Note 51 — Chapter VIII

Cicero, De Nat. Deor. lib. i. 4. So, in Bacon's Wisdom of the Ancients, under the fable "Pan or Nature:"—"The chain of natural causes links together the rise, duration, and corruption; the exaltation, degeneration, and workings; the processes, the effects, and changes, of all that can any way happen to things." Such is the philosopher's explanation of the Destinies as sisters of Pan. In no part of his writings can the thorough practical character of Bacon's philosophy be more conspicuously seen than in his treatment of these ancient fables. Glancing over the titles of the different papers, you are tempted to wonder what an intellect which could only appreciate poetry as a mode of narrating history or as a vehicle for the teaching of truth, will make of such fairy tales as those of Pan, Orpheus, Proteus, Cupid, and many others. They seem like so many airy Naiads crushed within the iron grasp of a hundred-banded Briareus. But a perusal of those delightful pages will show that the giant has really no malevolent intentions towards his fair prisoners; nay, that he only wishes, by stripping them of their paint and finery, to show that, with all their lightness and grace, they are nevertheless strong buxom dames, of the same doughty race with himself.