ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 67 



cast off the yoke, and abandoned as well the necessity of fate as the 

 ^ear of the gods. 



Horns are given him broad at the roots, but narrow and sharp a-top, 

 because the nature of all things seems pyramidal: 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 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 chain ; 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 propriety and ele- 

 gance, painted shaggy and hairy, as representing 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 opera- 

 tions at a distance: for whatever operates thus may be properly said 

 to emit rays. But particularly the beard of Pan is exceeding long, be- 

 cause 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 ; 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 disorder, 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 two: thus man has somewhat of the 

 brute, the brute somewhat of the plant, the plant somewhat of the min- 

 eral; so that all natural bodies have really two faces, or consist of a 

 superior and inferior species. 



There lies a curious allegory in the making of Pan goat-footed, on 

 account of the motion of ascent, which the terrestrial bodies have 

 towards the air and heavens: for the goat is a clambering creature, 

 that delights in climbing up rocks and precipices; and in the same 

 manner the matters destined to this lower globe strongly affect to rise 

 upwards, as appears from the clouds and meteors. And it was not 

 without reason that Gilbert, who has written a painful and elaborate 

 work upon the magnet, doubted whether ponderous bodies, after being 

 separated a long distance from the earth, do not lose their gravitating 

 tendency towards it 



Pan's arms, or the ensigns he bears in his hands, are of two kinds ; 

 the one an emblem of harmony, the other of empire. His pipe, com- 

 posed of seven reeds, plainly denotes the consent and harmony, or the 

 concords and discords of things, produced by the motion of the seven 

 planets. If there be other planets yet concealed, or any greater muta- 

 tions in the heavens, as in superlunary comets, they seem like pipes either 



