Note 134 — Chapter XIII · THE RELATION OF THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY TO RELIGION.

(3) Causes of divination. Divination, or soothsaying, consists in the capacity to read and interpret omens;134 and this capacity is, according to the Stoics, partly a natural gift, and partly acquired by art and study.135 The natural gift of prophecy is based, as other philosophers had already laid down,136 on the relationship of the human soul to God.137 Sometimes it manifests itself in sleep, at other times in ecstasy.138 A taste for higher revelations will be developed, in proportion as the soul is withdrawn from the world of sense, and from all thought respecting things external.139 The actual cause of the prophetic gift was referred to influences coming to the soul partly from God or the universal spirit diffused throughout the world,140 and partly from the souls which haunt the air or demons.141 External causes, however, contribute to put people in a state of enthusiasm.142