206 Hdolatry and Philosophy of the Zabians. 
Virgil, who in different parts of his poem, gives him different char- 
acters, and Plato, who says, Jupiter, Pluto and Dionysius, all mean 
the Sun. 
Once having admitted the existence of a soul of the world, the 
Zabians would have been involved in much difficulty, with regard to 
his moral government. In these early ages, the value of a human 
action perhaps was not determined, by its addition to, or subtraction 
om the general universal mass of happiness, but from a superficial 
view of its bearing, on the narrow circle of humanity. Under these 
circumstances, whilst the existence of Good was allowed, that of Evil 
must have been admitted, and to account for this, under the domin- 
ion of a wise creator, gave birth in my opinion, to the religion of 
the Zabians. 
By likening unseen things, to those which are always present in 
common life, we obtain permanent pictures of what otherwise would 
be transient images. Fable and personification are but vivid forms 
of expression, whose value may be observed, by the distinctness with 
which they paint dim objects in striking colors, and the effect they 
produce. A species of worship which originated among men whose 
fancy was warm, could not long exist without the auxiliary advantages 
derived from figures of this class, and especially when it was necessa- 
ry that abstruse subjects should be presented tothe vulgar, in attrac- 
tive shapes, readily understood. For it was a remark supported by 
long observation, and the lapse of many years, that idolatry requires 
to be cast into a popular form, and a false religion to be successful 
among men, must furnish them with some substantial form, some 
point of adoration, some emblem, or some visible shape, on which 
they may look, and to which they may pray. 
The Zabian, who, either truly or falsely, had ascertained the exist- 
ence of good and evil in mundane concerns, and was at a loss to account 
for the existence of both simultaneously, invented, perhaps the most 
ingenious allegory* which the wit of man has ever produced,—a 
ae of sophistry. As good is pleasant to the mind, by a slight 
tion from mental feelings to corporeal things, he called it Light, 
wd taught that evil bears the same relation to it, that a shadow does 
to the effulgent point. Their allegory painted Ormusd as the good 
* Plutarch, Dion. Halicarnasseus, Proclus, Philo Biblius, comet and indeed 
all mythological writers mention personification as the very basis of idolatry— 
e , 2 
book 1. ch.9 and 10, Shuckford, v. 1, p. 354, Plutarch de Iside et Osiride, p. 356. 
