Yet their philosophy leaves our course of life in our
own free option; but that after the choice is made, the chain of
consequences is inevitable: neither is that good or evil, which passes for
such in the estimation of the vulgar: many, who seem wounded with
adversity, are yet happy; numbers, that wallow in wealth, are yet most
wretched: since the first often bear with magnanimity the blows of
fortune; and the latter abuse her bounty in baneful pursuits." For the
rest, it is common to multitudes of men "to have each their whole future
fortunes determined from the moment of their birth: or if some events
thwart the prediction, it is through the mistakes of such as pronounce at
random, and thence debase the credit of an art, which, both in ages past
and our own, hath given signal instances of its certainty." For, to avoid
lengthening this digression, I shall remember in its order, how by the son
of this same Thrasullus the Empire was predicted to Nero.
During the same Consulship flew abroad the death of Asinius Gallus: that
he perished through famine was undoubted; but whether of his own accord,
or by constraint, was held uncertain.
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