“The truly free, as soon as possible, disengages himself from body: If he cannot extricate himself from skin, let him resign his doublet.” But if the spirit be prone to error, it descends successively from the human frame to the animal body: such are the doctrines of their distinguished men. Some however of this sect, in whose language all is metaphorical and figurative, assert, that sometimes the spirit, through excessive wickedness, becomes by insensible degrees connected with plants and vegetables; and frequently, by progressive gradations, becomes joined to mineral or metallic substances. According to this class of believers, there is an uncompounded soul in each of the three kingdoms of nature: and they acknowledge that every thing possesses a ray of existence emanating from _Shíd Shídan_, or ‘Effulgence of Light.’ One of the eminent men, agreeably to this view, has said: “The soul is the marrow of certainty, the body its envelope: In the robes of spirit contemplate the form of a friend (the Creator). Whatever object bears the impress of existence, Regard it as the reflexion of light, or his very self.” They also hold that the world bears the same affinity to the Creator, as the solar light doth to the body of the sun; that it has existed from all eternity and will continue to all infinity. They maintain that, whatever exists in this world, or that of formation and evanescence, depends on the influence of the stars; also that astronomers and astrologers have found out some few effects of the influence of the seven planets, but are ignorant of the natures and influences of the slow-moving or fixed stars. The possessors of _Fardát_ and _Fartáb_, or those who are directed by inspiration and revelation, have laid down that every star, whether fixed or planetary, is regent during certain periods of several thousand years: one thousand years being assigned to each star, without the association of any other: on the termination of which, in the subsequent millennia, both the fixed and planetary stars are successively associated with it――that is, in commencing the series with a fixed star, we call the fixed star which is Lord of the Cycle, the First King; on the termination of the millennium appropriated to him, another fixed star becomes partner with the First King, which partner we style First Minister: but the supremacy and dominion of the period belong exclusively to the First King: on the termination of the second millennium,――the period of office assigned to the First Minister expires, and another star is associated with the First King; and so on, until the fixed stars are all gone through: on which Saturn becomes associated with the First King, and continues so during a thousand years, and so with the other planets, until the period of association with the moon arrives: then terminates the supremacy of the fixed star, named the First King, and his authority expires. After