[1] I. ... because it relates to character, called in Greek ethos, while we usually term that part of philosophy 'the study of character,' but the suitable course is to add to the Latin language by giving this subject the name of 'moral science.' It is also necessary to expound the meaning and the theory of propositions, called in Greek axiomata; what validity these have when they make a statement about a future event and about something that may happen or may not is a difficult field of inquiry, entitled by philosophers Peri Dynaton; and the whole subject is Logike, which I call 'the theory of discourse.' The method which I pursued in other volumes, those on the Nature of the Gods, and also in those which I have published on Divination, was that of setting out a continuous discourse both for and against, to enable each student to accept for himself the view that seems to him most probable; but I was prevented by accident a from adopting it in the present discussion on the subject of Fate.
[2] For I was at my place at Puteoli, and my friend Hirtius, the consul designate, a very close friend of mine and a devoted student of the subjects that have occupied my life from boyhood, was in the neighbourhood. Consequently we were a great deal together, being engrossed as we for our part were in seeking for a line of policy that might lead to peace and concord in the state. For since the death of Caesar it had seemed as if a search was being made for every possible means of causing fresh upheavals, and we thought that resistance must be offered to these tendencies. Consequently almost all our conversation was spent in considering those matters,—and this both on many other occasions and also, on a day less occupied by engagements than usual and less interrupted by visitors, Hirtius having come to my house, we began with our daily and regular topics of peace and tranquillity.
[3] II. These dealt with, Hirtius remarked, "What now? I hope you have not actually abandoned your oratorical exercises, though you have undoubtedly placed philosophy in front of them; well then, is it possible for me to hear something?"
"Well," I said, "you can either hear something or say something yourself; for you are right in supposing that I have not abandoned my old interest in oratory, — indeed I have kindled it in you also, although you came to me an ardent devotee already; and moreover my oratorical powers are not diminished by the subjects that I now have in hand, but rather increased.[5] III. " ... a in some of which, for instance in the case of the poet Antipater, in that of persons born on the shortest day, or of brothers who are ill at the same time, in the cases of urine and finger-nails and other things of that kind, natural connexion operates, and this I do not exclude — it is not a predestined compelling force at all; but in other cases there can be some elements of chance, for instance with the shipwrecked sailor we spoke of, or Icadius, or Daphitas. Some cases even seem (if the master a will excuse my saying so) to be the invention of Posidonius; at all events they are ridiculous.
For consider: suppose it was Daphitas's destiny to fall off his horse and meet his end in that way, was it off this horse, which as it was not a real horse had a name that did not belong to it? or was it against these little four-in-hands on the sword-hilt that Philip used to be warned to be on his guard? just as if it was the hilt of a sword that killed him! Again, what is there remarkable about that nameless shipwrecked sailor's having fallen into a brook? although in his case indeed our authority does write that he had been warned that he was to meet his end in the water. Even in the case of the brigand Icadius I swear I can't see any trace of destiny; for the story does not say that he had any warning,[6] so that if a rock from the roof of a cave did fall on his legs, what is there surprising about it? for I suppose that even if Icadius had not been in the cave at the time, that rock would have fallen all the same, since either nothing at all is fortuitous or it was possible for this particular event to have happened by fortune.
[7] IV. "But let us give Posidonius the polite dismissal that he deserves and return to the subtleties of Chrysippus. And first let us answer him on the actual influence of connexion; the other points we will go on to afterwards. We see the wide difference between the natural characters of different localities: we notice that some are healthy, others unhealthy, that the inhabitants of some are phlegmatic and as it were overcharged with moisture, those of others parched and dried up; and there are a number of other very wide differences between one place and another. Athens has a rarefied climate, which is thought also to cause sharpness of wit above the average in the population; at Thebes the climate is dense, and so the Theban are stout and sturdy. All the same the rarefied air of Athens will not enable a student to choose between the lectures of Zeno, Arcesilas and Theophrastus, and the dense air of Thebes will not make a man try to win a race at Nemea rather than at Corinth.
[8] Carry the distinction further: tell me, can the nature of the locality cause us to take our walk in Pompey's Porch rather than in the Campus? in your company sooner than in someone else's? on the 15th of the month rather than on the 1st? Well then, just as the nature of the locality has some effect on some things but none on others, so the condition of the heavenly bodies may if you like influence some things, but it certainly will not influence everything.
