20 THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS. 



wants not inclination and desire to the relapsing and 

 dissolution of the world into the old chaos, if her 

 malice and violence were not restrained and kept in 

 order by the prepotent unity and agreement of 

 things, signified by Cupid or the god of love ; and 

 therefore it was a happy turn for men, and all things 

 else, that in that conflict Pan was found too weak 

 and overcome. 



To the same effect may be interpreted his catch 

 ing of Typhon in a net ; for howsoever there may 

 sometimes happen vast and unwonted tumours, as 

 the name of Typhon imports, either in the sea or in 

 the air, or in the earth, or elsewhere ; yet nature doth 

 entangle it in an intricate toil, and curb and restrain 

 it as it were with a chain of adamant, the excesses 

 and insolencies of these kind of bodies. 



But forasmuch as it was Pan s good fortune to 

 find out Ceres as he was hunting, and thought little 

 of it, which none of the other gods could do, though 

 they did nothing else but seek her, and that very 

 seriously, it gives us this true and grave admoni 

 tion, that we expect not to receive things necessary 

 for life and manners from philosophical abstractions, 

 as from the greater gods ; albeit they applied them 

 selves to no other study but from Pan ; that is, from 

 the discreet observation and experience, and the 

 universal knowledge of the things of this world ; 

 whereby, oftentimes even by chance, and as it were 

 going a hunting, such inventions are lighted upon. 



The quarrel he made with Apollo about music, 

 and the event thereof, contains a wholesome instruc- 



