Note 1 — Chapter XXIII · THE NEW ACADEMY.

(1) Denial of knowledge. it took a fresh lease of life. Instead, however, of simply ignoring theoretical knowledge, as it had hitherto done, it assumed towards knowledge an attitude of opposition, hoping to arrive at security and happiness in life by being persuaded of the impossibility of knowledge. How far this result was due to the example set by Pyrrho it is impossible to establish authoritatively. But it is not in itself probable that the learned originator of this line of thought in the Academy should have ignored the views of a philosopher whose work had been carried on at Elis in his own lifetime, and whose most distinguished pupil, a personal acquaintance of his own, was then working at Athens as a prolific writer.1 The whole tone and character, moreover, of the Scepticism of the New Academy betrays everywhere the presence of Stoic influences. By the confidence of its assertions it provokes contradiction and doubt, without its being necessary to seek an explanation by improbable conjectures as to the personal relations of Arcesilaus and Zeno.2