[51]
Now do we need a Carneades or an Epicurus to
refute such nonsense? Who in the world is stupid
enough to believe that anybody ever ploughed up
—which shall I say—a god or a man? If a god,
why did he, contrary to his nature, hide himself in
the ground to be uncovered and brought to the
light of day by a plough? Could not this so-called
god have delivered this art to mankind from a more
exalted station? But if this fellow Tages was a
man, pray, how could he have lived covered with
earth? Finally, where had he himself learned the
things he taught others? But really in spending
so much time in refuting such stuff I am more absurd
than the very people who believe it.
24. "But indeed, that was quite a clever
remark which Cato made many years ago: 'I
wonder,' said he, 'that a soothsayer doesn't laugh
when he sees another soothsayer.'
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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