In the pages 48, 50, and 51, of the treatise of Plutarch, on the Delays of Divine Justice, we read: "A State, for instance, is one same thing continued, a whole, alike to an animal which is ever the same, and the age thereof does not change the identity. The State then being one, as long as the association maintains the unity, the merit and the demerit, the reward and the punishment for all that is done in common are justly ascribed to it, as they are to a single individual. But if a State is to be considered in this point of view, it ought to be the same with a family proceeding from the same stock, from which it holds I do not know what sort of hidden strength; I do not know what sort of communication of essence and qualities, which extend to all the individuals of the race. Beings produced through the medium of generation are not similar to the productions of arts. In regard to the latter, when the work is completed it is immediately separated from the hand of the workman, and it no longer belongs to him: true it is done by him, but not from him. On the contrary, what is engendered proceeds from the substance itself of the generating being; so that it holds from him something which is justly rewarded or punished in his stead, for that something is himself." According to the doctrine of the Persians, Meshia and Meshiane, or the first man and first woman, were first pure, and submitted to Ormuzd, their maker. Ahriman saw them and envied their happiness. He approached them under the form of a serpent, presented fruits to them, and persuaded them that he was the maker of man, of animals, of plants, and of the beautiful universe in which they dwelled. They believed it; and since that Ahriman was their master. Their nature became corrupt, and this corruption infected their whole posterity. This we find in Vendidat-Sade, pages 305, and 428. Thus sin does not originate from Ormuzd; but, Zoroaster says, from the being hidden in crime. This testimony is found in the Exposition of the Theological System of the Persians, extracted from the books Zends, Pehlvis, and Parsis, by Anquetil du Perron. The following passage, "There are stains brought by man when he comes to life," is found in the 69th tome of the Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions. We read in the Ezour-Vedam, book 1, chapter 4, tome 1, pages 201 and 202: "God never created vice. He cannot be its author; and God, who is holiness and wisdom, can be the author but of virtue. He gave us his law in which he prescribes what we ought to do. Sin is a transgression of this law by which it is prohibited. If sin reigns on the earth, we ourselves are its authors. Our perverse inclinations have induced us to transgress the law of God; hence, the first sin which has induced us to commit others." The same author in book 5, chapter 5, tome 2, acknowledges that the first man was created in a state of innocence; and that he was happy because he controlled his passions and desires.