If, however, instead of Fate (all-comprehensive Magic) or predestination (by a supreme God), we regard the course of the world as determined by natural causation, whether Omens or Oracles may be useful or not (supposing them possible) depends on the nature of the event foretold—on whether it involves ourselves conditionally only or unconditionally. Omens that warn us against events conditionally may be useful enough, and few will think it a serious fault that they discourage the use of reason. King Deiotarus, having set out on a journey, was warned by an eagle not to go forward with it, and he turned back; and that same night the house at which he was to have slept fell down; so he escaped.[387] The danger was conditional on his continuing the journey; and, in the course of causation, a warning of danger, whether announced by an augur or by our own sagacity, may often enable us to avoid it. The causes of the future are present, and (within certain limits) are in our power. If I have reason to believe that there will be a fire at the Opera to-night, or have a presentiment of some calamity there, I need not go; and, then, I shall not be burnt alive. Whether the presage come to me by an Omen, or by a message from a god, or in an anonymous letter from one of the incendiaries who happens to be a friend of mine, cannot matter. No, if there were gods with intuitions of futurity, or with better knowledge than we have of present fact and greater power of calculating the consequences, they might make themselves useful. On this hypothesis there is not _a priori_ any absurdity in the doctrine of Omens. But with Omens or Oracles of magical or divine authority, that foreshadow our own fate unconditionally, the case is different. If, for example, they tell a man that he will die by the fall of the roof of his own house, that must be his end; and any one who examines his career afterwards will find that all his efforts to escape, all his pusillanimous crouchings and windings, were just so many steps of causation upon the road to inevitable doom. To convey such a presage serves no purpose but to fill the victim’s last days with anxiety and dread: it is as bad as cruelty to animals.