[10] The Megarian philosopher Stilpo, we are informed, was undoubtedly a clever person and highly esteemed in his day. Stilpo is described in the writings of his own associates as having been fond of liquor and of women, and they do not record this as a reproach but rather to add to his reputation, for they say that he had so completely mastered and suppressed his vicious nature by study that no one ever saw him the worse for liquor or observed in him a single trace of licentiousness. Again, do we not read how Socrates was stigmatized by the 'physiognomist' Zopyrus, who professed to discover men's entire characters and natures from their body, eyes, face and brow? he said that Socrates was stupid and thick-witted because he had not got hollows in the neck above the collarbone — he used to say that these portions of his anatomy were blocked and stopped up; he also added that he was addicted to women — at which Alcibiades is said to have given a loud guffaw!
[11] But it is possible that these defects may be due to natural causes; but their eradication and entire removal, recalling the man himself from the serious vices to which he was inclined, does not rest with natural causes, but with will, effort, training; and if the potency and the existence of fate is proved from the theory of divination, all of these will be done away with.
VI. "Indeed, if divination exists, what pray is the nature of the scientific observations (I use the term 'observations' to render theoremata) which are its source? For I do not believe that those who practise divination dispense entirely with the use of observation in foretelling future events, any more than do the practitioners of all the other sciences in pursuing their own function.
[12] Well then, here is a specimen of the observations of the astrologers : 'If (for instance) a man was born at the rising of the dogstar, he will not die at sea.' Keep a good lookout, Chrysippus, so as not to leave your position undefended; you have a great tussle about it with that stalwart logician Diodorus. For if the connexion of propositions 'If anyone was born at the rising of the dogstar, he will not die at sea' is true, the following connexion is also true, ' If Fabius a was born at the rising of the dogstar, Fabius will not die at sea.' Consequently the propositions ' Fabius was born at the rising of the dogstar ' and ' Fabius will die at sea ' are incompatible, and since that he was born at the rising of the dogstar is predicated with certainty in the case of Fabius, the propositions ' Fabius exists' and ' Fabius will die at sea' are also incompatible. Therefore also ' Fabius exists and Fabius will die at sea ' is a conjunction of incompatibles, which as propounded is an impossibility. Therefore the proposition ' Fabius will die at sea ' belongs to the class of impossibilities. Therefore every false proposition about the future is an im3 possibility.
[14] For if the following is a true connexion, ' If you were born at the rising of the dogstar you will not die at sea,' and if the first proposition in the connexion, 'You were born at the rising of the dogstar,' is necessary (for all things true in the past are necessary, as Chrysippus holds, in disagreement with his master Cleanthes, because they are unchangeable and because what is past cannot turn from true into false) — if therefore the first proposition in the connexion is necessary, the proposition that follows also becomes necessary. Although Chrysippus does not think that this holds good universally; but all the same, if there is a natural cause why Fabius should not die at sea, it is not possible for Fabius to die at sea.
[15] VIII. "At this point Chrysippus gets nervous and expresses a hope that the Chaldaeans and the rest of the prophets are mistaken, and that they will not employ conjunctions of propositions putting out their observations in the form 'If anyone was born at the rising of the dogstar he will not die at sea,' but rather will say 'It is not the case both that some person was born at the rising of the dogstar and that that person will die at sea.' what amusing presumption! to avoid falling into the hands of Diodorus himself he tutors the Chaldaeans as to the proper form in which to set out their observations! For I ask you, if the Chaldaeans adopt the procedure of setting forth negations of indefinite conjunctions rather than indefinite sequences, why should it not be possible for doctors and geometricians and the other professions to do likewise? Take a doctor to begin with: he will not set forth a scientific principle that he has ascertained in this form, 'If a person's pulse is so and so, he has got a fever,' but rather as follows, 'It is not the case both that a person's pulse is so and so and that he has not got a fever.' And similarly a geometrician will not speak as follows, 'The greatest circles on a sphere bisect each other,' but rather as follows, 'It is not the case both that there are certain circles on the surface of a sphere that are the greatest and that these circles do not bisect each other.'
