M. Tullius Cicero, Divination
William Armistead Falconer, Ed.

[23] "But what? You ask, Carneades, do you, why these things so happen, or by what rules they may be understood? I confess that I do not know, but that they do so fall out I assert that you yourself see. ' Mere accidents,' you say. Now, really, is that so? Can anything be an 'accident' which bears upon itself every mark of truth? Four dice are cast and a Venus throw¹ results—that is chance; [p. 251] but do you think it would be chance, too, if in one hundred casts you made one hundred Venus throws? It is possible for paints flung at random on a canvas to form the outlines of a face; but do you imagine that an accidental scattering of pigments could produce the beautiful portrait of Venus of Cos² ? Suppose that a hog should form the letter' A' on the ground with its snout; is that a reason for believing that it could write out Ennius's poem The Andromache?

"Carneades used to have a story that once in the Chian quarries when a stone was split open there appeared the head of the infant god Pan; I grant that the figure may have borne some resemblance to the god, but assuredly the resemblance was not such that you could ascribe the work to a Scopas. For it is undeniably true that no perfect imitation of a thing was ever made by chance.