Plutarch De Genio Socratis 12

[12] Why then, pray, Simmias, said Phidolaus, shall we suffer Galaxidorus drollingly to degrade so considerable a prophetic spirit into an omen or a sneeze; which the vulgar and ignorant, it is true, merrily use about small matters; but when any danger appears, then we find that of Euripides verified,—

To this Galaxidorus rejoined: Sir, if Simmias hath heard Socrates himself speak any thing about this matter, I am very ready to hear and believe it with you; but yet what you and Polymnis have delivered I could easily demonstrate to be weak and insignificant. For as in physic the pulse or a whelk is itself but a small thing, yet is a sign of no small things to the physicians; and as the murmuring of the waves or of a bird, or the driving of a thin cloud, is a sign to the pilot of a stormy heaven and troubled sea; thus to a prophetic soul, a sneeze or an omen, though no great matter simply considered in itself, yet may be the sign and token of considerable impending accidents. For every art and science takes care to collect many things from few, and great from small. And as if one that doth not know the power of letters, when he sees a few ill-shapen strokes, should not believe that a man skilled in letters could read in them the famous battles of the ancients, the rise of cities, the acts and calamities of kings, and should assert that some divine power told him the particulars, he would by this ignorance of his raise a great deal of mirth and laughter in the company; so let us consider whether or no we ourselves, being altogether ignorant of every one’s power of divination by which he guesseth at what is to come, are not foolishly concerned when it is asserted that a wise man by that discovers some things obscure and inevident in themselves, and moreover himself declares that it is not a sneeze or voice, but a Daemon, that leads him on to action. This, Polymnis, particularly respects you, who cannot but wonder that Socrates, who by his meekness and humility hath humanized philosophy, should not call this sign a sneeze or a voice, but very pretendingly a Daemon; when, on the contrary, I should have wondered if a man so critical and exact in discourse, and so good at names as Socrates, should have said that it was a sneeze, and not a Daemon, that gave him intimation; as much as if any one should say that he is wounded by a dart, and not with a dart by him that threw it; or as if any one should say that a weight was weighed by the balance, and not with the balance by the one who holds it. For any effect is not the effect of the instrument, but of him whose the instrument is, and who useth it to that effect; and a sign is an instrument, which he that signifies any thing thereby useth to that effect. But, as I said before, if Simmias hath any thing about this matter, let us quietly attend; for no doubt he must have a more perfect knowledge of the thing.