proved that all things fall out by necessity, that it may appear that
foreknowledge is a sign of this necessity. For otherwise, if there be no
necessity, neither can foreknowledge be the sign of that which is not.
Besides it is manifest that every firm proof must be drawn from
intrinsical and necessary causes and not from signs and other farfetched
arguments. But how is it possible those things should not happen which
are foreseen to be to come? As though we did believe that those things
will not be which providence hath foreknown and do not rather judge that
although they happen, yet by their own nature they had no necessity of
being, which thou mayest easily gather hence. For we see many things
with our eyes while they are in doing, as those things which the
coachmen do while they drive and turn their coaches and in like manner
other things. Now doth necessity compel any of these things to be done
in this sort?" "No. For in vain should art labour if all things were
moved by compulsion." "Wherefore, as these things are without necessity
when they are in doing, so likewise they are to come without necessity
before they be done. And consequently there are some things to come
whose event is free from all necessity. For I suppose no man will say
that those things which are done now were not to come before they were
done. Wherefore these things even being foreseen come freely to effect.
For as the knowledge of things present causeth no necessity in things
which are in doing, so neither the foreknowledge in things to come. But
thou wilt say: This is the question, whether there can be any
foreknowledge of those things whose events are not necessary. For these
things seem opposite, and thou thinkest that, if future things be
foreseen, there followeth necessity, if there be no necessity, that they
that are not foreknown, and that nothing can be perfectly known unless
it be certain. But if uncertain events be foreseen as certain, it is
manifest that this is the obscurity of opinion and not the truth of
knowledge. For thou thinkest it to be far from the integrity of
knowledge to judge otherwise than the thing is. The cause of which error
is because thou thinkest that all that is known is known only by the
force and nature of the things themselves, which is altogether
otherwise. For all that is known is not comprehended according to the
force which it hath in itself