Idolatry and Philosophy of the Zabians. 213 
capable of annihilation. And, as they supposed the Universe con- 
sisted of matter and soul, they must have seen that each of these 
were eternal, and that it was very absurd to suppose that the nobler 
part should perish, and the ignoble remain. 
It is necessary to make this distinction between the soul and the 
mind, before we can understand the mythology of any oriental na- 
tion ; for the soul was the object of the great Pythagoric doctrine of 
transmigration, the mind that of absorption. ‘The soul and body 
were held by the Zabians to be inseparable companions, de facto. 
The mind was held as a superfluity, engrafted upon them, supposed 
at some period to have been given, to have increased, and then to 
be taken away. The Zabians held, that at some unmentioned pe- 
riod of time, the First cause by a mere volition, created an atom 
which was pervaded by himself, and placed under such circumstan- 
ces as would eventually result in the production of a human being. 
It was unknown through how many states it might have passed ; the 
first in which it became cognizable to observation, was a mere lifeless 
inert mass, of a seminal nature; passing from that, it became a liv- 
ing creature of a feetal form, then an infant, and after experiencing 
all the changes incident to human life, it fell to decay, it died: yet 
the principle of vitality which pervaded it, did not cease to exist, for 
passing through a variety of forms, it still lived even in the tomb, and 
passed into a state of animal or vegetable life. But the mind after 
the decay of the body, was in due time swallowed up in that ocean 
of Deity. 
In the final destiny of the soul and mind, each change was paint- 
ed by the Zabians with expressive forms, and not only the greater, 
but even all the lesser circumstances were personified. All the pas- 
sions, the feelings, the workings of the heart, were penciled with 
much skill. Death, and sleep, and life, and birth, with all the sup- 
posed changes of past existence and future being, with all the possi- 
ble occurrences which the mind could figure, were developed to the 
votary. Hence we may well conceive how those who were once 
initiated into these mysteries, like the sages who returned from the 
cave of Trophonius, never smiled again. 
Strange as it may seem, these doctrines had at one time over- 
spread the face of the earth. In a remote period of antiquity, Za- 
baism was diffused over Asia by the science of the Chaldeans, and 
the arms of the Assyrians.* Zabaism, or the worship of the host 
* Gibbon decl. and fall. 
