Note 403 — Chapter II · THE HELLENIC PEOPLE GENERALLY, IN THE EARLY HISTORICAL TIMES.

See the argument of Cicero in favor of divination, in the first book of his valuable treatise De Divinatione. Chrysippus, and the ablest of the stoic philosophers, both set forth a plausible theory demonstrating, a priori, the probability of prophetic warnings deduced from the existence and attributes of the gods: if you deny altogether the occurrence of such warnings, so essential to the welfare of man, you must deny either the existence, or the foreknowledge, or the beneficence, of the gods (c. 38). Then the veracity of the Delphian oracle had been demonstrated in innumerable instances, of which Chrysippus had made a large collection: and upon what other supposition could the immense credit of the oracle be explained (c. 19)? “Collegit innumerabilia oracula Chrysippus, et nullum sine locuplete teste et auctore: quæ quia nota tibi sunt, relinquo. Defendo unum hoc: nunquam illud oraculum Delphis tam celebre clarumque fuisset, neque tantis donis refertum omnium populorum et regum, nisi omnis ætas oraculorum illorum veritatem esset experta.... Maneat id, quod negari non potest, nisi omnem historiam perverterimus, multis sæculis verax fuisse id oraculum.” Cicero admits that it had become less trustworthy in his time, and tries to explain this decline of prophetic power: compare Plutarch, De Defect. Oracul.