Mental imperturbability (arapaEia) was the result to be attained by cultivating such a frame of mind.
It seems also true that the Academics were less overborne than the Pyrrhonists by the practical issue of their doubts (imperturbability); their interest was more purely intellectual, and they had something of the old delight in mental exercitation for its own sake (see Arcesilaus, Carneades, Aenesidemus, Agrippa and Sextus Empiricus).
The secret of success, here as elsewhere, is the writer's marvellous imperturbability in paradox, his teeming imagination and his rigid logic. Grant his premises, and all the rest follows; his world may be turned topsy-turvy, but the relative situation of its contents is unchanged.
Pyrrho concludes that, since nothing can be known, the only proper attitude is imperturbability (ataraxia).
But there is a limit of imperturbability, and when that limit is reached, the subsequent passion is desperately vehement.
