51. What say ye, O minds
incredulous, stubborn, hardened? Did that great Jupiter
Capitolinus of yours give to any human being power of this kind?
Did he endow with this right any priest of a curia, the Pontifex
Maximus, nay, even the Dialis, in whose name he is revealed as
the god of life?33423342 I
shall not say, did he impart power to raise the dead, to give
light to the blind, restore the normal condition of their members to
the weakened and the paralyzed, but did he even enable any one
to check a pustule, a hang-nail, a pimple, either by the word of his
mouth or the touch of his hand? Was this, then, a power natural
to man, or could such a right be granted, could such a licence be given
by the mouth of one reared on the vulgar produce of earth; and was it
not a divine and sacred gift? or if the matter admits of any hyperbole,
was it 428not more than
divine and sacred? For if you do that which you are able to do,
and what is compatible with your strength and your ability, there is no
ground for the expression of astonishment; for you will have done that
which you were able, and which your power was bound to accomplish, in
order that there should be a perfect correspondence33433343 between the deed and the doer.
To be able to transfer to a man your own power, share with the frailest
being the ability to perform that which you alone are able to do, is a
proof of power supreme over all, and holding in subjection the causes
of all things, and the natural laws of methods and of
means.