ut weeping and groaning we suffer what we
do suffer, and we call them "circumstances." What kind of circumstances,
man? If you give the name of circumstances to the things which are
around you, all things are circumstances; but if you call hardships by
this name, what hardship is there in the dying of that which has been
produced? But that which destroys is either a sword, or a wheel, or the
sea, or a tile, or a tyrant. Why do you care about the way of going down
to Hades? All ways are equal. But if you will listen to the truth, the
way which the tyrant sends you is shorter. A tyrant never killed a man
in six months: but a fever is often a year about it. All these things
are only sound and the noise of empty names.

* * * * *

HOW WE OUGHT TO USE DIVINATION.--Through an unreasonable regard to
divination many of us omit many duties. For what more can the diviner
see than death or danger or disease, or generally things of that kind?
If then I must expose myself to danger for a friend, and if it is my
duty even to die for him, what need have I then for divination? Have I
not within me a diviner who has told me the nature of good and of evil,
and has explained to me the signs (or marks) of both? What need have I
then to consult the viscera of victims or the flight of birds, and why
do I submit when he says, It is for your interest? For does he know what
is for my interest, does he know what is good; and as he has learned the
signs of the viscera, has he also learned the signs of good and evil?
For if he knows the signs of these, he knows the signs both of the
beautiful and of the ugly, and of the just and of the unjust. Do you
tell me, man, what is the thing which is signified for me: is it life or
death, poverty or wealth? But whether these things are for my interest
or whether they are not, I do not intend to ask you. Why don't you give
your opinion on matters of grammar, and why do you give it here about
things on which we are all in error and disputing with one another?

What then leads us to frequent use of divination? Cowardice, the dread
of what will happen. This is the reason why we flatter the diviners.
Pray, master, shall I succeed to the property of my father? Let us see:
let us sacrifice on the occasion. Yes, master, as fortune chooses. When
he has said, You shall succeed to the inheritance, we thank him as if we
received the inheritance from him. The consequence is that they play