[31]
"Equally amusing is your story about Pherecydes,
who, after looking at some water just drawn from a
well, foretold an earthquake.1 It would be presumptuous enough, I think, for natural philosophers
to attempt to explain the cause of an earthquake
after it had happened; but can they actually tell,
from looking at fresh water, that an earthquake
is going to happen? Such nonsense is often heard
in the schools, but one does not have to believe
everything one hears.
1 Cf. i. 50. 112.
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