Book 2, Chapter 52
Original Latin
107 Veniamus nunc ad optumum virum, familiarem nostrum, Cratippum. ‘Si sine oculis’, inquit, ‘non potest exstare officium et munus oculorum, possunt autem aliquando oculi non fungi suo munere, qui vel semel ita est usus oculis, ut vera cerneret, is habet sensum oculorum vera cernentium. Item igitur, si sine divinatione non potest officium et munus divinationis exstare, potest autem, cum quis divinationem habeat, errare aliquando nec vera cernere, satis est ad confirmandam divinationem semel aliquid ita esse divinatum, nihil ut fortuito cecidisse videatur; sunt autem eius generis innumerabilia; esse igitur divinationem confitendum est.’ Festive et breviter; sed cum bis sumpsit, quod voluit, etiamsi faciles nos ad concedendum habuerit, id tamen, quod adsumit, concedi nullo modo potest.
Musean translation
Complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the Latin in separate source-only tasks and reviewed throughout against it. Both books, all 130 chapters and 282 numbered sections; no historical English translation used. Latin transcription credited to the Perseus Project under CC BY-SA 4.0, Müller’s 1915 Teubner edition.
107 “Let us turn now to our friend Cratippus, that excellent man. ‘If,’ he says, ‘the office and function of eyes cannot exist without eyes, yet eyes can sometimes fail to perform their function, anyone who has even once used his eyes to perceive things truly possesses the faculty of sight that perceives things truly. Similarly, then, if the office and function of divination cannot exist without divination, but someone who possesses divination can nevertheless sometimes err and fail to perceive the truth, it is enough to establish divination that something has even once been divined in such a way that nothing in it appears to have happened by chance. There are countless cases of this kind; therefore we must admit that divination exists.’ Neat and concise; but even if we generously grant the two assumptions he makes to suit himself, the further premise he adds cannot possibly be granted.
Plain English translation
Complete machine-assisted Plain English translation, made independently and directly from the Latin, never from the Musean edition. Both books and every numbered section; a separate Latin-source model review covered the entire text. No human specialist review is claimed.
107 “Now let us turn to our friend Cratippus, an excellent man. He says: ‘Suppose the eyes' work and function cannot exist without eyes. Yet eyes can sometimes fail to do their work. Then anyone who has used his eyes to see things truly even once has the visual sense that sees things truly. Similarly, suppose the work and function of divination cannot exist without divination. Yet someone who has divination can sometimes make mistakes and fail to see the truth. So divination is established if even one prediction comes true in a way that seems to leave no room for chance. There are more such cases than we can count. Therefore we must admit that divination exists.’ Neat and brief! But he has assumed what he wanted twice. Even if we were easygoing enough to grant those points, we could not possibly grant the additional claim he makes.
About this section
Book 2, Chapter 52 is part of On Divination by Marcus Tullius Cicero. This page sets the Latin original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is chapter 110 of 130 in the work, which is kept in the Roman tradition.
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