disconsolate for the rape of Proserpine, hid herself, and a the gods took the utmost pains to find her, by going o different ways for that purpose, Pan only had the goo fortune to meet her as he was hunting, and discovered he to the rest. He likewise had the, assurance to rival Apoll in music; and in the judgment of Midas was preferred: bu the judge had, though with great privacy and secrecy, a pai of ass's ears fastened on him for his sentence.c "There is very little said of his amours, which may seen strange among such a multitude of gods, so profusely amo rous. He is only reported to have been very fond of Echo who was also esteemed his wife; and one nymph more called Syrinx, with the love of whom Cupid inflamed him for bis insolent challenge; so he is reported, orce, to have solicited the moon to accompany him apart into the deep woods. "Lastly, Pan had no descendant, which also is a wonder, when the male gods were so extremely prolific; only he was the reputed father of a servant girl, called Iambe, who used to divert strangers with her ridiculous and prattling stories." This fable is, perhaps, the noblest of all antiquity, and pregnant with the mysteries and secrets of nature. Pan, as the name imports, represents the universe, about whose origin there are two opinions; viz., that it either sprung from Mercury, that is, the Divine Word, according to the Scriptures and philosophical divines; or from the confused seeds of things. For some of the philosophers held that the seeds and elements of nature were infinite in their substance; whence arose the opinion of homogeneous primary parts, which Anaxagoras either invented or propagated. Others more accurately maintain that the variety of nature can qually spring from seeds, certain and definite in substance, but only diversified in form and figure, and attribute the remaining varieties to the interior organization of the seeds. vhemselves. From this source the doctrine of atoms is derived, which Democritus maintained, and Leucippus found out. But others teach only one principle of nature-Thales, water; Anaximenes, air; Heraclitus, fire-and defined this Ovid, Metamorphoses, ii. Anaxagoras, in Diog. Laert. This difference between the three philosophies is nothing else, as Hippocrates has observed (De Dicta, lib. i.), than a mere dispute about principle, which is one in act, to be various and dispensable in powers, and involving the seeds of all natural essences. They who introduced,—as Aristotle and Plato,f—primordial matter, every way disarranged, shapeless, and indifferent to any form, approached nearer to a resemblance of the figure of the parable. For they conceived matter as a courtezan, and the forms as suitors; so that the whole dispute comes to these two points: viz., either that nature proceeds from Mercury, or from Penelope and all her suitors.8 : The third origin of Pan seems borrowed by the Greeks from the Hebrew mysteries, either by means of the Egyp tians, or otherwise; for it relates to the state of the world, not in its first creation, but as made subject to death and corruption after the fall and in this state it was and remains the offspring of God and Sin, or Jupiter and Reproach. And, therefore, these three several accounts of Pan's birth may seem true, if duly distinguished in respect of things and times. For this Pan, or the universal nature of things, which we view and contemplate, had its origin from the divine word, and confused matter, first created by God himself, with the subsequent introduction of sin, ar consequently corruption. The Destinies are justly made Pan's sisters; for the rise, preservation, and dissolution of things; their depressions, exaltations, processes, triumphs, and whatever else can be ascribed to individual natures, are called fates and destinies, but generally pass unnoticed, except indeed in striking examples, as in men, cities, and nations. Pan, or the nature of things, is the cause of these several changes and effects. and in regard to individuals as the chain of natural causes, and the thread of the Destinies, links them together. The ancients likewise feigned that Pan ever lived in the words. For if there be but one single element or substance identical in all its parts, as the primary mover of things, it follows, as this substance is equally indifferent to the forms of each of the three elements, that one name may attach to it quite as philosophically as the other. In strict language, such a substance could not be defined by any of these terms; as fire, air, or water, appear only as its accidental qualities, and it is not allowable to define anything whose essential properties remain undiscovered. Ed. f Plato's Timæus. Bacon directs his interpretation here to the confused mixture of things, as sung by Virgil, Ecl. vi. 31, open air; but the Parcæ or the Destinies in a large sub terraneous cave, from which they emerged with inconceivable swiftness, to operate on mankind, because the common face of the universe is open; but the individual fates, dark, swift, and sudden. The analogy will also correspond if fate be enlarged above its ordinary acceptation as applicable to inanimate nature. Since, also, in that order nothing passes without a cause, and nothing is so absolutely great as to be independent, nature holding in her lap and bosom every event either small or great, and disclosing them in due season, it is, therefore, no marvel that the Parcæ are introduced as the sisters of Pan: for Fortune is the daughter of the foolish vulgar, and finds favour only with the more unsound philosophers. And the words of Epicurus savour less of dotage than profanity-" Præstare credere fabulam Deorum quam fatum asserere h. -as if anything in the frame of nature could, like an island, stand apart from the rest. But Epicurus framed his natural philosophy on his moral, and would hear of no opinion which