Plutarch Perikles 6: Anaxagoras and the Ram

A story is told that once on a time the head of a one-horned ram was brought to Pericles from his country-place, and that Lampon the seer, when he saw how the horn grew strong and solid from the middle of the forehead, declared that, whereas there were two powerful parties in the city, that of Thuycidides and that of Pericles, the mastery would finally devolve upon one man, - the man to whom this sign had been given. Anaxagoras, however, had the skull cut in two, and showed that the brain had not fille dout its position, but had drawn together to a point, like an egg, at that particular spot in the entire cavity where the root of the horn began. At that time, the sotry says, it was Anaxagoras who won the plaudits of the bystanders; but a little while after it was Lampon, for Thuycidides was overthrown, and Pericles was entrusted with the entire control of all the interests of the people.

Now there was nothing, in my opinion, to prevent both of them, the naturalist and the seer, from being in the right of the matter; the one correctly divined the cause, the other the object of purpose. It was the proper province of the one to observe why anyting happens, and how it comes to be what it is; of the other to declare for what purpose anything happens, and what it means. And those who declare that the discovery of the cause, in any phenomenon, does away with the meaning, do not perceive that they are doing away not only with divine portents, but also with artificial tokens . . . Each of these has been made, through some causal adaptation, to have some meaning.