[18]
7. "But what course of reasoning is followed
by men who predict the finding of a treasure or
the inheritance of an estate? On what law of nature
do such prophecies depend? But, on the other hand,
if the prophecies just mentioned and others of the
same class are controlled by some natural and
immutable law such as regulates the movements of
the stars, pray, can we conceive of anything happening by accident, or chance? Surely nothing is
so at variance with reason and stability as chance.
Hence it seems to me that it is not in the power
even of God himself to know what event is going
to happen accidentally and by chance. For if He
knows, then the event is certain to happen; but
if it is certain to happen, chance does not exist.
[p. 391]
And yet chance does exist, therefore there is no
foreknowledge of things that happen by chance.
Cicero: De Senectute De Amicitia De Divinatione. With An English Translation. William Armistead Falconer. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1923.
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