Cicero tells a story of two Arcadians, who, travelling together, came to Megara, a city of Greece, between Athens and Corinth, where one of them lodged in a friend’s house, and the other at an inn. After supper the person who lodged at the private house went to bed, and falling asleep, dreamed that his friend at the inn appeared to him, and begged his assistance, because the innkeeper was going to kill him. The man immediately got out of bed much frightened at the dream but recovering himself and falling asleep again, his friend appeared to him a second time, and desired, that as he would not assist him in time, he would take care at least not to let his death go unpunished; that the innkeeper having murdered him, had thrown his body into a cart and covered it with dung; he therefore begged that he would be at the city gate in the morning, before the cart was out. Struck with this new dream, he went early to the gate, saw the cart, and asked the driver what was in it; the driver immediately fled, the dead body was taken out of the cart, and the innkeeper apprehended and executed. FATE. Fate, in a general sense, denotes an inevitable necessity, depending on some superior cause. It is a term much used among the ancient philosophers. It is formed _a fando_, from speaking; and primarily implies the same with _effatum_, _i. e._ a word or decree pronounced by God; or a fixed sentence, whereby the deity has prescribed the order of things, and allotted every person what shall befal him. The Greeks called θμαρμενη, _quasi_, θρμος, _nexus_, a change, or necessary series of things, indissolubly linked together; and the moderns call it PROVIDENCE. But independent of this sense of the word, in which it is used sometimes to denote the causes in nature, and sometimes the divine appointment, the word Fate has a farther meaning, being used to express some kind of necessity or other, or eternal designation of things, whereby all agents, necessary as well as voluntary, are swayed and directed to their ends. Some authors have divided Fate into Astrological and Stoical. ASTROLOGICAL FATE, denotes a necessity of things and events, arising, as is supposed, from the influence and positions of the heavenly bodies, which give law to the elements and mixed bodies, as well as to the wills of men.