No superiority of mere intellect seems to ensure men against participating in these delusions. Many Stoics, though highly disciplined in Logic, upheld the practices of Divination and Astrology. Panætius, indeed, rejected them; and Epictetus on moral grounds discouraged Divination. “For,” said he, “what the diviner foresees is not what really concerns us. We have within us a diviner who tells us what good and evil are, and what are the signs of them. Does the diviner understand that—after all his studies of the viscera? Not what is to happen in the future, but to do as we ought whatever happens is our true concern.”[383] But this genuine expression of Stoic thought was abandoned by most of the sect in their desire to defend as much as possible the popular religion. They even staked the existence of the gods upon the genuineness of Divination: arguing that if Divination exists there must be gods who send Omens; and that if Divination does not exist there can be no gods—since if there are gods who know the future, and have a regard for mankind, and are able to give warnings, they will certainly do so. Therefore, no Divination, no gods.[384] There is, indeed, a widespread pitiful persuasion that some provision must have been made whereby a man may foresee his future; and so, in a sense, there is; for the existence of order in nature implies the possibility of foresight; and a fanciful mind might regard Divination as the anticipatory manifestation of an instinct in play before the faculties became capable of serious exercise. But the play was taken too seriously; and the worst of it was that its inane methods diverted attention from the only possible method—if not always on the part of the diviner, at least on the part of the great multitude, his dupes. M. H. A. Jounod says of the Bantu tribes, “Divination kills any attempt to use reason or experience in practical life.”[385] And, clearly, this is everywhere its tendency, be it a question of consulting a canary at the street-corner, whether or not we should marry, or an augur rather than an experienced general whether or not now to engage the enemy. Seneca[386] treated Omens as a necessary consequence of universal Fate: for if all events are factors of one predetermined order, everything in the present is a sign or omen of everything to occur in the future; and some events, such as the flight of birds, have been selected as Omens, merely because the meaning or consequents of these happen to have been observed; and whether Omens are respected or despised, Fate determines the whole course of events. By this way of thinking, as it was fated that the Romans should be defeated at Lake Trasimenus, it was also fated that the Omens should be declared unfavourable and that the warning should not be taken; and if it was fated that the Romans should be defeated at Cannæ, it was also fated that the Omens should be declared favourable and that they should be accepted. A belief in Fate makes Omens useless.