Yet Maimonides believed in a human faculty of natural divination, stating that the ability to conjecture and divine is found in all men to some degree, and that in some imagination and divination are so strong and sure that they correctly forecast all future events or the greater part of them.[650] The difference between true prophets and the diviners and observers of times “is that the observers of times, diviners, and such men, some of their words may be fulfilled and some of them may not be fulfilled.”[651] [Sidenote: Marvels in the _Aphorisms_] In his _Aphorisms_ which are drawn largely from the works of Galen Maimonides repeats many marvelous stories, instances of belief in occult virtue, and medical methods bordering upon the practice of magic.[652] Most of these have already been mentioned in our chapters upon Galen and need not be reiterated here. It is perhaps worth noting that Maimonides displays some critical sense as to the authenticity of works ascribed to Galen. He does not accept as his a treatise forbidding the burial of a man until twenty-four hours after his supposed death, although the patriarch who translated it from Greek into Arabic regarded it as Galen’s. Maimonides suggests that it may be by some other Galen than the great physician “whose books are well known.” Maimonides also notes that in the work of Hippocrates on female ailments which Galen commented upon and Hunain translated there have been added many statements of a marvelous character by some third hand. FOOTNOTES: [619] In English, besides the article on Maimonides in the _Jewish Encyclopedia_, there is a rather good essay by Rabbi Gottheil in Warner’s _Library of the World’s Best Literature_. Recent works in French and German are: L. G. Lévy, _Maimonide_, 1911; _Moses ben Maimon, sein Leben, seine Werke, und sein Einfluss, zur Erinnerung an den siebenhundertsten Todestag des Maimonides, herausg. v. d. Gesell. z. Förderung d. Wiss. d. Judenthums durch_ _W. Bacher_, _M. Brann_, _D. Simonsen_, _J. Guttmann_, 2 vols., containing twenty essays by various contributors, Leipzig, 1908 and 1914. L. Finkelscherer, _Mose Maimunis Stellung zum Aberglauben und zur Mystik_, Breslau, 1894; a Jena doctoral dissertation, full of somewhat juvenile generalizations, and which fails to appraise Maimonides’ attitude towards magic, astrology, and superstition comparatively. See also D. Joël, _Der Aberglaube und die Stellung des Judenthums zu demselben_, 1881-1883. Other older works on Maimonides are listed in the bibliography in the _Jewish Encyclopedia_. _The Guide of the Perplexed_ (Moreh Nebukim) was translated by M. Friedländer, second edition, 1904, and I have also used the Latin translation of 1629. The _Yad-Hachazakah_ was published in 1863; _The Book of Precepts_, in 1849; the _Commentary on the Mishnah_, in 1655. Other works will be listed in the four following foot-notes.