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but generally pass unnoticed, except indeed in striking ex 

 amples, 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 open 

 air; but the Parcae or the Destinies in a large subterraneous 

 cave, from which they emerged with inconceivable swift 

 ness, 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 in 

 animate 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 Parcae are intro 

 duced as the sisters of Pan: for Fortune is the daughter of 

 the foolish vulgar, and finds favor only with the more un 

 sound philosophers. And the words of Epicurus savor less 

 of dotage than profanity &quot;Praestare credere fabulam De- 

 orum quam fatum asserere 8 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 tran 

 quillity of mind which he had received from Democritus. 

 Hence, being more indulgent to his own fancies than patient 

 of truth, he fairly cast off tne 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 atop, because the nature of all things seems pyra 

 midal: 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 



8 Seneca s Epistles. 

 SCIENCF Vol. 21 6 



