removed, and many contingent circumstances must find their entrance. But that there is a Reason there, must certainly be recognized, and it is essential so to comprehend and grasp mythology. But Mythology must remain excluded from our history of Philosophy. The reason of this is found in the fact that in Philosophy we have to do not with theorems generally, or with thoughts which only are _implicite_ contained in some particular form or other, but with thoughts which are explicit, and only in so far as they are explicit and in so far as a content such as that belonging to Religion, has come to consciousness in the form of Thought. And this is just what forms the immense distinction which we saw above, between capacity and actuality. The theorems which are _implicite_ contained within Religion do not concern us; they must be in the form of thoughts, since Thought alone is the absolute form of the Idea. In many mythologies, images are certainly used along with their significance, or else the images are closely attended by their interpretation. The ancient Persians worshipped the sun, or fire, as being the highest existence; the first cause in the Persian Religion is Zervane Akerene—unlimited time, eternity. This simple eternal existence possesses according to Diogenes Lærtius (I. 8), “the two principles Ormuzd (_Ὠρομάσδης_) and Ahriman (_Ἀρειμάνος_), the rulers over good and evil.” Plutarch in writing on Isis and Osiris (T. II. p. 369, ed. Xyl.) says, “It is not one existence which holds and rules the whole, but good is mingled with evil; nature as a rule brings forth nothing pure and simple; it is not one dispenser, who, like a host, gives out and mixes up the drink from two different barrels. But through two opposed and inimical principles of which the one impels towards what is right, and the other in the opposite direction, if not the whole world, at least this earth is influenced in different ways. Zoroaster has thus emphatically set up the one principle (Ormuzd) as being the Light, and the other (Ahriman) as the Darkness. Between the two (_μέσος δὲ ἀμφοῖν_) is Mithra, hence called by the Persians the Mediator (_μεσίτης_).” Mithra is then likewise substance, the universal existence, the sun raised to a totality. It is not the mediator between Ormuzd and Ahriman by establishing peace and leaving each to remain as it was; it does not partake of good and evil both, like an unblest middle thing, but it stands on the side of Ormuzd and strives with him against the evil. Ahriman is sometimes called the first-born son of the Light, but Ormuzd only remained within the Light. At the creation of the visible world, Ormuzd places on the earth in his incomprehensible kingdom of Light, the firm arches of the heavens which are above yet surrounded on every side with the first original Light. Midway to the earth is the high hill Albordi, which reaches into the source of Light. Ormuzd’s empire of Light extended uninterruptedly over the firm vault