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THE SECOND BOOKE 220
That ignorance which knoweth, judgeth, and condemned
it selfe, is not an absolute ignorance : for
to be so, she must altogether be ignorant of her selfe.
80 that the profession of the Pyrrhonians is ever to
waver, to doubt, and to enquire ; never to be assured
of any thing, nor to take any warrant of himself. Of
the three actions or faculties of the soule, that is to
say, the imaginative, the concupiscible, and the consenting,
they allow and conceive the two former : the
last they hold and defend to be ambiguous, without
inclination or approbation either of one or other side,
be it never so light. Zeno in jesture painted forth his
imagination upon this division of the soules faculties :
the open and outstretched hand was apparance; the
hand halfe-shut, and fingers somewhat bending, consent;
the fist closed, comprehension : if the fist of the left
hand were closely clinched together, it signified Science.
Now this situation of their judgement, straight and
inflexible, receiving all objects with application or
consent, leads them unto their Ataraxie, which is the
condition of a quiet and settled life, exempted from
the agitations which we receive by the impression of
the opinion and knowledge we imagine to have of
things; whence proceed feare, avarice, envie, immoderate
desires, ambition, pride, superstition, love of
novelties, rebellion, disobedience, obstinacie, and the
greatest number of corporall evils : yea, by that meane
they are exempted from the jealousie of their owne
discipline, for they contend but faintly: they feare
nor revenge nor contradiction in the disputations.
When they say that heavy things descend downward,
they would be loth to be beleeved, but desire to be
contradicted, thereby to engender doubt and suspence
of judgement, which is their end and drift. They put
forth their propositions but to contend with those they
imagine wee hold in our conceipt. If you take theirs,
then will they undertake to maintaine the contrarie :
all is one to them, nor will they give a penny to chuse.
If you propose that snow is blacke, they will argue on
the other side that it is white. If you say it is neither