Persia--the Hebrew Elam, the Indian Paraça, from Pars, or Fars, or Fardistan--differs entirely in geographical position, climate, and natural products from China or India. Hekatæos, Artemidoros, Eratosthenes, and Strabo describe the climate and soil of Persia as cold and sterile in the north, temperate and fertile in the central or valley regions, and hot and enervating in the south. We have, therefore, enterprising activity, energetic courage from the north, and a counteracting regulating element in the centre, tinged with the dreamy idleness of the south. The aspect of nature is less oppressive. Instead of gigantic creepers, the vine, with its juicy grapes, clings to tall and fruitful trees; bright-eyed gazelles abound; lions and tigers excite to daring hunts; exquisitely-coloured and fragrant roses perfume the air, and open the mind to the gentler impressions of a tender beauty. The Persians, Assyrians, and Babylonians rose to power, declined, and passed away with all their grandeur; but in these very changes there were activity and life. The Persians were the first to proclaim a governing universal _unity_, which endowed men with forces, enabling them to become virtuous and intellectual _by their own exertions_. They remained faithful to the first impressions of nature, in which the Eternal Spirit revealed himself. The Persians, like the Indians, expressed the cosmical elements of creation symbolically by means of geometrical signs, which are given below. [Illustration: (Five simple shapes, stacked, representing ether, air, fire, water, and earth)] [Illustration: (Human-like diagram derived from simple shapes)] This _five_ in _one_ comprised the creation; it was the work of Chudâ (Khuda), Choda from the Sanskrit Svadâtta (self-given, God-given). From the Zend word Chuda, or Choda, we have the words GOTT and GOD. At a later period man’s imagination soon perceived in these abstract signs a concrete form; it turned _Cha_ into the head of a being, _Ka_ into the arms, _Ra_ into the chest, _Wa_ into the lower parts of the body, and _A_ into the feet, and thus the first embryonic, ill-shapen incarnation, or embodiment, of the creative power of nature was formed. This embryo, by degrees, developed into the master-pieces of Greek sculpture.