Page:The place of magic in the intellectual history of Europe.djvu/101

93] II. Cicero's attack upon divination.—A more satisfactory example of scepticism may be found in other chapters of the De Divinatione than those which assail the art of the Chaldeans. Moreover, although the discussion is limited to the specific theme of divination, still that is a subject which admits of very broad interpretation, and Cicero employs some arguments which are capable of an even wider application and oppose the hypotheses on which magic in general rests. He rejects divination as unscientific. It is to such arguments that we shall confine our attention. "Natural divination," that is, predictions made under direct divine inspiration without interposition of signs and portents, is not magic and so the discussion of it will not concern us. Much less shall we waste any time over such trite contentions against divination in general as that there is no use of knowing predetermined events since you cannot avoid them, and that even if we can learn the future we shall be happier not to do it.