“
[9]
However, I am really at no loss for a reply
to his reasoning; for in the second book Lucilius
has made an adequate defence of religion and his
argument, as you yourself state at the end of the
third book,1 seemed to you nearer to the truth than
Cotta's. But there is a question2 which you passed
over in those books because, no doubt, you thought
it more expedient to inquire into it in a separate
discussion: 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.”
Cicero: De Senectute De Amicitia De Divinatione. With An English Translation. William Armistead Falconer. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1923.
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