We are now to speak of predictions.

No one can avoid what is to come, and, indeed, it is commonly useless to know it; for it is a miserable case to be afflicted to no purpose, and not to have even the last, the common comfort, hope, which, according to your principles, none can have; for you say that fate governs all things, and call that fate which has been true from all eternity.

What advantage, then, is the knowledge of futurity to us, or how does it assist us to guard against impending evils, since it will come inevitably?
But whence comes that divination?
To whom is owing that knowledge from the entrails of beasts?
Who first made observations from the voice of the crow?
Who invented the Lots ?[245] Not that I give no credit to these things, or that I despise Attius Navius's staff, which you mentioned; but I ought to be informed how these things are understood by philosophers, especially as the diviners are often wrong in their conjectures.

But physicians, you say, are likewise often mistaken.

What comparison can there be between divination, of the origin of which we are ignorant, and physic, which proceeds on principles intelligible to every one?
You believe that the Decii,[246] in devoting themselves to death, appeased the Gods.