Note 77 — Chapter XXIII · THE NEW ACADEMY.

This free criticism of dogmatic views could not fail to bring Carneades to the same result as his predecessors. Knowledge is absolutely impossible. A man of sense will look at everything from all sides and invariably withhold judgment, thus guarding himself against error.77 And to this conviction he clings so persistently that he altogether refuses to listen to the objection that the wise man must be at least convinced of the impossibility of any firm conviction.78 The earlier Sceptics, far from attributing on this ground an equal value to all notions, had not dispensed with reasons for actions and