66 BACON 



remaining varieties to the interior organization of the seeds themselves. 

 From this source the doctrine of atoms is derived, which Democritus 

 maintained, and Leucippus found out. But others teach only one prin- 

 ciple of nature Thales, water; Anaximenes, air; Heraclitus, fire 

 and defined this principle, which is one in act, to be various and dis- 

 pensable in powers, and involving the seed of all natural essences. They 

 who introduced as Aristotle and Plato e primordial matter, every 

 way disarranged, shapeless, and indifferent to any form, approached 

 nearer to a resemblance of the figure of the parable. For they con- 

 ceived matter as a courtesan, and the forms as suitors; so that the 

 whole dispute comes to these two points: viz., either that nature pro- 

 ceeds from Mercury, or from Penelope and all her suitors. 



The third origin of Pan seems borrowed by the Greeks from the 

 Hebrew mysteries, either by means of the Egyptians, or otherwise; 

 for it relates to the state of the world, not in its first creation, but as 

 made subject to death and corruption after the fall: and in this state 

 it was and remains the offspring of God and Sin, or Jupiter and Re- 

 proach. And, therefore, these three several accounts of Pan's birth 

 may seem true, if duly distinguished in respect of things and times. 

 For this Pan, or the universal nature of things, which we view and 

 contemplate, had its origin from the divine word, and confused matter, 

 first created by God himself, with the subsequent introduction of sin, 

 and consequently corruption. 



The Destinies are justly made Pan's sisters; for the rise, preserva- 

 tion, and dissolution of things ; their depressions, exaltations, processes, 

 triumphs, and whatever else can be ascribed to individual natures, are 

 called fates and destinies, but generally pass unnoticed, except indeed 

 in striking examples, as in men, cities, and nations. Pan, or the nat- 

 ure 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 

 swiftness, to operate on mankind, because the common face of the uni- 

 verse 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 inanimate 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 Parcse are introduced as the sisters of Pan: for 

 Fortune is the daughter of the foolish vulgar, and finds favor only with 

 the more unsound philosophers. And the words of Epicurus savor less 

 of dotage than profanity" Prsestare credere fabulam Deorum quam 

 fatum asserere " f 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 

 tranquillity of mind which he had received from Democritus. Hence, 

 being more indulgent to his own fancies than patient of truth, he fairly 



