To learn, therefore, the existence of the Gods, and of what description and character they are, I must apply elsewhere, not to the Stoics.
Let us proceed to the two other parts of our dispute: first, "whether there is a divine providence which governs the world;" and lastly, "whether that providence particularly regards mankind;" for these are the remaining propositions of your discourse; and I think that, if you approve of it, we should examine these more accurately.

With all my heart, says Velleius, for I readily agree to what you have hitherto said, and expect still greater things from you.
I am unwilling to interrupt you, says Balbus to Cotta, but we shall take another opportunity, and I shall effectually convince you.
But[272] * * * XXVI.
Shall I adore, and bend the suppliant knee, Who scorn their power and doubt their deity?
Does not Niobe here seem to reason, and by that reasoning to bring all her misfortunes upon herself?
But what a subtle expression is the following! On strength of will alone depends success; a maxim capable of leading us into all that is bad.
Though I'm confined, his malice yet is vain, His tortured heart shall answer pain for pain; His ruin soothe my soul with soft content, Lighten my chains, and welcome banishment! This, now, is reason; that reason which you say the divine goodness has denied to the brute creation, kindly to bestow it on men alone.

How great, how immense the favor! Observe the same Medea flying from her father and her country: The guilty wretch from her pursuer flies.
By her own hands the young Absyrtus slain, His mangled limbs she scatters o'er the plain, That the fond sire might sink beneath his woe, And she to parricide her safety owe.
Reflection, as well as wickedness, must have been necessary to the preparation of such a fact; and did he too, who prepared that fatal repast for his brother, do it without reflection?
Revenge as great as Atreus' injury Shall sink his soul and crown his misery.
XXVII.

Did not Thyestes himself, not content with having defiled his brother's bed (of which Atreus with great justice thus complains, When faithless comforts, in the lewd embrace, With vile adultery stain a royal race, The blood thus mix'd in fouler currents flows, Taints the rich soil, and breeds unnumber'd woes)-- did he not, I say, by that adultery, aim at the possession of the crown?
Atreus thus continues: A lamb, fair gift of heaven, with golden fleece, Promised in vain to fix my crown in peace; But base Thyestes, eager for the prey, Crept to my bed, and stole the gem away.
Do you not perceive that Thyestes must have had a share of reason proportionable to the greatness of his crimes--such crimes as are not only represented to us on the stage, but such as we see committed, nay, often exceeded, in the common course of life?
The private houses of individual citizens, the public courts, the senate, the camp, our allies, our provinces, all agree that reason is the author of all the ill, as well as of all the good, which is done; that it makes few act well, and that but seldom, but many act ill, and that frequently; and that, in short, the Gods would have shown greater benevolence in denying us any reason at all than in sending us that which is accompanied with so much mischief; for as wine is seldom wholesome, but often hurtful in diseases, we think it more prudent to deny it to the patient than to run the risk of so uncertain a remedy; so I do not know whether it would not be better for mankind to be deprived of wit, thought, and penetration, or what we call reason, since it is a thing pernicious to many and very useful to few, than to have it bestowed upon them with so much liberality and in such abundance.

But if the divine will has really consulted the good of man in this gift of reason, the good of those men only was consulted on whom a well-regulated one is bestowed: how few those are, if any, is very apparent.