might press or sting his conscience, or in any way trouble that euthymia or tranquillity of mind which he had received from Democritus. Hence, being more indulgent to his own fancies than patient of truth, he fairly cast off the yoke, and abandoned as well the necessity of fate as the fear of the gods. Horns are given him broad at the roots, but narrow and sharp a-top, because the nature of all things seems pyramidal: for individuals are infinite; but being collected into a variety of species, they rise up into kinds; and these again ascend, and are contracted into generals, till at length nature may seem collected to a point, which is signified by the pyramidal figure of Pan's horns. And no wonder if Pan's horns reach to the heavens, since the sublimities of nature, or abstract ideas, reach in a manner to things divine. Thus Homer's famous chain of natural causes is tied to the foot of Jupiter's chain ; and indeed no one can treat of metaphysics, or of the internal and immutable in nature, without rushing at once into natural theology. Pan's body, or the body of nature, is, with great propriety and elegance, painted shaggy and hairy, as representing the rays of things: for rays are as the hair or fleece of nature, and more or less worn by all bodies. This evidently appears in vision, and in all effects or operations at a distance: for whatever operates thus may be properly said to emit rays.k But particularly the beard of Pan is exceeding long, because the rays of the celestial bodies penetrate, and act to a prodigious distance, and have descended into the interior of the earth so far as to change its surface; and the sun himself, when clouded on its upper part, appears to the eye bearded. Again, the body of nature is justly described biform, because of the difference between its superior and inferior parts; as the former, for their beauty, regularity of motion, and influence over the earth, may be properly represented by the human figure, and the latter, because of their disorder, irregularity, and subjection to the celestial bodies, are by the brutal. This biform figure also represents the participation of one species with another, for there appear to be no simple natures, but all participate or consist of two: thus man has somewhat of the brute, the brute somewhat of the plant, the plant somewhat of the mineral; so that all natural bodies have really two faces, or consist of a superior and an interior species. There lies a curious allegory in the making of Pan goat footed, on account of the motion of ascent, which the terres trial bodies have towards the air and heavens: for the goat is a clambering creature, that delights in climbing up rocks and precipices; and in the same manner the matters destined to this lower globe strongly affect to rise upwards, as appears from the clouds and meteors. And it was not without reason that Gilbert, who has written a painful and elaborate work upon the magnet, doubted whether ponderous bodies, after being separated a long distance from the earth, do not lose their gravitating tendency towards it. This is always supposed to be the case in vision, the mathematical demonstrations in optics proceeding invariably upon the assumption of this phenomenon. Ed. 1 Bacon had no idea of a central fire, and how much it has contributed to work these interior revolutions. The thermometer of Drebbel, which he describes in the second part of the Novum Organum, has shown that down to a certain depth beneath the earth's surface the temperature (in all climates) undergoes no change, and beyond that limit, that the heat augments in proportion to the descent. Ed. Pan's arms, or the ensigns he bears in his hands, are of two kinds; the one an emblem of harmony, the other of empire. His pipe, composed of seven reeds, plainly denotes the consent and harmony, or the concords and discords of things, produced by the motion of the seven planets. If there be other planets yet concealed, or any greater mutations in the heavens, as in superlunary comets, they seem like pipes either altogether united or silent for a time, because their influence either does not reach so low as us, or leaves uninterrupted the harmony of the seven pipes of Pan. His crook also contains a fine representation of the ways of nature, which are partly straight and partly crooked: thus the staff, having an extraordinary bend towards the top, denotes that the works of Divine Providence are generally brought about by remote means, or in a circuit, as if somewhat else were intended, rather than the effect produced; as in the sending of Joseph into Egypt. So, likewise, in human government, they who sit at the helm manage and wind the people more successfully by pretext and oblique courses than they could by such as are direct and straight; so that in effect all sceptres are crooked on the top. Nay, in things strictly natural you may sooner deceive nature than force her, so improper and self-convicting are open direct endeavours, whereas an oblique and insinuating way gently glides along, and secretly accomplishes the purpose. Pan's mantle, or clothing, is with great ingenuity made of a leopard's skin, because of the spots it has: for, in like manner, the heavens are sprinkled with stars, the sea with islands, the earth with flowers, and almost each particular thing is variegated, or wears a mottled coat. The office of Pan could not be more livelily expressed than by making him the god of hunters: for every natural action, every motion and process, is no other than a chase; thus arts and sciences hunt out their works, and human schemes and counsels their several ends, and all living creatures either hunt out their aliment, pursue their prey, or seek their pleasures, and this in a skilful and sagacious man. He is also styled the god of the rural inhabitants, ner.m "Torva leæna lupum sequitur, lupus ipse capellam: |