THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS. 19 



delights or minions of nature ; and the direction or 

 conduct of these nymphs is, with great reason, attri 

 buted unto Pan, because the souls of all things living 

 do follow their natural dispositions as their guides ; 

 and with infinite variety every one of them, after his 

 own fashion, doth leap, and frisk, and dance, with 

 incessant motions about her. The satyrs and Sileni 

 also, to wit, youth and old age, are some of Pan s 

 followers : for of all natural things, there is a lively, 

 jocund, and, as I may say, a dancing age ; and an 

 age again that is dull, bibling, and reeling. The 

 carriages and dispositions of both which ages, to some 

 such as Democritus was, that would observe them 

 duly, might, peradventure, seem as ridiculous and 

 deformed as the gambols of the satyrs, or the ges 

 tures of the Sileni. 



Of those fears and terrours which Pan is said to be 

 the author, there may be this wise construction 

 made : namely, that nature hath bred in every living 

 thing a kind of care and fear tending to the preser 

 vation of its own life and being, and to the repelling 

 and shunning of all things hurtful ; and yet nature 

 knows not how to keep a mean, but always inter 

 mixes vain and empty fears with such as are discreet 

 and profitable : so that all things, if their insides 

 might be seen, would appear full of panick frights ; 

 but men, especially in hard, fearful, and diverse 

 times, are wonderfully infatuated with superstition,, 

 which indeed is nothing else but a panick terrour. 



Concerning the audacity of Pan in challenging 

 Cupid at wrestling : the meaning of it is, that matter 



