[22] M. Destutt Tracy observes, Logique, ch. ix. p. 347, ed. 1825:
“En effet, on ne saurait trop le redire, chacun de nous, et même tout être animé quelconque, est pour lui-même le centre de tout. Il ne perçoit par un sentiment direct et une conscience intime, que ce qui affecte et émeut sa sensibilité. Il ne conçoit et ne connaît son existence que par ce qu’il sent, et celle des autres êtres que parce qu’ils lui font sentir. Il n’y a de réel pour lui que ses perceptions, ses affections, ses idées: et tout ce qu’il peut jamais savoir, n’est toujours que des consequences et des combinaisons de ces premières perceptions ou idees.”
The doctrine of the Sceptical philosophers, is explicitly announced by Sextus Empiricus as his personal belief: that which appears true to him, as far as his enquiry had reached. The passage deserves to be cited.
Sextus Empir. Pyrrh. Hypotyp. i. Sect. 197-199.
Ὅταν οὖν εἴπῃ ὁ σκεπτικὸς “οὐδὲν ὁρίζω” … τοῦτό φησι λέγων τὸ ἑαυτῷ φαινόμενον περὶ τῶν προκειμένων, οὐκ ἀπαγγελτικῶς, μετὰ πεποιθήσεως ἀποφαινόμενος, ἀλλ’ ὃ πάσχει, διηγούμενος.… Καὶ ὥσπερ ὁ λέγων “περιπατῶ,” οὕτως ὁ λέγων “πάντα ἐστὶν ἀόριστα” συσσημαίνει καθ’ ἡμᾶς τὸ ὡς πρὸς ἐμε ἢ ὡς ἐμοὶ φαίνεται· ὡς εἶναι τὸ λεγόμενον τοιοῦτον “ὅσα ἐπηλθον τῶν δογματικῶς ζητουμένων, τοιαῦτά μοι φαίνεται, ὡς μηδὲν αὐτῶν τοῦ μαχομένου προὔχειν μοὶ δοκεῖν κατὰ πίστιν ἢ ἀπιστίαν”.
Each man believes others to be wiser on various points than himself — Belief on authority — not inconsistent with the affirmation of Protagoras.
This doctrine is not refuted by the fact, that every man believes others to be wiser than himself on various points. A man is just as much a measure to himself when he acts upon the advice of others, or believes a fact upon the affirmation of others, as when he judges upon his own unassisted sense or reasoning. He is a measure to himself when he agrees with others, as much as when he disagrees with them. Opinions of others, or facts attested by others, may count as materials determining his judgment; but the judgment is and must be his own. The larger portion of every man’s knowledge rests upon the testimony of others; nevertheless the facts thus reported become portions of his knowledge, generating conclusions in him and relatively to him. I believe the narrative of travellers, respecting parts of the globe which I have never seen: I adopt the opinion of A a lawyer, and of B a physician, on matters which I have not studied: I understand facts which I did not witness, from the description of those who did witness them. In all these cases the act of adoption is my own, and the grounds of belief are relative to my state of mind. Another man may mistrust completely the authorities which I follow: just as I mistrust the authority of Mahomet or Confucius, or various others, regarded as infallible by a large portion of mankind. The grounds of belief are to a certain extent similar, to a certain extent dissimilar, in different men’s minds. Authority is doubtless a frequent ground of belief; but it is essentially variable and essentially relative to the believer. Plato himself, in many passages, insists emphatically upon the dissensions in mankind respecting the question — “Who are the good and wise men?” He tells us that the true philosopher is accounted by the bulk of mankind foolish and worthless.
Analogy of physical processes (cutting and burning) appealed to by Sokrates — does not sustain his inference against Protagoras.
In the Kratylus, Sokrates says (and I agree with him) that there are laws of nature respecting the processes of cutting and burning: and that any one who attempts to cut or burn in a way unconformable to those laws, will fail in his purpose. This is true, but it proves nothing against Protagoras. It is an appeal to a generalization from physical facts, resting upon experience and induction — upon sensation and inference which we and others, Protagoras as well as Plato, have had, and which we believe to be common to all. We know this fact, or have a full and certain conviction of it; but we are not brought at all nearer to the Absolute (i.e., to the Object without Subject) which Plato’s argument requires. The analogy rather carries us away from the Absolute: for cutting and burning, with their antecedent conditions, are facts of sense: and Plato himself admits, to a great extent, that the facts of sense are relative. All experience and induction, and all belief founded thereupon, are essentially relative. The experience may be one common to all mankind, and upon which all are unanimous:[23] but it is not the less relative to each individual of the multitude. What is relative to all, continues to be relative to each: the fact that all sentient individuals are in this respect alike, does not make it cease to be relative, and become absolute. What I see and hear in the theatre is relative to me, though it may at the same time be relative to ten thousand other spectators, who are experiencing like sensations. Where all men think or believe alike, it may not be necessary for common purposes to distinguish the multiplicity of individual thinking subjects: yet the subjects are nevertheless multiple, and the belief, knowledge, or fact, is relative to each of them, whether all agree, or whether beliefs are many and divergent. We cannot suppress ourselves as sentient or cogitant subjects, nor find any locus standi for Object pure and simple, apart from the ground of relativity. And the Protagorean dictum brings to view these subjective conditions, as being essential, no less than the objective, to belief and disbelief.
[23] Proklus, in his Scholia on the Kratylus, p. 32, ed. Boisson, cites the argument used by Aristotle against Plato on this very subject of names — τὰ μὲν φύσει, παρὰ πᾶσι τὰ αὐτά· τὰ δὲ ὀνόματα οὐ παρὰ πᾶσι τὰ αὐτά· ὤστε τὰ φύσει ὄντα οὔκ ἐστιν ὀνόματα, καὶ τὰ ὀνόματα οὐκ εἰσι φύσει. Ammonius ad Aristot. De Interpretat. p. 100, a. 28, Schol. Bekk. Sextus Empiricus adv. Mathemat. i. 145-147, p. 247, Fab.