106 ADVANCEMENT OF LEAKNING. [BOOK II 



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

 guard against injuries and violence ; and yet this nature or 

 passion koeps 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 Epicurus, &quot; Non 

 Deos vulgi negare profanum ; sed vulgi opiniones Diis 

 applicare profanum. &quot; P 



The presumption of Pan in challenging Cupid to the con 

 flict, denotes that matter has an appetite and tendency to a 

 dissolution of the world, and falling back to its first chaos 

 again, unless this depravity and inclination were restrained 

 and subdued by a more powerful concord and agreement of 

 things, properly expressed by love or Cupid ; it is therefore 

 well for mankind, and the state of all things, that Pan was 

 thrown and conquered in the struggle. 



His catching and detaining Typhon in the net receives a 

 similar explanation ; for whatever vast and unusurl swells, 

 which the word Typhon signifies, may sometimes be raised 

 in nature, as in the sea, the clouds, the earth, or the like ; 

 yet nature catches, entangles, and holds all such outrages and 

 insurrections in her inextricable net, wove as it were of 

 adamant. 



That part of the fable which attributes the discovery of 

 lost Ceres to Pan, whilst he was hunting, a happiness denied 

 the other gods, though they diligently and expressly sought 

 her, contains an exceeding just and prudent admonition ; viz. 

 that we are not to expect the discovery of things useful in 

 common life, as that of corn, denoted by Ceres, from abstract 

 philosophies, as if these were the gods of the first order, no, 

 not though we used our utmost endeavours this way, but 

 only from Pan, that is, a sagacious experience and general 

 knowledge of nature, which is often found, even by accident, 

 to stumble upon such discoveries, whilst the pursuit was 

 directed another way. 



The event of his contending with Apollo in music, affords 

 us an useful instruction, that may help to humble the human 

 reason and judgment, which is too apt to boast and glory in 

 itself. There seem to be two kinds of harmony ; the one of 

 Divine Providence, the other of human reason : but the 

 * Laertius a Life of Epicurus. 



