Book 9
11.72
Furthermore, they find Xenophanes, Zeno of Elea, and Democritus to be sceptics: Xenophanes because he says,Fr. 34 D. Clear truth hath no man seen nor e’er shall know; and Zeno because he would destroy motion, saying, A moving body moves neither where it is nor where it is not; Democritus because he rejects qualities, saying, Opinion says hot or cold, but the reality is atoms and empty space, and again, Of a truth we know nothing, for truth is in a well.This proverbial expression is inadequate; a more literal rendering of ἐν βύθῳ would be in an abyss. Plato, too, leaves the truth to gods and sons of gods, and seeks after the probable explanation.Tim. 40 d. Euripides saysNauck, T.G.F.2, Eur. 638; Polyid. Fr. 7.:
11.73
Who knoweth if to die be but to live, And that called life by mortals be but death? So too EmpedoclesFr. 2, l. 7.: So to these mortal may not list nor look Nor yet conceive them in his mind; and before thatIb. l. 5.: Each believes naught but his experience. And even Heraclitus: Let us not conjecture on deepest questions what is likely.Fr. 47 D., 48 B. Then again Hippocrates showed himself two-sided and but human. And before them all HomerIl. xx. 248-250.: Pliant is the tongue of mortals; numberless the tales within it; and Ample is of words the pasture, hither thither widely ranging; and And the saying which thou sayest, back it cometh later on thee, here he is speaking of the equal value of contradictory sayings.
