On that account, we cannot see what the former arguments of the critic gain in strength by the addition: “that the perfect identity of conception falls in a very great part upon abstract and metaphysical ideas, in which such a coincidence is infinitely more difficult than when the question is only of objects and relations perceptible to the senses.”――A great similarity is remarked in all forms of thinking. Little chance of being contradicted can be incurred in saying, that the fundamental ideas of metaphysics are common to all mankind, and inherent in human reason. The encyclopedian contents of the Dabistán, concerning the opinions of so many nations, would furnish a new proof of it, were this generally acknowledged fact in need of any further support. Silvestre de Sacy acknowledges that the Asmáni language contains a great number of radical words, the origin of which is not known. Erskine says:[43] “It is certainly singular that the language in which the Desátir is written, like that in which the Zend-Avesta is composed, is no where else to be met with. It is not derived from the Zend, the Pehlevi, the Sanscrit, Arabic, Turkish, Persian, or any other known language.” * * * * * * The basis of the language, and the great majority of words in it, belong to no known tongue. It is a mixture of Persian and Indian words. A few Arabic words occur.” Norris[44] also found that a great part of the language appears to have little resemblance to any other that was ever spoken. A judgment, so expressed, might induce an impartial mind to ascribe originality to at least a part of the Asmáni language; which would naturally render the other part less liable to suspicion, inasmuch as it would have been not less difficult to execute, but less easy to conceal, a partial than a total forgery. Nevertheless it so happens that the dissimilarity from any other, as well as the similarity to one particular idiom, are both equally turned against the genuineness of the language in question: where dissimilarity exists, there is absolute forgery――where similarity, an awkward disguise!