The ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year – and to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.

As mystery and miracles took charge of the past and present, prophesy took charge of the future and rounded the tenses of faith.

A... vicious effect of... is that those that are good at predicting the past... think of themselves as good at predicting the future... [W]e live in a world where important events are not predictable...

He cou'd foretel whats'ever was By consequence to come to pass; As death of great men, alterations, Diseases, battles, inundations. All this, without th' eclipse o' th' sun, Or dreadful comet, he hath done, By inward light; away as good, And easy to be understood; But with more lucky hit than those That use to make the stars depose, Like Knights o' th' post, and falsely charge Upon themselves what others forge: As if they were consenting to All mischiefs in the world men do: Or, like the Devil, did tempt and sway 'em To rogueries, and then betray 'em.

Logos is the formal cause of the kosmos and all things, responsible for their nature and configuration.

So I was a poodle of the future; I made prophecies.

Declare the past, diagnose the present, foretell the future.

history, rival of time, storehouse of deeds, witness for the past, example and counsel for the present, and warning for the future.

For the prevision is allied Unto the thing so signified; Or say, the foresight that awaits Is the same Genius that creates.

The rise and fall of images of the future precedes or accompanies the rise and fall of cultures. The image of the future can act not only as a barometer, but as a regulative mechanism which alternately opens and shuts the dampers on the mighty blast-furnace of culture. It not only indicates alternative choices and possibilities, but actively promotes certain choices and in effect puts them to work in determining the future. A close examination of prevailing images, then, puts us in a position to forecast the probable future. Any culture which finds itself in the condition of our present culture, turning aside from its own heritage of positive visions of the future, or actively at work in changing these positive visions into negative ones, has no future...

Foreknowledge is power.

Telling the future is what organisms are for.

Most people trusted in the future, assuming that their preferred version of it would unfold. Blindly planning for it, envisioning things that weren't the case. This was the working of the will. This was what gave the world purpose and direction. Not what was there but what was not.

Those who had premonitions of transformation believed that future generations might detect the invisible laws and forces around us: the vital networks of relationship, the ties among all aspects of life and knowledge, the interweaving of people, the rhythms and harmonies of the universe, the connectedness that captures parts and makes them wholes, the patterns that draw meaning from the web of the world. Humankind, they said, might recognize the subtle veils imposed on seeing; might awaken to the screen of custom, the prison of language and culture, the bonds of circumstance.