THE NATlOxNAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY 
281 
mirza ali kuli kahn, charge 
d'affaires of pfrsia 
Mr. Bell, ladies and gentlemen of the 
National Geographic Society: It is in- 
deed a high honor conferred upon me by 
this Society to invite me to say a few 
words to you this evening. It may be 
because I belong to a nation which is 
one of the oldest occupants of a geo- 
graphical situation on this earth that I 
have been called upon to contribute a 
word or two to the discussions of this 
evening. 
What may be looked upon as most ap- 
propriate to touch upon in the course of 
the remarks I am going to make would 
be the inner side of the activities of this 
Society itself. The outer and scientific 
side of it has been so thoroughly repre- 
sented by the speakers before me that 
you might perhaps be interested now to 
hear something of my understanding of 
the inner aim of this Society. To me, 
the chief duty and activity of this So- 
ciety is its moral and spiritual efficiency — 
chiefly the work it is doing for the peace 
of nations. 
From time immemorial there have 
been here and there men who have been 
seeking knowledge by travelling through- 
out the world, believing that by so doing 
they would be able to secure knowledge 
and diffuse it among their own people, 
and thus make the knowledge of one 
nation common to another, and prepare 
the way for a day when a better under- 
standing shall exist between the nations 
of the world. 
Belonging to an ancient nation, I may 
call your attention to the records of our 
history, which starts from a remote an- 
tiquity. As far back as 260 years before 
the deluge of Noah, there lived in Persia 
King Tahmooreth the Div-band, the 
king who subdued the demon of evil. 
He is famed for having transformed it 
into a horse and ridden upon its back, 
and the old records affirm that as long 
a? he lived and rode upon the back of 
that horse evil had no activity and peace 
reigned. He is also looked upon as the 
first man who gave us the alphabet, the 
letters, and bestowed the arts upon the 
people of my country. 
Later on in our history we find other 
instances of men who, actuated by the 
spirit of search for higher knowledge, 
journeyed far in order to secure and 
introduce it among their own people for 
the enlightenment of their own race. 
Among such men three stand lofty, 
especially before the eyes of the western 
world, because of their connection with 
the spiritual history of the Christian na- 
tions. I refer to the "Three Wise Men" 
who went over from the southern city of 
Kashan, 120 miles south of Teheran, led 
by the stars of guidance into that land 
and into that humble village wherein the 
greatest Prince of Peace was born to 
illumine humanity. 
Another instance preceding that period 
by over four centuries is that of the 
great Kings Cyrus and Darius, the first 
beneficent act of whose reign, in order 
thereby to express to the world their love 
for peace, was to give liberty to the 
people of Israel whom they found in 
the Chaldean captivity, and to send them 
back, under their own leaders, to the 
land of their fathers, and to defray the 
expenses of the restoration of the glor- 
ious temple of Solomon, which was de- 
stroyed by Nebuchadnezzer some seventy 
years before. 
Thus they demonstrated to the world 
their love for peace, because one might 
almost take that act of generosity by 
Cyrus as due to a prophetic insight into 
the future of that race which was to 
produce the Prince of Peace for the 
world. It was for this consideration 
that the prophets of Israel spoke of 
Cyrus as the "Anointed of the Lord" 
in the Holy Writ. 
Even in the introduction into Persia 
of the religious movement of the Ara- 
bian Prophet we find a further trend to- 
wards search for higher knowledge and 
a reaching of the hand for the higher, 
the better. For the Persians carried out 
the saying of the Arabian Prophet, "Seek 
ye for knowledge, even though it be 
necessary to go to China." You have 
this statement of the Arabian Prophet, 
which clearly contradicts the saying at- 
tributed to Kaliff Omar in connection 
with the reported burning of the Alex- 
andrian library. 
It is not to be considered that this 
