ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 125 



Pan is delighted with the company of the Nymphs: that 

 is, the souls of all living creatures are the delight of the 

 world, and lie is properly called their governor, because 

 each of them follows its own nature as a leader, and all 

 dance about their own respective rings with, infinite variety 

 and never-ceasing motion. Hence one of the moderns has 

 ingeniously reduced all the power of the soul to motion, 

 noting the precipitancy of some of the ancients, who, fixing 

 their thoughts prematurely on memory, imagination, and 

 reason, have neglected the cogitative faculty, which, how 

 ever, plays the chief role in the work of conception. For 

 he that remembers, cogitates, as likewise he who fancies or 

 reasons; so that the soul of man in all her moods dances 

 to the musical airs of the cogitations, which is that rebound 

 ing of the Nymphs. And with these continually join the 

 Satyrs and Sileni, that is, youth and age; for all things have 

 a kind of young, cheerful, and dancing time; and again 

 their time of slowness, tottering, and creeping. And who 

 ever, in a true light, considers the motions and endeavors 

 of both these ages, like another Democritus, will perhaps 

 find them as odd and strange as the gesticulations and antic 

 motions of the Satyrs and Sileni. 



The power he had of striking terrors contains a very 

 sensible doctrine, for nature has implanted fear in all living 

 creatures, as well to keep them from risking their lives as 

 to guard against injuries and violence; and yet this nature 

 or passion keeps not its bounds, but with just and profitable 

 fears always mixes such as are vain and senseless; so that 

 all things, if we could see their insides, would appear full 

 of panic terrors. Nor is this superstition confined to the 

 vulgar, but sometimes breaks out in wise men. As Epi 

 curus, &quot;Non Deos vulgi negare profanum; sed vulgi opin- 

 iones Diis applicare profanum.&quot; 1& 



The presumption of Pan in challenging Cupid to the 

 conflict, denotes that matter has an appetite and tendency 



15 Laertius s Life of Epicurus. 



