Chap. 55.] LAWS OF LIGHTNIIfa. 85 



quicker than the lightning^ on which account it is that every- 

 thing is shaken and blcwTi up before it is struck, and that a 

 person is never injui'ed Avheu he has seen the lightning and 

 heard the thunder; Thunder on the left hand is supposed 

 to be luckv, because the east is on the left side of the hea- 

 vens". We do not regard so much the mode in which it comes 

 to us, as that in which it leaves us, whether the fire rebounds 

 after the stroke, or whether the current of air returns when 

 the operation is concluded and the fire is consumed. In rela- 

 tion to this object the Etrurians have divided the heavens into 

 sixteen parts^. The first great division is fi'om north to east ; 

 the second to the south ; the third to the west, and the fourth 

 occupies what remains from west to north. Each of these has 

 been subdivided into four parts, of which the eight on the east 

 have been called the left, and those on the west the right divi- 

 sions. Those which extend from tlie west to the north have 

 been considered the most unpropitious. It becomes therefore 

 very important to ascertain from what quarter the thunder 

 proceeds, and in what dii'ection it falls. It is considered a 

 very favourable omen when it returns into the eastern divi- 

 sions. But it prognosticates the greatest felicity when the 

 thunder proceeds from the first-mentioned part of the heavens 

 and falls back into it ; it was an omen of tliis kind which, as we 

 have heard, w as given to Sylla, the Dictator. The remaining 

 quarters of the heavens are less propitious, and also less to 

 be dreaded. There are some kinds of thunder which it is 

 not thought right to speak of, or even to listen to, unless 

 when they have been disclosed to the master of a family or 

 to a parent. But the futility of this observation was de- 

 tected when the temple of Juno was struck at Eome, during 



* The following I'emark of Seneca may be referred to, both as illustra- 

 ting our author and as showing how much more correct the opinions of 

 Seneca were than his ovm., on many points of natiu-al philosophy ; 



" necesse est, ut mipetus fulrainis et pra;mittat spirit us, et agat ante 



Be, et a tergo trahat ventum ....;" Nat. Qusest. hb. ii. § 20. p. 706. 



2 "quoniam lava parte munch ortus est." On this passage Hardouin 

 remarks ; " a Deoruin scde, quum in meridiem spectes, ad suiistram sunt 

 partes mundi exoi'icntcs ;" Lemaire, i. 353. Poiusinet enters into a long 

 detail respcctmg opinions of the ancients on tliis pomt and the circum- 

 stances wliicli induced them to form their opuiions ; i. 3 i et scq. 



•* See Cicero de Divui. il 42. 



