Pan, or Nature Explained of Natural Philosophy

“The ancients have, with great exactness, delineated universal nature under the person of Pan. They leave his origin doubtful: some asserting him the son of Mercury, and others the common offspring of all Penelope’s suitors. The latter supposition doubtless occasioned some later writers to entitle this ancient fable, Penelope—a thing frequently practiced when the early relations are applied to more modern characters and persons, though sometimes with great absurdity and ignorance, as in the present case: for Pan was one of the ancientest gods, and long before the time of Ulysses: besides, Penelope was venerated by antiquity for her matronal chastity. A third sort will have him the issue of Jupiter and Hybris, that is, Reproach. But whatever his origin was, the Destinies are allowed his sisters.

“He is described by antiquity with pyramidal horns reaching up to heaven, a rough and shaggy body, a very long beard, of a biform figure, human above, half-brute below, ending in goat’s feet. His arms, or ensigns of power, are a pipe in his left hand, composed of seven reeds; in his right a crook; and he wore for his mantle a leopard’s skin.

“His attributes and titles were, the god of hunters, shepherds, and all the rural inhabitants; president of the mountains, and after Mercury the next messenger of the gods. He was also held the leader and ruler of the Nymphs, who continually danced and frisked about him, attended with the Satyrs, and their elders the Sileni. He had also the power of striking terrors, especially such as were vain and superstitious; whence they came to be called panic terrors.

“Few actions are recorded of him; only a principal one is, that he challenged Cupid at wrestling, and was worsted. He also catched the giant Typhon in a net, and held him fast. They relate further of him, that when Ceres growing disconsolate for the rape of Proserpine, hid herself, and all the gods took the utmost pains to find her, by going out different ways for that purpose, Pan only had the good fortune to meet her as he was hunting, and discovered her to the rest. He likewise had the assurance to rival Apollo in music; and in the judgment of Midas was preferred: but the judge had, though with great privacy and secrecy, a pair of ass’s ears fastened on him for his sentence.

“There is very little said of his amours, which may seem strange among such a multitude of gods, so profusely amorous. He is only reported to have been very fond of Echo, who was also esteemed his wife; and one nymph more called Syrinx, with the love of whom Cupid inflamed him for his insolent challenge; so he is reported, once, to have solicited the moon to accompany him apart into the deep woods.

“Lastly, Pan had no descendant, which also is a wonder, when the male gods were so extremely prolific; only he was the reputed father of a servant girl, called Iambe, who used to divert strangers with her ridiculous and prattling stories.”

This fable is, perhaps, the noblest of all antiquity, and pregnant with the mysteries and secrets of nature. Pan, as the name imports, represents the universe, about whose origin there are two opinions; viz., that it either sprung from Mercury, that is, the Divine Word, according to the Scriptures and philosophical divines; or from the confused seeds of things. For some of the philosophers held that the seeds and elements of nature were infinite in their substance; whence arose the opinion of homogeneous primary parts, which Anaxagoras either invented or propagated. Others more accurately maintain that the variety of nature can equally spring from seeds, certain and definite in substance, but only diversified in form and figure, and attribute the 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 principle of nature—Thales, water; Anaximenes, air; Heraclitus, fire—and defined this principle, which is one in act, to be various and dispensable in powers, and involving the seeds of all natural essences. They who introduced—as Aristotle and Plato—primordial matter, every way disarranged, shapeless, and indifferent to any form, approached nearer to a resemblance of the figure of the parable. For they conceived matter as a courtesan, and the forms as suitors; so that the whole dispute comes to these two points: viz., either that nature proceeds 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 Reproach. 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, preservation, 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 nature 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 Parcæ 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 universe 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 Parcæ 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—“Præstare credere fabulam Deorum quam fatum asserere—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 cast off the yoke, and abandoned as well the necessity of fate as the fear of the gods.

Horns are given him broad at the roots, but narrow and sharp atop, 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 chair; 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 elegance, 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 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 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 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 terrestrial bodies have toward 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 upward, 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 toward 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, composed 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 mutations in the heavens, as in superlunary comets, they seem like pipes either altogether united or silent for a time, because their influence either does not reach so low as us, or leaves uninterrupted the harmony of the seven pipes of Pan. His crook also contains a fine representation of the ways of nature, which are partly straight and partly crooked: thus the staff, having an extraordinary bend toward the top, denotes that the works of Divine Providence are generally brought about by remote means, or in a circuit, as if somewhat else were intended, rather than the effect produced; as in the sending of Joseph into Egypt. So, likewise, in human government, they who sit at the helm manage and wind the people more successfully by pretext and oblique courses than they could by such as are direct and straight; so that in effect all sceptres are crooked on the top. Nay, in things strictly natural you may sooner deceive nature than force her, so improper and self-convicting are open, direct endeavors, whereas an oblique and insinuating way gently glides along, and secretly accomplishes the purpose.

Pan’s mantle, or clothing, is with great ingenuity made of a leopard’s skin, because of the spots it has: for, in like manner, the heavens are sprinkled with stars, the sea with islands, the earth with flowers, and almost each particular thing is variegated, or wears a mottled coat.

