Chapter 12
Original Latin
26 Quod cum ita sit, quid est, cur non omnis pronuntiatio aut vera aut falsa sit, nisi concesserimus fato fieri, quaecumque fiant? Quia futura vera, inquit, non possunt esse ea, quae causas, cur futura sint, non habent; habeant igitur causas necesse est ea, quae vera sunt; ita, cum evenerint, fato evenerint. Confectum negotium, siquidem concedendum tibi est aut fato omnia fieri, aut quicquam fieri posse sine causa.
27 An aliter haec enuntiatio vera esse non potest: “Capiet Numantiam Scipio”, nisi ex aeternitate causa causam serens hoc erit effectura? An hoc falsum potuisset esse, si esset sescentis saeculis ante dictum? Et si tum non esset vera haec enuntiatio: “Capiet Numantiam Scipio”, ne illa quidem eversa vera est haec enuntiatio: “Cepit Numantiam Scipio.” Potest igitur quicquam factum esse, quod non verum fuerit futurum esse? Nam ut praeterita ea vera dicimus, quorum superiore tempore vera fuerit instantia, sic futura, quorum consequenti tempore vera erit instantia, ea vera dicemus.
28 Nec, si omne enuntiatum aut verum aut falsum est, sequitur ilico esse causas inmutabilis, easque aeternas, quae prohibeant quicquam secus cadere, atque casurum sit; fortuitae sunt causae, quae efficiant, ut vere dicantur, quae ita dicentur: “Veniet in senatum Cato”, non inclusae in rerum natura atque mundo; et tamen tam est inmutabile venturum, cum est verum, quam venisse, nec ob eam causam fatum aut necessitas extimescenda est. Etenim erit confiteri necesse: “Si hoc enuntiatum: “Veniet in Tusculanum Hortensius” verum non est, sequitur, ut falsum sit.” Quorum isti neutrum volunt; quod fieri non potest.
Nec nos impediet illa ignava ratio, quae dicitur; appellatur enim quidam a philosophis ἀργὸς λόγος, cui si pareamus, nihil omnino agamus in vita.
Musean translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the surviving Latin in separate source-only tasks. Sections 1–48 and five fragments/testimonia follow Müller’s 1915 edition; lost passages remain marked. Perseus source and these derived editions CC BY-SA 4.0.
26 Since this is so, why must we grant that whatever happens happens by fate before we can say that every proposition is either true or false? “Because,” he says, “there can be no truth about future events that have no causes to bring them about. Things that are true must therefore have causes; and so, when they occur, they will have occurred by fate.” The business is settled—if, indeed, we must grant you that either everything happens by fate or something can happen without a cause.
27 Can the proposition “Scipio will take Numantia” be true in no other way than if, from all eternity, cause begetting cause will bring this about? Could it have been false if it had been uttered six hundred centuries before? And if the proposition “Scipio will take Numantia” was not true then, neither is the proposition “Scipio has taken Numantia” true even after the city’s destruction. Can anything, then, have happened that it was not true would happen? For just as we call statements about the past true when their present-tense statements were true at an earlier time, so we shall call statements about the future true when their present-tense statements will be true at a later time.
28 Nor does it follow at once, if every proposition is either true or false, that there are immutable, eternal causes which prevent anything from turning out otherwise than it will. The causes that make such future statements as “Cato will come to the Senate” true are chance causes, not causes locked into the nature of things and the universe. Yet, when it is true that he will come, that is as unalterable as his having come; and this gives us no reason to fear fate or necessity. For we shall have to admit: “If the proposition ‘Hortensius will come to the Tusculan villa’ is not true, it follows that it is false.” These people want neither alternative, which is impossible.
Nor shall we be hindered by what is called the idle argument. There is an argument the philosophers call the “idle argument”; if we obeyed it, we would do nothing at all in life.
Plain English translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted direct-Latin Plain English translation. Initial drafts used separate Latin-only tasks; later source-based editorial revisions were made by a reviewer with prior editorial access to Musean, not from its English wording. Includes all 48 sections and five fragments/testimonia, with lost passages marked. Perseus source and these derived editions CC BY-SA 4.0.
26 Given all that, why should we have to accept fate as the explanation of every event before we can call every statement true or false? Here is his reply: “A claim that something will happen cannot be true unless there are causes that will make it happen. So anything truly going to happen must have causes. When it occurs, then, fate will have brought it about.” Well, that settles the business—provided you really have to choose between fate governing all events and the possibility of a causeless event.
27 Consider this statement: “Scipio is going to take Numantia.” Must an everlasting succession of causes, each generating the next, bring this result about before that statement can be true? Imagine someone making it six hundred centuries earlier. Could it have been false? If “Scipio is going to take Numantia” was not true back then, “Scipio took Numantia” is not true even after Numantia has been destroyed. So could an event ever have taken place without its having been true that it would take place? We call a statement about the past true when what it says held true at some earlier point. The same applies to the future: we will call the statement true when what it says will hold true at a later point.
28 Classifying every statement as true or false does not at once establish eternal, unalterable causes. Such causes would rule out any outcome different from the one that is coming. A statement like “Cato is coming to the senate” gets its truth from chance causes. Those causes are not locked into nature and the universe. Yet if his coming is true, that truth cannot change, any more than the truth that he came can change. There is no reason here to be frightened of either necessity or fate. We will certainly have to admit the following: “Suppose ‘Hortensius is coming to the house at Tusculum’ is not true. It must, then, be false.” These people refuse both alternatives. That is impossible.
The argument called “lazy” will not stop us either. Philosophers call a certain line of reasoning the “idle argument.” Following it would mean never doing anything at all in our lives.
About this section
Chapter 12 is part of On Fate 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 12 of 25 in the work, which is kept in the Roman tradition.
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