eir opposite," or "goodness and
wickedness," _Kutub al Mahasin wal Azdad_, or _Kutub al Mahasin wal
Masawi_. Although in the Fihrist we do not come across books with this
title, we have a book so named from the beginning of the tenth century
whose author was Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al Baihaki.[1] Under the title of
_Kitab al Mahasin wal Azdad_ we likewise possess a work ascribed to
Jahiz.[2] Both these books evidently go to a common origin.[3] It is
quite possible that antithesis was originally not excluded from these
_Kutub al-Mahasin_, from which were developed a special species of
educative treatises,--those on "good qualities and their opposites."
Continuing our comparison with the Parsi literature, we notice that a
similar kind of antithesis is most commonly employed there.

[Footnote 1: Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al Baihaki, _Kitab al-Mahasin val
masavi_, herausgegeben von Dr. F. Schwally, Geissen 1902.]

[Footnote 2: _Le livre des beautes et des antithesis attribue a Abu
Othman Amr ibn Bahr al-Djakiz_, texte arabe publie par G. Van Vloten
Leyde; 1898.]

[Footnote 3: See the review by Barbier de Meynard of the edition of
_Mahasin wal Azdad_ in the Revue Citique, 1900, 276.]

In the Parsi ecclesiastical literature of an ethical nature we find
definitely settled what is "proper" and, on the other hand, what is
"improper."[1] It is well known that books under this title,--"the
proper and the improper" or "the licit and the illicit"--are to be found
among the Pahlavi tracts the time of whose composition can be fixed
somewhere between the seventh and the ninth centuries A.D.[2] Comparing
the Pahlavi tracts with reference to these questions with Arabic books
on good and bad qualities and manners, we have to bear in mind the
general features, general outline, as well as the conditions of
civilisation of the period when these books were written, in other
words, the circumstances of their intimate relation generally of a
cultural nature, particularly of a literary form obtaining between the
Arab and Persian nations, and between Islam and Parsism. Not only in
detail, but also in their nature these books must be differentiated in
proportion as were different the clergy who wrote these ethical tracts
from didactic works of a strong legendary element belonging to the pen
of secular people. These literary monuments must be differentiated quite
as much as their authors and with reference to them we may institute the
same parallel whi