CUAP. til.] iJATURli Of DiVl}^AT10». 1T5 



Rssistanjce of signs. Artificial divination is of two kinds, — 

 one arguing from causes, the other only from experiments 

 conducted by blind authority. The latter is generally super- 

 stitious. Such were the heathen doctrines about the inspec- 

 tion of entrails, the flight of birds, &c. ; and the formal astro- 

 logy of the Chaldeans was little better. Both kinds of 

 artificial divination spread themselves into various sciences. 

 The astrologer has his predictions from the aspects of the 

 stars; the physician, too, has his, as to death, recovery, and 

 the subsequent symptoms of diseases, from the urine, pulse, 

 aspect of the patient, &c, ; the politician also is not without 

 his predictions, — "0 urbem venalem, et cito perituram si 

 emptorem invenerit!"^ — the event of which prophecy haj)- 

 pened soon after, and was first accomplished in Sylla and 

 again in Caisar. But the predictions of this kind being not 

 to our present purpose, we refer them to their proper arts, 

 and shall here only treat of natural divination, proceeding 

 from the internal power of the soul. 



This also is of two kinds, — the one native, the other by 

 influx. The native rests upon this supposition, that the 

 mind abstracted or collected in itself, and not difiused in the 

 organs of the body, has from the natural power of its own 

 essence some foreknowledge of future things; and this ap- 

 pears chiefly in sleep, ecstasies, and the near approach of 

 death ; but more rarely in waking, or wlien the body is in 

 health and strength. And this state of the mind is com- 

 monly procured or promoted by abstinence, and principally 

 such things as withdraw the mind from exercising the func- 

 tions of the body, that it may thus enjoy its own nature 

 without any external interruption. But divination by influx 

 is grounded upon another supposition, viz., that the mind, 

 as a mirror, may receive a secondary illumination from the 

 foreknowledge of God and spirits, whereto likewise the above- 

 mentioned state and regimen of the body are conducive. 

 For the same abstraction of the mind causes it more power- 

 fully to use its own nature, and renders it more susceptive 

 of divine influxes, only in divinations by influx the soul is 

 seized with a kind of rapture, and as it were impatience of 



» "0 city set to sale, whose destruction is at hand, if it find 

 a purchaser ! " uttered by Jugurfcba, on leaving Rome. Sallust'f 

 Jugurtha, 35 > 



