6
The god, moreover, is a prophet, and the prophetic art concerns the future that is to result from things present and past. For there is nothing of which either the origin is without cause or the foreknowledge thereof without reason; but since all present events follow in close conjunction with past events, and all future events follow in close conjunction with present events, in accordance with a regular procedure which brings them to fulfilment from beginning to end, he who understands, in consonance with Nature, how to fathom the connexions and interrelations of the causes one with another knows and can declare What now is, and in future shall be, and has been of aforetime.Homer, Il. i. 70. Very excellently did Homer place first in order the present, then the future and the past, for the syllogism based on hypothesis has its source in what is; for example, if this is, then that has preceded, and again, if this is, then that shall be. The technical and rational element here, as has been stated, is the knowledge of consequences; but the senses provide the argument with its premise. Therefore, even if it be a poor thing to say, I shall not be turned aside from saying it, that this is the tripod of truth, namely, argument, which lays down the consequent relation of the conclusion to the antecedent, and then, premising the existent condition, induces the completion of the demonstration. Therefore, if the Pythian god plainly finds pleasure in music and the songs of swans and the sound of lyres, what wonder is it that, because of his fondness for logical reasoning, he should welcome and love that portion of discourse of which he observes philosophers making the most particular and the most constant use?