[16] What is there that cannot be carried over in that sort of way from the form of a necessary consequence to that of a negation of conjoined statements? And in fact we can express the same thing in other ways. Just now I said 'The greatest circles on a sphere bisect each other' ; but it is possible for me to say 'If certain circles on a sphere are the greatest,' and it is possible for me to say 'Because certain circles on a sphere will be the greatest.' There are many ways of stating a proposition, and none is more twisted round than this one, which Chrysippus hopes that the Chaldaeans will accommodate the Stoics by accepting. Yet none of the Chaldaeans really use that sort of language, for it is a bigger task to familiarize oneself with these contorted modes of expression than with the risings and settings of the constellations.
[18] If the form of the statement had been 'Scipio will die by violence in his bedroom at night,' the statement in that form would have been a true one, for it would have been a statement that a thing was going to happen that was going to happen, and that it was going to happen is a necessary inference from the fact that it did happen. Neither was 'Scipio will die' any truer than 'Scipio will die in that manner,' nor was it more inevitable for Scipio to die than it was for him to die in that manner, nor was it more impossible for the statement 'Scipio has been murdered' to change from a truth to a falsehood than for the statement Scipio will be murdered';
[24] Therefore when we use the expression 'Somebody wishes (or does not wish) something without cause, we are perverting the accepted convention of language; for we are using the phrase 'without cause' in the sense of without an external and antecedent cause,'not without a cause of some kind.' Just as when we say that a vessel is empty we do not use the expression in the sense in which it is used by the natural philosophers, who hold that no absolute vacuum exists, but we employ it to mean that the vessel has (for example) no water in it, or wine, or oil, similarly when we say that the mind moves without cause we mean that it moves without an antecedent external cause, not without any cause at all. Motion without cause can be predicated of the atom itself in moving through void by reason of gravity and weight, because there is no additional cause from outside;
[25] but on the other hand, for fear lest we all be laughed at by the natural philosophers if we say that anything takes place without a cause, a distinction must be made, and the matter must be put in this way, that it is the nature of the atom itself to be kept in motion by weight and gravity, and that its nature is itself the cause of its travelling in this manner. Similarly no external cause need be sought to explain the voluntary movements of the mind; for voluntary motion possesses the intrinsic property of being in our power and of obeying us, and its obedience is not uncaused, for its nature is itself the cause of this.
[27] Consider the statement 'Scipio will take Numantia': if an external chain of interlinked causes is not going to bring this about, can it be true in any other manner? could it have been false if it had been said innumerable ages ago? And if the statement 'Scipio will take Numantia' had not been true then, even after Numantia has fallen the statement Scipio has taken Numantia' is not true either. Therefore is it possible for anything to have happened that was not previously going to be true? For just as we speak of past things as true that possessed true actuality at some former time, so we speak of future things as true that will possess true actuality at some following time.
[28] Yet it does not immediately follow from the fact that every statement is either true or false that there are immutable causes, eternally existing, that forbid anything to fall out otherwise than it will fall out. The causes which bring it about that statements of the form 'Cato will come into the Senate' are true statements, are fortuitous, they are not inherent in the nature of things and the order of the universe; and nevertheless 'he will come,' when true, is as immutable as 'he has come' (though we need not on that account be haunted by fear of fate or necessity), for it will necessarily be admitted that if the statement Hortensius will come to his place at Tusculum' is not true, it follows that it is false. Our opponents hold that it is neither; which is impossible.
" Nor shall we for our part be hampered by what is called the 'idle argument' — for one argument is named by the philosophers the Argos Logos, because if we yielded to it we should live a life of absolute inaction. For they argue as follows: If it is fated for you to recover from this illness, you will recover whether you call in a doctor or do not;[29] similarly, if it is fated for you not to recover from this illness, you will not recover whether you call in a doctor or do not; and either your recovery or your non-recovery is fated; therefore there is no point in calling in a doctor.'
