by the Church Fathers with
corrupting religious belief, and yet the greatest service which
Pyrrhonism has rendered the world was in religious and ethical
lines. This service did not, naturally, consist in destroying
belief in absolute truth, as the Sceptic professed to do, but in
preparing the way to find it. The bold attacks of Scepticism on
all truth led men to investigate ethical and religious
teachings, to examine the grounds of their belief, and to put in
practical use the right of reason and free discussion.
Scepticism was the antecedent of freedom of conscience and
rational criticism,[2] and the absolute right of scientific
thought. The Sceptics, however, reaped none of the benefits of
their own system. They remained, as it were, always on the
threshold of possible progress. With the keys to great
discoveries in their hands, the doors of philosophical and
scientific advancement were for ever closed to them by the
limitations of their own system.
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