Pyliaeus, John Christopher, a Moravian itiner- ant and missionary among the Indians, was born April 25, 1713, at Pausa, in Swabia, graduated at the Univer- sity of Leipsic, and immigrated to America in 1740. After having spent a part of the year 1743 in the Mo- hawk country, in order to learn its language and cus- toms, he opened a so-called " Indian school" at Bethle- hem, Pa., in which he prepared young men for mission- ary service among the aborigines, and, in particular, taught them the Mohawk tongue. The illustrious Da- vid Zeisberger (q. v.) was one of his pupils. He con- tinued such instructions at GnadenhUtten, a missionary settlement in Pennsylvania, whither he removed in 1747, taking part at the same time in the work of the mission. Besides translating a number of hymns into the Mo- hawk, he wrote three valuable treatises on this lan- guage, which, however, were never printed. The MSS. are deposited in the library of the American Philosophi- cal Society, Philadelphia. In 1751 he went to England, where he labored in the ministry for nearlv twenty Years. He died at Herrnhut, Saxony, May 28, 1785. (E. *de S.)
Pyrrlio (Uvppiov), a Greek philosopher of much eminence, is especially noted as the founder of the Pyr- rhonian or first Sceptic school of Greece. He was the son of Pleistarchus. or Pleistocrates, and a native of Elis, a town of Peloponnesus. He lived about the time of Philip and Alexander of Macedonia, and was originally a poor painter; but, after having learned the elements of science from Dryson,he followed Alexander the Great in his Eastern expedition, and thus became acquainted with the doctrines of the Indian gymnosophists and the Persian magi (Diog. Laert. ix, 11. 2). He was also an ardent admirer of Democritus. During the greater part of his life he dwelt in quiet retirement, abstaining from pronouncing any decided opinion upon anything, and endeavoring to preserve the greatest calmness and composure in whatever circumstances he was placed. Notwithstanding this apparently inactive and indolent mode of life, he was highly honored by his country- men, who not only made him their high-priest, but, for his sake, decreed that all philosophers should be exempt from payment of taxes (Diog. Laert. ix, 11,5). Pau- sanias (vi, 24, 4) saw his statue in a portico at Elis, and a monument erected in honor of him at a little distance from the town. The Athenians honored him with the franchise of their city. He died at the advanced age of ninety. Cicero (not so far wrongly either) ranks him
PYRRIIONII
826
PYTHAGORAS
among the Socratics; and, indeed, he was as much op- posed to the pretensions of the Sophists as Socrates him- Belf, though from a differenl poinl of view. An undis- turbed peace of mind (airaSria) appeared to Pyrrho the highest objecl of philosophy; and, thinking that this peace of mind was disturbed by the dogmatic systems and the disputes of all other philosophic schools, be was led i" scepticism ; bul he was by no means ofthat class oi thorough-going scepticism which is usually associat- ed with his li. -inic. ami which i- synonymous with abso- lute and unlimited infidelity. He simply considered a real scientific knowledge of things to be altogether im- possible. His fundamental principle was. thai there is nothing true or false, right or wrong, honest or dishon- est, just <>r unjust; that there is no standard in any- thing, hut that all things depend upon law and custom, and that uncertainty and doubt belong to everything. Yet, like the eminent modern German thinker, he ap- pears i" have tenaciously maintained the obligations of morality, and be declared virtue tn be the only thing worth striving after (Cicero, De Fin. iv. 16). < In all occasions, t herefore, he answered his opponents, " What
yuii say may lie true, hut I cannot decide." This and
other similar expressions drew upon him the ridicule of
his adversaries; and most of the absurd anecdotes re- specting his conduct in the common occurrences of life, whi( h Diogenes repeats with all the credulity of a gos- sip, are probably the fabrications of Ids opponents, made for the purpose ofridiculing Pyrrho. He had many dis- tinguished followers and disciples, who are called Pyr- rkonii, or -imply Sceptics: some of them are mentioned and characterized by Diogenes Laertiust i\. c.7,etc, and c.12; comp. Gellius, xi, 5; and Cicero, Dt 0?'at.iii,17). Their doctrines and mode of reasoning are seen clean si in the works of SextusEmpiricus: their object was rath- er to overthrow all other systems than to establish anew one: hence we can scarcely speak of a school of I'vr- rhonists, inasmuch as they opposed every schooL The whole philosophy of Pyrrho and his followers is called Pyrrhonism a name which in subsequent times has hi en applied to any kind of scepticism, though the Pyr-
rhonian philosophy in realitj is, as we have seen above, only one particular, and an elementary, form of scepti- cism. Cicero, in several passages, -peaks of the philos- ophy of Pyrrho as long exploded and extinct. Pyrrho himself is said by some ancient authors to have lefl no works l" hind him; the tropes or epochs, or fundamen- tal principles of his philosophy, being justly ascribed to one or more of his followers. Bul Sextus Empiricus (Adv. Math. i. 282) says that he wrote a poem address- ed to Alexander the Great, for which he was richly re- warded; and Athenseus (x,p. H9) quotes a passage from