Nor was he single in this practice; for Apollo did the like amongst the Assyrians.

His prophesying thus unto those people moved them to paint him with a large long beard, and clothes beseeming an old settled person of a most posed, staid, and grave behaviour; not naked, young, and beardless, as he was portrayed most usually amongst the Grecians.

Let us make trial of this kind of fatidicency; and go you take advice of some dumb person without any speaking.

I am content, quoth Panurge.

But, says Pantagruel, it were requisite that the dumb you consult with be such as have been deaf from the hour of their nativity, and consequently dumb; for none can be so lively, natural, and kindly dumb as he who never heard.
How is it, quoth Panurge, that you conceive this matter?
If you apprehend it so, that never any spoke who had not before heard the speech of others, I will from that antecedent bring you to infer very logically a most absurd and paradoxical conclusion.