The doctrines of this ‘excellent religion’ are extremely simple. The leading idea is that of monotheism, but the one God has far fewer anthropomorphic attributes, and is relegated much farther back into the vague and infinite, than the god of any other monotheistic religion. Ahura-Mazda, of which the more familiar appellation Ormuzd is an abbreviation, means the ‘All-knowing Lord;’ he is said sometimes to dwell in the infinite luminous space, and sometimes to be identical with it. He is, in fact, not unlike the inscrutable First Cause, whom we may regard with awe and reverence, with love and hope, but whom we cannot pretend to define or to understand. But the radical difference between Zoroastrianism and other religions is that it does not conceive of this one God as an omnipotent Creator, who might make the universe as he chose, and therefore was directly responsible for all the evil in it; but as a Being acting by certain fixed laws, one of which was, for reasons totally inscrutable to us, that existence implied polarity, and therefore that there could be no good without corresponding evil. Dr. Haug, who is the greatest authority on all questions connected with the Zend scriptures, says: ‘Having arrived at the grand idea of the unity and indivisibility of the Supreme Being, Zoroaster undertook to solve the great problem which has engaged the attention of so many wise men of antiquity and even in modern times, viz. how are the imperfections discernible in the world, the various kind of evils, wickedness, and baseness, compatible with the goodness, holiness, and justness of God? This great thinker of remote antiquity solved this difficult question philosophically, by the supposition of two primæval causes, which, though different, were united, and produced the world of material things as well as that of spirit. These two primæval principles are the two moving causes in the universe, united from the beginning, and therefore called twins. They are present everywhere—in the Ahura Mazda, or Supreme Deity, as well as in man.’ They are called in the Vendidad Spento Mainyush, or the ‘beneficent spirit,’ and Angro Mainyush, or the ‘hurtful spirit.’ The latter is generally known as Ahriman, the Prince of Darkness; and the former as Ormuzd, is identified with Ahura Mazda, the good God, though, strictly speaking, Ahura Mazda is the great unknown First Cause, who comprehends within himself both principles as a necessary law of existence, and in whom believers may hope that evil and good will ultimately be reconciled.