122 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



nature may seem collected to a point, which is signified by 

 the pyramidal figure of Pan s horns. And no wonder if 

 Pan s horns reach to the heavens, since the sublimities 

 of nature, or abstract ideas, reach in a manner to things 

 divine. Thus Homer s famous chain of natural causes is 

 tied to the foot of Jupiter s chair; 9 and indeed no one can 

 treat of metaphysics, or of the internal and immutable in 

 nature, without rushing at once into natural theology. 



Pan s body, or the body of nature, is, with great pro 

 priety and elegance, painted shaggy and hairy, as represent 

 ing the rays of things: for rays are as the hair or fleece of 

 nature, and more or less worn by all bodies. This evidently 

 appears in vision, and in all effects or operations at a dis 

 tance: for whatever operates thus may be properly said to 

 emit rays. 10 But particularly the beard of Pan is exceeding 

 long, because the rays of the celestial bodies penetrate, and 

 act to a prodigious distance, and have descended into the 

 interior of the earth so far as to change its surface; 11 and 

 the sun himself, when clouded on its upper part, appears 

 to the eye bearded. 



Again, the body of nature is justly described biform, 

 because of the difference between its superior and inferior 

 parts; as the former, for their beauty, regularity of motion, 

 and influence over the earth, may be properly represented 

 by the human figure, and the latter, because of their dis 

 order, irregularity, and subjection to the celestial bodies, 

 are by the brutal. This biform figure also represents the 

 participation of one species with another, for there appear 

 to be no simple natures, but all participate or consist of 



9 Iliad, ix. 



10 This is always supposed to be the case in vision, the mathematical 

 demonstrations in optics proceeding invariably upon the assumption of this 

 phenomenon. Ed. 



11 Bacon had no idea of a central fire, and how much it has contributed 

 to work these interior revolutions. The thermometer of Drebbel, which he 

 describes in the second part of the &quot;Novum Organum,&quot; has shown that down 

 to a certain depth beneath the earth s surface the temperature (in all climates) 

 \mdergoes no change, and beyond that limit, that the heat augments in propor 

 tion to the descent. Ed. 



