reason, which is abhorrent even from human constancy; therefore, if most dreams are either forgotten or neglected, either God knows not this, or he sends dreams to no purpose; but neither of these can be true of God: we must therefore acknowledge that nothing is signified to us in dreams from God." This is his first reason; we have already seen the second; here follows the third.* "Jam verò quis dicere audeat, vera omnia esse somnia? Aliquot somnia vera inquit Ennius, sed omnia non est necesse. Quæ est tandem ista distinctio? quæ vera, quæ falsa habet? et si vera à deo mittuntur, falsa unde nascuntur? nam si ea quoque divina, quid inconstantius deo? quid inscitius autem est, quam mentes mortalium falsis, et mendacibus visis concitare? sin vera visa divina sunt falsa autem, et inania humana: quæ est ista designandi licentia, ut hoc deus, hoc natura fecerit potius, quam aut omnia deus, quod negatis, aut omnia natura? ---- And now who will venture to say that all dreams are true? Some dreams, Ennius tells us, must necessarily be true, but not all. What distinction is this? and how shall we know which are true, which are false? and if the true are sent by God, whence proceed the false? for if they likewise are divine, can any thing be more inconstant than the Deity? and what can be more ignorant than to stir up the minds of men by false and lying visions? But if true dreams are divine, and the false and empty, human, what liberty is this of distinguishing and saying, that God does this and nature that, rather than that all is done by God alone, which you deny, or by nature alone?" He proposes a fourth, founded upon the obscurity of dreams, which has been already considered, but let us consider it a little better. "There is no one," says he, "who has sufficient capacity to expound dreams aright; if therefore, the gods speak to us in this way, it will be as if the Car* Cicero de Divinat. cap. lxi, lxii. |