Lib. IL Of the Advancement of Learning. i ^ 



man which ferioufly obferves them, as ridiculous and deforraec^as thofe 

 oithe Satyr s, or of the Sileni. 



§ Touching the Terrors which Pan isfaid to he the Author of, there 

 may be made a wife inftru(3:ion 5 namely, that Nature hath implanted 

 in every living thing, a kind of care and fear, tending to the prefervation. 

 of its oven life, and being ; and to the repelling andflmnning of all hurtful 

 encounters. And yet Nature knows not how to keep a mean, but al- 

 ways intermixeth vain and empty fears , with fuch as are difcreet 

 and profitable ; fo that all things (if their infides might be feen) would 

 appear full of P4«ic4/'''.g^^'^ 5 but fpecially Men ; and above all other 

 men, the people which are wonderfully travailed and tofTed with fu- 

 perftition; fpecially in hard, and formidable, and adverfe times 5 

 which indeed is nothing elfe but a Vanick^ terror. Nor doth this fu- 

 perftition reign only in the vulgar , but from popular opinons, breaks 

 out forae times upon wife men 5 as Divinely Epicurus (if the reft of 

 his difcourfes touching the Gods, had been conformable to this rulejl 

 Hon Deos vulgi negare prophanum j fed vulgi opiniones diis applicare pro- Laert, fa 

 phanum. Epicur, 



§ Concerning ?Ae audacity of t'an, and his combate upon challenge 

 with Cupid -J the meaning of it is , that matter wants not inclination 3 

 and defire, to the relapfing and dijfolution of the World into the old Chaos j 

 if her malice and violence were not rejirained and kept in order, by the pre- 

 potent concord of things •■, Jignijied ^j* Cupid, or the God of Love. And 

 therefore it fell out well for man, by the fatal contexture of the world 5 

 or rather the great goodnefi of the Divine Providence , that Fan was 

 found too weak, and overcome. To the fame effeft may be interpret- 

 ed, his catching of Typjion in a net : for howfoever there may fome- 

 tiraes happen vaft, andunv7onted tumors ( as the name of Typhon im- 

 ports) either in the Sea, or in the Air, or in the Earth , yet nature 

 doth intangle in an intricate toil, and curb, and reftrain, as it were with 

 a chain of Adamant, the cxcefles and infolcncies of thele kind of 

 Bodies. 



§ As touching the finding out of Ceres, attributed to this Cod, and 

 that as he was hunting and thought little of it, which none of the othex- 

 Gods could do, though they did nothing elfe but feek her, and that 

 with diligence 3 it gives us this .true and grave admonition 3 that is, 

 that men da not expeH the invention of things necejfaryfor life and man' 

 ners^from abjiraS rhilofophies,asfrom the greater Codsjthough theyjjjould 

 *pply themfelves to no otherjiudy j but only from Pan, that is^from difcreet 

 txperience, and from the univerfal obfervation of the things of the Worlds 

 where oftentimes by chance (and as it were going a hunting) (uch in- 

 ventions are lited upon. For the moft profitable inventions, are the 

 off-lpring of experience , and,as it werCjCertain Donatives diftributed 

 to men by chance. 



§ His conteftation with ApoUo dbont Muftck.^ and the event thereof) Addas^ 

 contains a wholefome inftrudlion , which may ferve to reftmin mens sznT\^J' 

 rcafons, and judgements, with the reins of (bbriety, from boafting and fommenf, 

 and glorying in their gifts. For there feems to be a two fold Harmony ^sf srfl 

 or Mufick.'-) the one of Divine Wifdom j the other of Humane Rea- 

 fon; for, to humane judgement, and as it were, the ear of mortals 5 

 theadrainiftrationof the world, and of Creatures therein j and the 



K 2 mors 



