Sextus Empiricus

, an ancient Greek author, and most acute defender of the Pyrrhonian or sceptical philosophy, was a physician, and seems to have flourished under the reign of Cornmodus, or perhaps a little later. He was, against what has usually been imagined, a different person from Sextus, a Stoic philosopher of Cseronea, and nephew of Plutarch: but no particular circumstances of his life are recorded. Of a great many, that have perished, two works of his are still extant: three books of “Institutes of Pyrrhonism,” and ten books against the “Mathematics,” by whom he means all kinds of dogmatists. His works discover great erudition, and an extensive acquaintance with the ancient systems of philosophy; and, on this account chiefly, Brucker says, merit an attentive perusal. Henry Stephens first made, and then printed in 1592, 8vo, a Latin version from the Greek of the former of these works; and a version of the latter, by Hervetus, had been printed by Plantin in 1569. Both these versions were printed again with the Greek; which first appeared at Geneva in 1621, folio, but the best edition of Sextus Empiricus is that of John Albert Fabricius, in Greek and Latin, Leipsic, 1718, folio. ²