I will endeavor, my dearest Piso, to send you my opinion concerning Fate, written with all the clearness and compendiousness I am capable of; since you, who are not ignorant how cautious I am of writing, have thought fit to make it the subject of your request.

You are first then to know that this word Fate is spoken and understood two manner of ways; the one as it is an energy, the other as it is a substance. First therefore, as it is an action, PlatoSee Plato, , p. 248 C; , p. 41 E; , X. p. 617 D. has under a type described it, saying thus in his dialogue entitled Phaedrus: And this is a sanction of Adrastea (or an inevitable ordinance), that whatever soul being an attendant on God, etc. And in his treatise called Timaeus: The laws which God in the nature of the universe has established for immortal souls. And in his book of a Commonweal he calls Fate the speech of the virgin Lachesis, who is the daughter of Necessity. By which sentences he not tragically but theologically shows us what his sentiments are in this matter. Now if any one, translating the fore-cited passages, would have them expressed in more familiar terms, the description in Phaedrus may be thus explained: That Fate is a divine sentence, intransgressible because its cause cannot be divested or hindered. And according to what he has said in his Timaeus, it is a law ensuing on the nature of the universe, according to which all things that are done are transacted. For this does Lachesis effect, who is indeed the daughter of Necessity, — as we have both already related, and shall yet better understand by that which will be said in the progress of our discourse. Thus you see what Fate is, when it is taken for an action.