[200]. Ptolemy made a fair retort to this argument by holding that foreknowledge, even if it could not enable us to avoid the coming event, at least served the purpose of breaking the news gently and saving us the more vivid shock which the actual event, if unexpected, would cause by its raw reality.
[201]. See T. Schiche, De Fontibus Librorum Ciceronis qui sunt de Divinatione, (Jena, 1875) and K. Hartfelder, Die Quellen von Ciceros zwei Büchern de Divinatione (Freiburg, 1878).
[202]. Bk. i, ch. 39. “Neque ante philosophiam patefactam, quae nuper inventa est, hac de re communis vita dubitavit; et postea, quam philosophia processit, nemo aliter philosophus sensit, in quo modo esset auctoritas. Dixi de Pythagora, de Democrite, de Socrate; excepi de antiques praeter Xenophanem neminem; adiunxi veterem academiam, peripateticos, stoicos. Unus dissentit Epicurus.” This trust in tradition, it may be here observed, formed one of the chief grounds for mediæval belief in magic as well.
[203]. Bk. ii, ch. 11. “Hoc ego philosophi non arbitror, testibus uti, qui aut casu veri aut malitia falsi fictique esse possunt. Argumentis et rationibus oportet quare quidque ita sit docere, non eventis, iis praesertim quibus mihi liceat non credere.”
[204]. Bk. ii, ch. 33. “Errabat enim multis in rebus antiquitas.”
[205]. Bk. ii, ch. 36.
[206]. As Tully (bk. ii, ch. 5) puts it, “Quae enim praesentiri aut arte aut ratione aut usu aut conjectura possunt, ea non divinis tribuenda putas sed peritis.”
[207]. Bk. i, ch. 50.
[208]. Bk. ii, chs. 3, 4.
[209]. We saw Pliny use “mathematicae artes” as an equivalent of divination or astrology.