The office of Pan could not be more livelily expressed than by making him the god of hunters: for every natural action, every motion and process, is no other than a chase; thus arts and sciences hunt out their works, and human schemes and counsels their several ends, and all living creatures either hunt out their aliment, pursue their prey, or seek their pleasures, and this in a skilful and sagacious manner. He is also styled the god of the rural inhabitants, because men in this situation live more according to nature than they do in cities and courts, where nature is so corrupted with effeminate arts, that the saying of the poet may be verified:

“—pars minima est ipsa puella sui.”

He is likewise particularly styled president of the mountains, because in mountains and lofty places the nature of things lies more open and exposed to the eye and the understanding.

In his being called the messenger of the gods, next after Mercury, lies a divine allegory; as, next after the word of God, the image of the world is the herald of the divine power and wisdom, according to the expression of the Psalmist: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork.”

Pan is delighted with the company of the Nymphs: that is, the souls of all living creatures are the delight of the world, and he is properly called their governor, because each of them follows its own nature as a leader, and all dance about their own respective rings with infinite variety and never-ceasing motion. Hence one of the moderns has ingeniously reduced all the power of the soul to motion, noting the precipitancy of some of the ancients, who, fixing their thoughts prematurely on memory, imagination, and reason, have neglected the cogitative faculty, which, however, plays the chief rôle in the work of conception. For he that remembers, cogitates, as likewise he who fancies or reasons; so that the soul of man in all her moods dances to the musical airs of the cogitations, which is that rebounding of the Nymphs. And with these continually join the Satyrs and Sileni, that is, youth and age; for all things have a kind of young, cheerful, and dancing time; and again their time of slowness, tottering, and creeping. And whoever, in a true light, considers the motions and endeavors of both these ages, like another Democritus, will perhaps find them as odd and strange as the gesticulations and antic motions of the Satyrs and Sileni.

The power he had of striking terrors contains a very sensible doctrine, for nature has implanted fear in all living creatures, as well to keep them from risking their lives as to guard against injuries and violence; and yet this nature or passion keeps not its bounds, but with just and profitable fears always mixes such as are vain and senseless; so that all things, if we could see their insides, would appear full of panic terrors. Nor is this superstition confined to the vulgar, but sometimes breaks out in wise men. As Epicurus, “Non Deos vulgi negare profanum; sed vulgi opiniones Diis applicare profanum.”

The presumption of Pan in challenging Cupid to the conflict, denotes that matter has an appetite and tendency to a dissolution of the world, and falling back to its first chaos again, unless this depravity and inclination were restrained and subdued by a more powerful concord and agreement of things, properly expressed by love or Cupid; it is therefore well for mankind, and the state of all things, that Pan was thrown and conquered in the struggle.

His catching and detaining Typhon in the net receives a similar explanation; for whatever vast and unusual swells, which the word Typhon signifies, may sometimes be raised in nature, as in the sea, the clouds, the earth, or the like; yet nature catches, entangles, and holds all such outrages and insurrections in her inextricable net, wove as it were of adamant.

That part of the fable which attributes the discovery of lost Ceres to Pan, while he was hunting, a happiness denied the other gods, though they diligently and expressly sought her, contains an exceeding just and prudent admonition; viz., that we are not to expect the discovery of things useful in common life, as that of corn, denoted by Ceres, from abstract philosophies, as if these were the gods of the first order—no, not though we used our utmost endeavors this way—but only from Pan, that is, a sagacious experience and general knowledge of nature, which is often found, even by accident, to stumble upon such discoveries, while the pursuit was directed another way.

The event of his contending with Apollo in music, affords us a useful instruction, that may help to humble the human reason and judgment, which is too apt to boast and glory in itself. There seem to be two kinds of harmony; the one of Divine Providence, the other of human reason: but the government of the world, the administration of its affairs, and the more secret divine judgments, sound harsh and dissonant to human ears or human judgment; and though this ignorance be justly rewarded with ass’s ears, yet they are put on and worn, not openly, but with great secrecy; nor is the deformity of the thing seen or observed by the vulgar.

We must not find it strange if no amours are related of Pan, besides his marriage with Echo; for nature enjoys itself, and in itself all other things: he that loves, desires enjoyment; but in profusion there is no room for desire; and therefore Pan, remaining content with himself, had no passion, unless it be for discourse, which is well shadowed out by Echo, or talk; or when it is more accurate, by Syrinx, or writing. But Echo makes a most excellent wife for Pan, as being no other than genuine philosophy, which faithfully repeats his words, or only transcribes exactly as nature dictates; thus representing the true image and reflection of the world, without adding a tittle. The calling the moon aside into a deeply imbrowned wood, seems to refer to the convention between the sense and spiritual things. For the ear of Endymion and Pan are different, the moon of her own accord in the latter case stooping down from her sphere as Endymion lay asleep, intimating that divine illuminations oft glide gently into the understanding, cast asleep and withdrawn from the senses. But if they be called by sense, representing Pan, they afford no other light than that

It tends also to the support and perfection of Pan or nature, to be without offspring; for the world generates in its parts, and not in the way of a whole, as wanting a body external to itself wherewith to generate.

Lastly, for the supposed or spurious prattling daughter of Pan, it is an excellent addition to the fable, and aptly represents the talkative philosophies that have at all times been stirring, and filled the world with idle tales; being ever barren, empty, and servile, though sometimes indeed diverting and entertaining, and sometimes again troublesome and importunate.