XIII. This mode of arguing is rightly called 'idle' and indolent, because the same train of reasoning will lead to the entire abolition of action from life. It is even possible to alter the form by not introducing the word 'fate' and yet to retain the same meaning, thus If the statement "You will recover from that illness" has been true from all eternity, you will recover whether you call in a doctor or do not; and similarly if the statement "You will recover from that illness" has been false from all eternity, you will not recover whether you call in a doctor or not; the conclusion following as before.[30] This argument is criticized by Chrysippus. For, he says, there exist in actuality two classes of facts, simple and complex. An instance of a simple fact is 'Socrates will die at a given date'; in this case, whether he does some action or does not do it, the day of his death has been determined. But if it is fated that 'Laius will have a son Oedipus,' it will not be possible for the words 'whether Laius mates with woman or does not' to be added, for the matter is complex and condestinate' — he gives that name to it because he thinks it is fated both that Laius will lie with a wife and that he will beget Oedipus by her: in the same way as, supposing it were said that 'Milo will wrestle at Olympia' and somebody replied 'If so, he will wrestle whether he has an opponent or not,' he would be wrong; for 'will wrestle' is a complex statement, because there can be no wrestling without an opponent. Therefore all captious arguments of that sort can be refuted in the same way. 'You will recover whether you call in a doctor or do not' is captious, for calling in a doctor is just as much fated as recovering. These connected events, as I said, are termed by Chrysippus 'condestinate.'
[31] XIV. "Carneades refused to accept this class of things entirely, and held the view that the line of argument in question was not quite accurately thought out. In consequence he used to put his case in another manner, and did not employ any trickery; his argument ran like this: If everything takes place with antecedent causes, all events take place in a closely knit web of natural interconnexion; if this is so, all things are caused by necessity; if this is true, nothing is in our power. But something is in our power. Yet if all events take place by fate, there are antecedent causes of all events. Therefore it is not the case that whatever events take place take place by fate.'
[32] This line of argument cannot be made more rigidly conclusive. For if anybody chose to repeat the same point and to put it thus, 'If all that will be is from eternity true, so that it must certainly turn out as it will be, events necessarily take place in a closely knit web of natural interconnexion,' he would be talking nonsense. For it makes a great deal of difference whether a natural cause, existing from all eternity, renders future things true, or things that are going to be in the future can be understood to be true even without any natural eternity. Accordingly Carneades used to say that not even Apollo could tell any future events except those whose causes were so held together by nature that they must necessarily happen.
[33] For what consideration could lead the god himself to say that the Marcellus who was three times consul was going to die at sea? this had indeed been true from all eternity, but it had no efficient causes.
[34] Even if it be admitted that nothing can happen without an antecedent cause, what good would that be unless it be maintained that the cause in question is a link in an eternal chain of causation? But a cause is that which makes the thing of which it is the cause come about — as a wound is the cause of death, failure to digest one's food of illness, fire of heat.
[35] To this class of expression belongs the phrase of Ennius -
Would that in Pelius' glade the pine-tree beams
Had never fallen to earth by axes hewn!
He might have gone even further back, 'Would that no tree had ever grown on Pelius!' and even further, 'Would that no Mount Pelius existed!' and similarly one may go on recalling preceding events in infinite regress.
Nor thence had made inception of the task
Of laying down a ship.
What is the point of recounting these past events? because what follows is this:
For were it so, my roving royal mistress,
Medea, from her home had ne'er set forth,
Heartsick and by love's cruel weapon wounded.
It was not the case that those events brought the cause of love.
[36] XVI. "But they declare that there is a difference whether a thing is of such a kind that something cannot be effected without it, or such that something must necessarily be effected by it. None of the causes mentioned therefore is really a cause, since none by its own force effects the thing of which it is said to be the cause; nor is that which is a condition of a thing's being effected a cause, but that of which the access necessarily produces the thing of which it is the cause. For at the time when the snake-bite had not yet caused Philoctetes to be afflicted with a sore, what cause was contained in the nature of things that would bring it to pass that he would be marooned on the Isle of Lemnos? whereas afterwards the cause was nearer and more closely connected with his death.
[37] Therefore it was the principle underlying the result that revealed the cause; but the proposition 'Philoctetes will be marooned on an island' had been true from all eternity, and this could not be turned from a truth into a falsehood. For it is necessary that of two contrary propositions — by contrary I here mean propositions one of which affirms something and the other denies it — of these two propositions therefore it is necessary, pace Epicurus, that one should be true and the other false; for example, 'Philoctetes will be wounded' was true, and Philoctetes will not be wounded' false, for the whole of the ages of the past; unless perhaps we choose to follow the opinion of the Epicureans, who say that propositions of this sort are neither true nor false, or else, when ashamed of that, they nevertheless make the still more impudent assertion that disjunction consisting of contrary propositions are true, but that the statements contained in the propositions are neither of them true.
