The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

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THE STOIC CREED
pass into the pre-adapted pores, and thereby produce
the sensation of vision. So that it is not the object
itself that we directly see in visual perception, but the
images from it. Between the percipient and the
external object come the material species or forms ;
thereby rendering sense-perception an indirect or repre
sentative process. Nevertheless, as the images are
material effluxes from bodies, perception, though in
direct, is trustworthy ; just as our knowledge of a
person from his portrait solely is, to that extent, trust
worthy. In this way, Sensation may very well be
taken as the Criterion of Truth at any rate, it is the
highest criterion that we have, and the testimony of
the senses cannot be gainsaid. We must stand some
where ;
we cannot help taking something as true. For,
as Lucretius puts it, if
any one thinks that nothing can
be known, he is
ignorant also of whether that [namely,
that nothing can be known] can be known, since
he confesses that he knows nothing
;
and he refuses
to argue with such a man, inasmuch as he occupies
an inverted position (iv. 468-470). In other words,
absolute scepticism is suicidal. You must, therefore,
assume truth somewhere ;
and this somewhere reflec
tion and experience prove to be the senses.
But may not the senses be refuted ? No ;
for what
would be the means of refutation ? Not reason ;
for
reason has arisen from the senses, and if these be false,
so too must it be. Not the senses themselves, set in
opposition one against the other ;
for each sense has
its own faculty and its own province and cannot be
interfered with by any of the others the ears cannot
refute the eyes, or the touch the ears, or the taste the