LACYDES.

(Joke on his Scepticism.)

Lacydes, a Greek philosopher, born at Cyrene, was the disciple of Arcesilas, and his successor in the academy. What Numenius relates of his pyrrhonism looks altogether like a pleasant tale. Here is the substance of what he says. Lacydes discovered a great stinginess in his way of living; he trusted nothing to his servants; his pantry was inaccessible to them; he put in, and took out of it himself, what there was occasion for, and never left it open; but that he might not be troubled with the key, he put it in a hole, which he sealed up, and then he threw his seal into the pantry through the hole of the lock. His servants, having discovered this, easily, and as much as they pleased, tricked him. It was no difficult thing for them to get the key, and to place it again where he had put it, and to seal up the hole. They eat, they drank, they robbed him as they thought fit, and laughed at him into the bargain. He on his part very easily perceived the diminution of his wine and provisions; and not knowing where to lay

the fault, he remembered the doctrine of Arcesilas, who taught that our senses and our reason comprehended nothing, and he attributed the vacuum of his bottles and baskets to that incomprehensibility. Thus he began to philosophise in Arcesilas’s school, against the certainty of human knowledge. Nay, he made use of that domestic experience to prove, that he had reason to suspend his judgment in every thing. “I will not allege a hearsay,” said he one day, gravely to one of his friends; “I know by experience what I am going to tell you; I can speak of it without any doubt.” Hereupon he told him from one end to the other the adventure of his buttery. “What,” continued he,“could Zeno say against an argument of this force, which has so clearly demonstrated to me the Acatalepsia? Have not I reason to mistrust every thing, when having shut, sealed, unsealed, and opened again my pantry with my own hands, I cannot find what I had left in it? I only find my seal there, which will not permit me to believe that I am robbed.” When he came to that part, his friend could hold no longer; he broke out into such a fit of laughter, as made the philosopher perceive his blunder, and resolve to look to his seal better. His servants did not trouble their heads about it; and whether they had learned from the Stoics or elsewhere, to dispute with him, they unsealed his key, without troubling themselves to put the same seal on again. They put on another, and sometimes none at all. It vexed him when he saw their roguery; but they maintained they had never meddled with the seal, and that he had forgotten to put it on. He made long discourses to let them see that he well remembered he had sealed it, and went so far as to swear it. “You have a mind,” answered they, “to divert yourself, and to laugh at our simplicity. A philosopher, like you, has neither opinions nor memory; for you maintained the other day, that memory was an opinion.” He confuted them with reasons different from those of the academics; but they had recourse to a Stoic, who taught them how to reply to their master, and to elude all his arguments by the doctrine of incomprehensibility, which they did with a great deal of pleasant humour. The worst of it was, that they continued to rob his provisions, and Lacydes perceiving that his goods vanished away every day, found himself in great perplexity; his principles, instead of serving him were against him, and he was forced to behave himself like the vulgar. All the neighbourhood was filled with his clamours and complaints. He protested by all the gods and goddesses, that he was robbed; at last he took the resolution not to stir out, and to keep within sight of his buttery-door. What did he get by disputing with his servants? he made use of the method of the Stoics against them, and they answered him in the way of the academics, and beat him with his own weapons. At last, resolving to free himself once for all from the intolerable perplexity he was in, he ingenuously told his servants; “children, we dispute one way in the schools, and we live another way in our houses.”

This is a pretty story, and Mr de la Fontaine might have made it very diverting; but it is plain that it has been forged by a pious fraud of the Stoics. This has been a method used at all times, and in all places; people have always endeavoured, and do so still, to turn the doctrine and person of their adversaries into ridicule; and to that end a thousand fables are invented, if the least pretence can be found to strain maliciously the consequences of their opinions. This passion has been so blindly indulged against the Sceptics, that not only sincerity, but even probability has been laid aside; for they never denied, that in the ordinary conduct of life, men ought to trust to the testimony of their senses. They only denied, that the absolute nature of objects is just the same as it

appears to be. Note, that Diogenes Laertius is contented to observe, that our Lacydes having sealed the door of his pantry, threw his seal into it, and that his servants made use of the seal to steal his provisions without being discovered by him.—Art. Lacydes.