"O Pan! I invoke thee, O powerful god! O universal nature! the heavens,
the sea, the earth, who nourish all, and the eternal fire, because these
are thy members, O all powerful Pan," &c. Nothing can be more suitable
to confirm these ideas, than the ingenious explanation which is given of
the fable of Pan, as well as of the figure under which he is
represented. It is said, "Pan, according to the signification of his
name, is the emblem by which the ancients have designated the great
assemblage of things or beings: he represents the universe; and, in the
mind of the wisest philosophers of antiquity, he passed for the greatest
and most ancient of the gods. The features under which he is delineated
form the portrait of nature, and of the savage state in which she was
found in the beginning. The spotted skin of the leopard, which serves
him for a mantle, imagined the heavens filled with stars and
constellations. His person was compounded of parts, some of which were
suitable to a reasonable animal, that is to say, to man; and others to
the animal destitute of reason, such as the goat. It is thus," says he,
"that the universe is composed of an intelligence that governs the
whole, and of the prolific, fruitful elements of fire, water, earth,
air. Pan, loved to drink and to follow the nymphs; this announces the
occasion nature has for humidity in all her productions, and that this
god, like nature, is strongly inclined to propagation. According to the
Egyptians, and the most ancient Grecian philosophers, Pan had neither
father nor mother; he came out of Demogorgon at the same moment with the
Destinies, his fatal sisters; a fine method of expressing that the
universe was the work of an unknown power, and that it was formed after
the invariable relations, the eternal laws of necessity; but his most
significant symbol, that most suitable to express the harmony of the
universe, is his mysterious pipe, composed of seven unequal tubes, but
calculated to produce the nicest, the most perfect concord. The orbs