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"What sort of cleverness is it, then, that would
attempt by sophistry to overthrow facts that antiquity
has established? I fail—you tell me—to discover
their cause. That, perhaps, is one of Nature's
hidden secrets. God has not willed me to know
the cause, but only that I should use the means
which he has given. Therefore, I will use them and
I will not allow myself to be persuaded that the
whole Etruscan nation has gone stark mad on the
subject of entrails, or that these same people are
in error about lightnings, or that they are false
interpreters of portents; for many a time the rumblings and roarings and quakings of the earth have
given to our republic and to other states certain
forewarnings of subsequent disaster.
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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