[38] What marvellous effrontery and pitiable ignorance of logical method! For if anything propounded is neither true nor false, it certainly is not true; but how can something that is not true not be false, or how can something that is not false not be true? We shall therefore hold to the position maintained by Chrysippus, that every proposition is either true or false; reason itself will insist both that certain things are true from all eternity and that they are not involved in a nexus of eternal causes but are free from the necessity of fate.
[40] And let us if you please examine the nature of this doctrine in connexion with the topic of assent, which I treated in my first discourse. Those old philosophers who held that everything takes place by fate used to say that assent is given perforce as the result of necessity. On the other hand those who disagreed with them released assent from bondage to fate, and maintained that if assent were made subject to fate it would be impossible to dissociate it from necessity. They argued as follows:
[41] XVIII. "But Chrysippus, since he refused on the one hand to accept necessity and held on the other hand that nothing happens without fore-ordained causes, distinguishes different kinds of causation, to enable himself at the same time to escape necessity and to retain fate. 'Some causes,' he says, 'are perfect and principal, others auxiliary and proximate. Hence when we say that everything takes place by fate owing to antecedent causes, what we wish to be understood is not perfect and principal causes but auxiliary and proximate causes.' Accordingly he counters the argument that I set out a little time ago by saying that, if everything takes place by fate, it does indeed follow that everything takes place from antecedent causes, but not from principal and perfect but auxiliary and proximate causes. And if these causes themselves are not in our power, it does not follow that desire also is not in our power. On the other hand if we were to say that all things happen from perfect and principal causes, it would then follow that, as those causes are not in our power, desire would not be in our power either.
[42] Hence the train of argument in question will be valid against those who introduce fate in such a manner as to make it involve necessity; but it will have no validity against those who do not allege perfect and principal causes as antecedent. For they think that they can easily explain the meaning of the statement that assent takes place from pre-ordained causes; for although assent cannot take place unless prompted by a sense-presentation, nevertheless since that presentation supplies a proximate and not a principal cause, this, according to Chrysippus, is explained by the theory which we stated just now, not indeed proving that assent can take place without being aroused by any external force (for assent must necessarily be actuated by our seeing an object), but Chrysippus goes back to his roller and spinning-top, which cannot begin to move unless they are pushed or struck, but which when this has happened, he thinks, continue to move of their own nature, the roller rolling forward and the top spinning round.
[43] XIX. 'In the same way therefore,' he says, 'as a person who has pushed a roller forward has given it a beginning of motion, but has not given it the capacity to roll, so a sense-presentation when it impinges will it is true impress and as it were seal its appearance on the mind, but the act of assent will be in our power, and as we said in the case of the roller, though given a push from without, as to the rest will move by its own force and nature. If some event were produced without antecedent cause, it would not be true that all things take place by fate; but if it is probable that with all things whatever that take place there is an antecedent cause, what reason will it be possible to adduce why we should not have to admit that all things take place by fate? — only provided that the nature of the distinction and difference between causes is understood.'
[44] As this is the form in which these doctrines are set out by Chrysippus, if the people who deny that acts of assent take place by fate nevertheless would admit that those acts take place without an antecedent sense-presentation, it is a different theory; but if they allow that sense-presentations come first, yet nevertheless acts of assent do not take place by fate, because assent is not prompted by the proximate and contiguous cause stated, surely this comes to the same thing. For Chrysippus, while admitting that the proximate and contiguous cause of assent is situated in a perceived object, will not admit that this cause is necessary for the act of assenting, so that if all things take place by fate all things take place from antecedent and necessary causes; and also the thinkers who disagree with him in admitting that assent does not take place without the previous passage of sensory images will similarly say that, if everything were caused by fate in such a manner that nothing did take place without the precedent occurrence of a cause, it would have to be admitted that all things take place by fate; and from this it is easy to understand that since both parties, when their opinion has been developed and unfolded, come to the same ultimate position, the difference between them is one of words and not of fact.
[47] This is wishful thinking, not investigation. For you do not say that the atom moves its position and swerves owing to being driven by an external force, nor that there has been any factor in the void through which the atom travels to cause it not to travel in a straight line, nor that any change has taken place in the atom itself to cause it not to retain the natural motion of its own weight. Accordingly although he introduced no cause to occasion this swerve of yours, nevertheless he thinks that he is talking sense when he is saying something that all men's minds scornfully reject.