find hard to accept. Xenophanes is so sure of the difficulties involved in acquiring true knowledge that he has been called the first Skeptic. He was the first to argue systematically that there is a difference between belief and knowledge. He proposed that aiming for certain knowledge in the case of matters that were not evident was hazardous—indeed, even if humans do accidentally hit on the truth about such matters, they have no way of knowing for certain that it is true. He does not, however, deny that it is worth trying, by persistent inquiry, to increase human knowledge.
