CHAP. XIII.] THE FABLE OP PAN INTERPRETED. 103 



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 distance : for 

 whatever operates thus may be properly said to emit rays.^ 

 But particularly the beard of Pan is exceeding long, because 

 the rays of the celestial bodies penetrate, and act to a pro- 

 digious 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, be» 

 cause of the difference between its superior and inferioi 

 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 mineral ; so that all natural bodies 

 have really two faces, or consist of a superior and an inferior 

 species. 



There lies a curious allegory in the making of Pan goat* 

 footed, on account of the motion of ascent, which the terres^ 

 trial 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 des- 

 tined to this lower globe strongly affect to rise upwards, as 

 appears from the clouds and meteors. And it was not with- 

 out 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. 



^ This is always supposed to be the ease in vision, the mathematical 

 demonstrations in optics proceeding invariably upon the assumption of 

 this phenomenon. £d. 



* Bacon had no idea of a central fire, and how much it has contri- 

 buted to work these interior revolutions. The thermometer of Drebbel, 

 which he describes in the second part of the Novum Organum, haa 

 Bhown that down to a certain depth beneath the earth's suriace the tern* 

 perature (in all climates) undergoes no change, and beyond that limit, 

 that the Ue»t augments in proportion to the descent. £d. 



