and Junius,
were worthy of all punishment when they put to sea in opposition to the
auspices; for men must obey religion, nor can the customs of our country
be set aside so easily."[299] No stronger motive for adhering to
religious observances can be put forward than the opinion of the people
and the good of the State. There will be they who aver that truth is
great and should be allowed to prevail. Though broken worlds should fall
in disorder round their heads, they would stand firm amid the ruins. But
they who are likely to be made responsible will not cause worlds to be
broken.

Such, I think, was the reasoning within Cicero's mind when he wrote
these treatises. In the first he encounters his brother Quintus at his
Tusculan villa, and there listens to him discoursing in favor of
religion. Quintus is altogether on the side of the gods and the
auspices. He is, as we may say, a gentleman of the old school, and is
thoroughly conservative. In this way he has an opportunity given him of
showing the antiquity of his belief. "Stare super vias antiquas," is the
motto of Quintus Cicero. Then he proceeds to show the two kinds of
divination which have been in use. There is the one which he calls
"Ars," and which we perhaps may call experience. The soothsayer predicts
in accordance with his knowledge of what has gone before. He is asked to
say, for instance, whether a ship shall put to sea on a Friday. He
knows--or thinks that he knows, or in his ignorance declares that he
thinks that he knows--that ships that have put to sea on Friday have
generally gone to the bottom. He therefore predicts against the going to
sea. Although the ship should put forth on the intended day, and should
make a prosperous voyage, the prophet has not been proved to be false.
That can only be done by showing that ships that have gone to sea on
Friday have generally been subject to no greater danger than others--a
process which requires the close observations of science to make good.
That is Art. Then there is the prediction which comes from a mind
disturbed--one who dreams, let us say, or prophesies when in a fit--as
the Sibyl, or Epimenides of Crete, who lived one hundred and fifty-seven
years, but slept during sixty-four of them. Quintus explains as to these
that the god does not desire mankind to understand them, but only to use
them.[300]

He tells us many amusing details as to prophetic dreams and the doings
of soothsayers and wise men. The book