Chapter XXVI

There are many other contentious innovations also, which may be the subject of wonder. But some one may justly be astonished at the contrariety of opinions produced by admitting either that the truth of divination is with enchanters, the whole of which subsists in mere appearances alone, but has no real existence; or that it is with those who are incited by passion or disease, since every thing which they have the boldness to utter is fraudulently asserted. For what principle of truth, or what auxiliary of intelligence, either smaller or greater, can there be in those who are thus insane? It is necessary, however, not to receive truth of 186 such a kind as that which may be fortuitous; for this, it is said, may happen to those that are rashly borne along. Nor must such truth be admitted as that which subsists between agents and patients, when they are concordantly homologous with each other; for truth of this kind is present with the senses and imaginations of animals. Hence this truth has nothing peculiar, or divine, or superior to common nature. But the truth of divination is established in energy with invariable sameness, has the whole knowledge of beings present with it, and is connascent with the essence of things. It likewise employs stable reasons, and perfectly, aptly, and definitely knows all things. This truth, therefore, is adapted to divination. Hence, it is very far from being a certain natural prescience, such as the preperception which is inherent in some animals of earthquakes and rain. For this arises from sympathy, when certain animals are moved in conjunction with certain parts and powers of the universe; or when, through the acuteness of a certain sense, they antecedently perceive things which happen in the air, before they accede to places about the earth. If, therefore, these assertions are true, though we derive from nature impressions by which we obtain a knowledge of things, or come into 187 contact with futurity, it is not proper to consider an impression of this kind as prophetic foreknowledge; but it is, indeed, similar to this knowledge, yet falls short of it in stability and truth, is conversant with that which frequently, but not always, happens, and apprehends the truth in certain, but not in all things. Hence, if there is a discipline which foresees the future in the arts, as, for instance, in the piloting or medical art, this does not all pertain to divine foreknowledge. For it conjectures the future by certain signs, and these such as are not always credible, nor such as have that of which they are the signs, connected with them with invariable sameness. But with divine providence, a stable knowledge of the future precedes; [and this is attended with] an immutable faith suspended from causes; an indissoluble comprehension of all things in all; and a perpetually abiding and invariable knowledge of all things as present and definite.