82 PHYSICAL SCIENCE BK. n 



tation, its deprecation. The first has regard to the 

 category in which it should be placed, the second to 

 divination, the third to the propitiation of the gods, 

 whose blessings we ought to ask and whose threats 

 we must avert by prayer. We must ask them to 

 fulfil their promises, pray them to remit their 

 threats. 



XXXIV 



1 PEOPLE are convinced that lightning possesses 

 sovereign power, because its occurrence destroys 

 the force of other portents. On the other hand, 

 whatever it portends is regarded as unalterable, and 

 the appearance of no other omen lessens its 

 import. Anything threatened by unfavourable 

 entrails or inauspicious birds will be cancelled by 

 favourable lightning. But any warning given by 

 lightning cannot be defeated by opposing entrail or 



2 omen. Now this belief seems to me mistaken. My 

 reason ? Simply that nothing can be truer than the 

 truth. If birds have truly foretold the future, the 

 omen cannot be nullified by lightning : if it can, 

 then it was not a true prophecy the birds uttered. 

 It is not bird and lightning whose force I am here 

 comparing, but two revelations of truth, which must 

 be equal in authority if they are equally intimations 

 of truth. Therefore, if the occurrence of lightning 

 destroys the indications given by priests or augurs, 

 there must have been a flaw in the inspection of the 



3 entrails or the observation of the auguries. It is 

 not a question of which of the two kinds of omen 

 possesses the more exalted or powerful character : if 

 both have furnished indications of truth, they are so 

 far equal. You would be quite justified in asserting 



