lanation when it appears is not quite new, it has been shaping
itself already in the mind of his people, but he sets it forth as a
dogma, and draws from it at once all its practical consequences. In
the third hymn of the first Gatha he solemnly brings forward his
doctrine before the people, and appeals to them, not as a people, but
as individuals, each for himself, with a full sense of his
responsibility, to consider it, and adopt it, and act upon it. It is
the doctrine of dualism, not in the fully developed later form in
which two personal potentates divide the universe between them from
the first, but as yet in a form more speculative and vague. There are
two primeval principles, spirits, things, as is well known--the
expression is indefinite--the counterparts of each other, independent
in their action, a better and a worse, and Zarathustra calls on his
audience to choose between them, and not to choose as do the
evildoers. The world, as it is, was made by the joint action of the
two principles, and they also fixed the alternative fates of men, for
the wicked, Hell--the worst life; and for the holy, Heaven--the best
mental state. After the creation was accomplished, the two principles
drew off from each other, the evil one making choice of evil and of
evil works, and the bounteous spirit choosing righteousness, making
his strong seat in heaven, and taking for his own those who do good
and who believe in him. The Daevas and their followers are incapable
of making a just choice between the good and the evil; they have
surrendered themselves from the outset to the "Worst Mind," the demon
of fury, and to all evil works. (There are vague suggestions here of
a temptation and a fall, but only of the evil spirits and their
followers.) From this point onwards the world is filled with a great
struggle. On the one side is Ahura, the only god worshipped by name
in the Gathas. Ahura is a heaven-god, he is, in fact, the bright
heaven, and then the good and beneficent being who dwells in
brightness. In the hymns he is losing his definite character and
becoming an abstraction, a god of dogmatics rather than of history.
He is the good principle personified, and as becomes a god of such
transcendent character, he does not act directly, but through his
satellites. His attributes personified, do his bidding, aid the
saints in spiritual ways, and prepare for the better order of things.
On the other hand are the Daevas with the demon of wra