(no subject)

[timelets]

Again: is it possible for us to doubt the prophetic value of lightning? Have we not many instances of its marvels?

--- Cicero, On Divination. Book 1:10.

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cicero/de_Divinatione/1*.html

I refer to divination, which is the foreseeing and foretelling of events considered as happening by chance. Now let us see, if you will, what efficacy it has and what its nature is. My own opinion is that, if the kinds of divination which we have inherited from our forefathers and now practise are trustworthy, then there are gods and, conversely, if there are gods then there are men who have the power of divination."


"Why, my dear Quintus," said I, "you are defending the very citadel of the Stoics in asserting the interdependence of these two propositions: 'if there is divination there are gods,' and, 'if there are p235 gods there is divination.'15 But neither is granted as readily as you think. For it is possible that nature gives signs of future events without the intervention of a god, and it may be that there are gods without their having conferred any power of divination upon men."

ibid.