The Historians' History of the World 02

The picture which an Asiatic forms to himself of such happier days, is different from that which a European would conceive. Bowed down from his youth beneath the yoke of absolute authority, he does not presume to emancipate himself, even in idea; but takes another way of compensating his present grievances. He pictures to himself a despotic government in the hands, not of a tyrant, but a father of his people; under which every class of men and every individual might have his appropriate sphere of action, to which he confined himself, and the duties of which he fulfilled; under whom the peaceful arts of agriculture, tending of flocks, and commerce, were supposed to flourish, riches to increase and abound, as if the hands of the monarch, like those of a divinity, showered blessings on his people.

Such a government and such a sovereign are recorded in the Cyropædia itself; and their image has survived through all the periods of Asiatic history, still continuing to form, as it were, the central point of oriental tradition, and vividly impressed on the code of Zoroaster. According to that sage, the era of Jemshid, the ancient sovereign of Iran, was the golden age of his country. “Jemshid, the father of his people, the most glorious of mortals whom the sun ever beheld. In his days animals perished not: there was no want either of water, or of fruit-bearing trees, or of animals fit for the food of mankind. During the light of his reign there was neither frost nor burning heat, nor death, nor unbridled passions, the work of the Devs. Man appeared to retain the age of fifteen; the children grew up in safety, as long as Jemshid reigned, the father of his people.”

The restoration of such a golden age was the end of the legislation of Zoroaster, who, however, built his code on a religious foundation, agreeably to the practice of the East; and the multifarious ceremonies he prescribed had all reference to certain doctrines intimately associated with his political dogmata; and it is absolutely necessary to bear in mind this alliance, if we would not do injustice to one part or other of his system.

The philosophical system of Zoroaster set out with those speculations with which philosophy, in the infancy of nations, is apt to commence her career, being impelled thereto in the most lively and powerful manner, namely, with discussions respecting the origin of evil, which in so many forms oppresses human nature. It is indifferent to us, whether he was himself the first propounder of the doctrines he maintained on this subject, or whether he borrowed them from more ancient traditions of the East. It is sufficient that in this respect he assumed such high ground that all obscurity which involved the subject seemed to disappear, as long as no clouds of metaphysics obscured the horizon. The doctrine of a good and evil principle, the sources of all good and ill, is the foundation-stone of the whole structure, both of his religious and political philosophy.

This leading idea was, however, modified by the character of a legislator which its author assumed. He asserted the existence of a kingdom of light and a kingdom of darkness: in the former reigns Ormuzd, the author and giver of all good; in the latter, Ahriman, the source of all evil, moral as well as physical. The throne of Ormuzd is surrounded by the seven Amshaspands, the princes of light, of whom the sage himself was the first. Subordinate to these are the Izeds, the genii of good, of whatever kind. The kingdom of darkness subject to Ahriman, contains the same sort of hierarchy; his throne being surrounded by the seven superior Devs, the princes of evil, while an infinite number of inferior Devs are subordinate to the former, as the Izeds to the Amshaspands. The kingdoms of Ormuzd and Ahriman are eternally opposed to each other, but at a future period Ahriman shall be overthrown, and the powers of darkness destroyed; the dominion of Ormuzd shall become universal, and the kingdom of light alone shall subsist and embrace the universe.