(fatum), denotes an inevitable necessity depending upon a superior cause. The word is formed a fundo, "from speaking:" and primarily implies the same with efatum, viz. a word or decree pronounced by God; or a fixed sentence whereby the Deity has prescribed the order of things, and allotted to every person what shall befall him.

The Greeks called it synechema, as it were a chain or necessary series of things indissolubly linked together. It is also used to express a certain unavoidable designation of things, by which all agents, both necessary and voluntary, are swayed and directed to their ends. See NECESSITY.

In this last sense, fate is distinguished into, 1. Astrological fate, arising from the influence and position of the heavenly bodies; which (it was supposed) gave laws both to the elements and mixed bodies, and to the wills of men. 2. Stoical fate, defined by Cicero an order or series of causes, wherein, cause being linked to cause, each produces another, and thus all things flow from one prime cause. To this fate the Stoics subject even the gods.

Fate is divided by later authors into physical and divine. Physical fate is an order and series of natural causes appropriated to their effects. By this fate it is that fire warms, bodies communicate motion to each other, &c. and the effects of it are all the events and phenomena of nature. 2. Divine fate is what is more usually called PROVIDENCE. See PROVIDENCE.