uld do, or not do, according to the
instructions he had received from his demon; and they who believed him,
and followed his advice, always found advantage by it; as, on the
contrary, they who neglected his admonitions, never failed to repent
their incredulity. Now, it cannot be denied but that he ought to have
taken care not to pass with his friends either for a liar or a visionary;
and yet how could he avoid incurring that censure if the events had not
justified the truth of the things he pretended were revealed to him? It
is, therefore, manifest that he would not have spoken of things to come
if he had not believed he said true; but how could he believe he said
true, unless he believed that the gods, who alone ought to be trusted for
the knowledge of things to come, gave him notice of them? and, if he
believed they did so, how can it be said that he acknowledged no gods?
He likewise advised his friends to do, in the best manner they could, the
things that of necessity they were to do; but, as to those whose events
were doubtful, he sent them to the oracles to know whether they should
engage in them or not. And he thought that they who design to govern
with success their families or whole cities had great need of receiving
instructions by the help of divinations; for though he indeed held that
every man may make choice of the condition of life in which he desires to
live, and that, by his industry, he may render himself excellent in it,
whether he apply himself to architecture or to agriculture, whether he
throw himself into politics or economy, whether he engage himself in the
public revenues or in the army, yet that in all these things the gods
have reserved to themselves the most important events, into which men of
themselves can in no wise penetrate. Thus he who makes a fine plantation
of trees, knows not who shall gather the fruit; he who builds a house
cannot tell who shall inhabit it; a general is not certain that he shall
be successful in his command, nor a Minister of State in his ministry; he
who marries a beautiful woman in hopes of being happy with her knows not
but that even she herself may be the cause of all his uneasinesses; and
he who enters into a grand alliance is uncertain whether they with whom
he allies himself will not at length be the cause of his ruin. This made
him frequently say that it is a great folly to imagine there is not a
Divine Providence that presides over these things, and that
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