622 Fabulous Animals. 
creatures. Satyrs and Fauns are represented as men with 
goats' legs and horns, and were supposed to be the 
attendants of Bacchus, with whose worship they are ge- 
nerally connected. The idea of such beings was probably 
derived from some of the larger species of apes. They 
are described as inhabiting woods and forests, of which 
they were regarded as the protecting deities. Probably 
they were partly personifications, intended to express the 
debasing influence of animal propensities and sensual 
indulgence : and as nothing tends more than intoxication 
to reduce man to a level with the brutes, since it de- 
prives reason of all control over the passions, the form 
of the Satyr may have been ingeniously intended as a 
visible representation of the degraded state of those who 
surrender up the noblest prerogative of man. Whether 
such was really or not the idea of those who first 
feigned the existence of such creatures, we may very 
rationally adopt this explanation, and thereby deduce an 
important moral lesson from what is in itself an extrava- 
gant fiction. 
