Note 1011 — Chapter III

Flourished about B. C. 366. The Cyrenaïc system resembles in most points those of Heracleitus and Protagoras, as given in Plato’s Theætetus. The doctrines that a subject only knows objects through the prism of the impression which he receives, and that man is the measure of all things, are stated or implied in the Cyrenaïc system, and lead at once to the consequence, that what we call reality is appearance; so that the whole fabric of human knowledge becomes a fantastic picture. The principle on which it rests, viz. that knowledge is sensation, is the foundation of Locke’s Modern Ideology, though he did not perceive its connexion with the consequences to which it led the Cyrenaïcs. To revive these was reserved for Hume. Smith’s Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.