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becomes by contrast more and more rude and barbarous, 
and is sooner or later associated with lawlessness and rapine. 
There are numerous indications in the Avesta that the Zoro- 
astrians suffered severely from time to time from the violence 
of wilder neighbours, and to promote the more settled and 
orderly life of agriculture thus became a sacred duty. It was 
in fact a form of the contest between chaos and kosmos. 
9. The Zoroastrian Theory of the Twin Spirits. 
Without here noticing the general view respecting Persian, 
Magian, or Zoroastrian dualism, I will at once quote the 
Gathas, in illustration of the Zoroastrian concept of the Twin 
Spirits : — 
“ In the beginning there was a pair of twins, 
Two spirits, each of a peculiar activity ; 
These are the good and the base, in thought, word, and 
deed. 
Choose one of these two spirits. Be good, not base ! 
And these two spirits united created the first {i.e. the 
material world) ; 
One the reality, the other the non-reality. 
Of these two spirits you must choose one. 
You cannot belong to both of them.” 
Did, then, the composer of this hymn believe in the actual 
objective existence from all eternity of two spirits, one the 
personification of good, the other the personification of evil? 
Certainly not; and why ? Briefly for the following reasons : — 
I. Ahuramazda himself is distinctly stated in the Gathas to 
have created all that is, and is spoken of as “ He who created 
by means of his wisdom the good and evil mind in thinking, 
words, and deeds.” 
II. These twins, called “ the two primeval spirits of the 
world,” are styled “the increaser” and “the destroyer.” 
This explains the profound Zoroastrian concept ; the twins are 
the two sides of the divine action, like light and darkness ; 
and, as Haug well observes, are “ in Ahuramazda.” So, in 
another passage of the Yasna, Ahuramazda declares, “ The 
more beneficent of my two spirits has produced the whole 
rightful creation.”* 
III. In later times, when Ortnazd (Ahuramazda) and Ahri- 
man (Angromainyush), the “dark” or “hurtful spirit,” had, 
in the general belief of centuries, been pitted against each 
other for ages, the mind, still striving after a primitive unity, 
* Yasna, xix. 9. 
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