The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri [best thriller novels of all time TXT] 📗

“But that ungrateful and malignant people,
Which from Fiesole of old descended,
And smacks still of the mountain and the granite,
Will make itself, for thy good deeds, thy foe.”

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Aristotle, Ethics, I ch. 10:⁠—

“Always and everywhere the virtuous man bears prosperous and adverse fortune prudently, as a perfect tetragon.”

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To the spirit of Cacciaguida. ↩

Not like the ambiguous utterance of oracles in Pagan times. ↩

The word here rendered Language is in the original Latin; used as in Canto XII 144. ↩

Contingency, accident, or casualty, belongs only to the material world, and in the spiritual world finds no place. As Dante makes St. Bernard say, in Canto XXXII 53:⁠—

“Within the amplitude of this domain
No casual point can possibly find place,
No more than sadness can, or thirst, or hunger;
For by eternal law has been established
Whatever thou beholdest.”

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Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, V Prosa 3, Ridpath’s Tr.:⁠—

“But I shall now endeavor to demonstrate, that, in whatever way the chain of causes is disposed, the event of things which are foreseen is necessary; although prescience may not appear to be the necessitating cause of their befalling. For example, if a person sits, the opinion formed of him that he is seated, is of necessity true; but by inverting the phrase, if the opinion is true that he is seated, he must necessarily sit. In both cases then there is a necessity; in the latter, that the person sits; in the former, that the opinion concerning him is true: but the person doth not sit, because the opinion of his sitting is true; but the opinion is rather true, because the action of his being seated was antecedent in time. Thus though the truth of the opinion may be the effect of the person taking a seat, there is nevertheless a necessity common to both. The same method of reasoning, I think, should be employed with regard to the prescience of God, and future contingencies; for allowing it to be true, that events are foreseen because they are to happen, and that they do not befall because they are fore seen, it is still necessary, that what is to happen must be foreseen by God, and that what is foreseen must take place.”

And again, in Prosa 4 of the same Book:⁠—

“But how is it possible, said I, that those things which are foreseen should not befall?⁠—I do not say, replied she, that we are to entertain any doubt but the events will take place, which Providence foresees are to happen; but we are rather to believe, that although they do happen, yet that there is no necessity in the events themselves, which constrains them to do so. The truth of which I shall thus endeavor to illustrate. We behold many things done under our view, such as a coachman conducting his chariot and governing his horses, and other things of a like nature. Now, do you suppose these things are done by the compulsion of a necessity?⁠—No, answered I; for, if everything were moved by compulsion, the effects of art would be vain and fruitless.⁠—If things then, which are doing under our eye, added she, are under no present necessity of happening, it must be admitted that these same things, before they befell, were under no necessity of taking place. It is plain, therefore, that some things befall, the event of which is altogether unconstrained by necessity. For I do not think any person will say that such things as are at present done, were not to happen before they were done. Why, therefore, may not things be foreseen, and not necessitated in their events? As the knowledge then of what is present imposes no necessity on things now done, so neither does the foreknowledge of what is to happen in future necessitate the things which are to take place.”

Also Chaucer, Troil. and Cres., IV 995:⁠—

“Eke, this is an opinion of some
That have hir top ful high and smoth ishore;
Thei sain right thus; that thing is nat to come
For-that the prescience hath sene before,
That it shal come: but thei sain that therefore
That it shall come, therefore the purveiaunce
Wote it beforne withouten ignoraunce.

“And in this maner, this necessite,
Retourneth in his place contrary, againe;
For nedefully, behoveth it nat be,
That thilke thinges fallen in certaine
That ben purveyed; but, nedefully, as thei saine,
Behoveth it, that thinges which that fall,
That thei in certaine ben purveyed all:⁠—

“I mene, as though I laboured me in this,
To enquire which thing cause of which thing be,
As whether that the prescience of God is
The certaine cause of the necessite
Of thinges that to comen be, parde,
Or, if necessite of thing coming
Be the cause certaine of the purveying?

“But, now, ne enforce I me not, in shewing
How the order of the causes stant; but wot I,
That it behoveth that the befalling
Of thinges, wiste before certainly,
Be necessarie al seme it not therby
That prescience put falling necessayre
To thing to come, al fal it foule or faire:

“For, if there sit a man yonde on a see,
Than by necessite behoveth it
That, certes, thine opinion sothe be
That wenest or conjectest that he sit.
And, furtherover, now ayenwarde yet,
Lo, right so is it on the part contrarie;
As thus; now herken, for I wol nat tarie:

“I say, that if the opinion of the
Be sothe, for-that he sit; than say I this,
That he mote sitten, by necessite.
And thus necessite, in either, is.
For in him nede of sitting is, iwis;
And in the, nede of sothe: and thus, forsothe,
There mote necessite ben in you bothe.

“But thou maist saine, the man sit nat therefore
That thine opinion of his sitting soth is:
But, rather, for the man sate there before,
Therefore is thine opinion sothe iwis:
And I say, Though the cause of sothe of this
Cometh of his sitting; yet necessite
Is enterchaunged bothe in