[27]
Natural divination, on the other
hand, according to your view, is the result—'the
effusion,' as it were—of mental excitement, or it
is the prophetic power which the soul has during
[p. 401]
sleep while free from bodily sensation and worldly
cares. Moreover, you derived every form of divination from three sources—God, Fate, and Nature.1
And although you could not give a reason for any
kind of divination, still you carried on the war by
marshalling an astonishing array of examples from
fiction.2 Of such a course I wish to say emphatically
that it is not becoming in a philosopher to introduce
testimony which may be either true by accident, or
false and fabricated through malice. You ought to
have employed arguments and reason to show that
all your propositions were true and you ought not
to have resorted to so-called occurrences—certainly
not to such occurrences as are unworthy of belief.
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