RELIGIOUS BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORALITY. 91 



hundred husbandmen. Indeed, it has been estimated that one 

 acre of arable land will bring forth as much food and conse- 

 quently sustain as many inhabitants as two thousand acres of 

 hunting ground. 



In the fullness of time Yima was succeeded by the man who, 

 like Aaron, could " speak well," and in the first Gatha we find an 

 address which Zarathustra delivered to his countrymen con- 

 gregated around the sacred fire. It begins as follows : " I will 

 now reveal to you who are here assembled the wise words of 

 Mazda, the worship of Ahura, the hymns in praise of the good 

 spirit, the sublime truth, which I see rising out of the sacred 

 flames." He then appeals to them as the " offspring of renowned 

 ancestors " to rouse their minds and give heed to his divine mes- 

 sage: "To-day, O men and women, you should choose your 

 creed." 



After this brief exordium, he plunges at once into his subject 

 and offers his solution of the old and ever-puzzling problem of 

 good and evil, which he personifies as twin spirits, counter-work- 

 ers in the creation of the world, each exercising its peculiar ac- 

 tivity and contributing its characteristic element, and promoting 

 respectively the happiness and the misery of mankind. It may 

 also be safely asserted that, from a theistic point of view, no more 

 logical and satisfactory solution of the difficulty has ever been 

 presented. He earnestly exhorts his hearers to follow after the 

 good and to eschew the evil. " Choose between these two spirits, 

 for ye can not serve both." " Be pure and not vile." " Let us be 

 such as help the life of the future." " Obey, therefore, the com- 

 mandments which Mazda has proclaimed and enjoined upon 

 mankind ; for they are a snare and perdition to liars, but pros- 

 perity to the believer in the truth and the source of all bliss." 



The whole aim of this discourse, of which these extracts suf- 

 fice to indicate the drift, is to persuade his hearers to renounce 

 or to confirm them in their renunciation of the old Aryan poly- 

 theism and worship of the devas, as we find it in the Vedas, and 

 to adopt monotheism or the adoration of the one great and good 

 but by no means omnipotent being, Ahuramazda. As a philo- 

 sophical system, his doctrine was dualistic and recognized the 

 existence of two original and independent principles in the uni- 

 verse ; as a cult, it was monotheolatrous and worshiped only one 

 of these powers. 



It may be added that long before the close of the Vedic period 

 the Indo- Aryans had also begun to devote themselves to hus- 

 bandry, although their chief wealth still consisted in herds. The 

 burden of their hymns and prayers to the gods is for much cattle 

 and a large family of vigorous sons. The foes which they now 

 had mostly to contend with were the Dasyus or aborigines of 



