ot according to Fate, neither
are they causes of consents; but if, because it imprints fantasies
leading to consent, the consents are said to be according to Fate,
how is it not contrary to itself, imprinting in the greatest matters
different imaginations and such as draw the understanding contrary ways?
For (they say) those who adhere to one of them, and withhold not their
consent, do amiss: if they yield to obscure things, they stumble; if to
false, they are deceived; if to such as are not commonly comprehended,
they opine. And yet one of these three is of necessity,--either that
every fantasy is not the work of Fate, or that every receipt and consent
of fantasy is faultless, or that Fate itself is not irreprehensible. For
I do not know how it can be blameless, proposing to us such fantasies
that not the resisting or going against them, but the following and
yielding to them, is blamable. Moreover, both Chrysippus and Antipater,
in their disputes against the Academics, take not a little pains to
prove that we neither act nor are incited without consent, saying, that
they build on fictions and false suppositions who think that, a proper
fantasy being presented, we are presently incited, without having either
yielded or consented. Again, Chrysippus says, that God imprints in us
false imaginations, as does also the wise man; not that they would have
us consent or yield to them, but only that we should act and be incited
with regard to that which appears; but we, being evil, do through
infirmity consent to such fantasies. Now, the perplexity and discrepancy
of these discourses among themselves are not very difficult to be
discerned. For he that would not have men consent but only act according
to the fantasies which he offers unto them--whether he be God or a
wise man--knows that the fantasies are sufficient for acting, and that
consents are superfluous. For if, knowing that the imagination gives us
not an instinct to work without consent, he ministers to us false and
probable fantasies, he is the voluntary cause of our falling and erring
by assenting to incomprehensible things.

END OF SEVEN-----------

THE EATING OF FLESH.

TRACT I. You ask of me then for what reason it was that Pythagoras
abstained from eating of flesh. I for my part do much wonder in what
humor, with what soul or reason, the first man with his mouth touched
slaughter, and reached to his lips the flesh of a dead animal, and
having set before