I thought it necessary to repeat these extravagant numbers, because it is by them that the reigns of the first ancient dynasties are measured.[80] The first earthly ruler of the present cycle, who with his wife survived the great period to become the first ancestor of a new innumerable population, was _Mahabada_. This name seems of Sanscrit derivation.[81] In his reign we find traced the first ground-lines of all human societies; agriculture and the arts of life are invented; villages and cities organised; four classes of society established――priests, warriors, agriculturists, and tradesmen. The names of these classes are in the Dabistán much like those of the four Hindu _castes_, but the Desátir and the Shahnamah have other denominations, belonging to an ancient Persian dialect,[82] for these divisions, which originated in the indispensable wants of a rising society. This institution connects itself with the principles of social morality: men are bound to each other by the laws of justice and mutual kindness, which is extended even to all innoxious creatures. To Mahabad the _Desátir_ was sent, a celestial code, and his faith was maintained through the whole series of his fourteen successors; the number of whom reminds us of the fourteen Indian Manus; they are said to have reigned six hundred and six trillions of years. To the Mahabadians succeeded _Abad Azar_, who soon withdrew from government, and devoted himself to solitude and piety. After him, the hitherto fortunate state of society changed into war, confusion, and anarchy. His son, _Jai Afram_, was called to the throne, and restored peace and order in the world, giving his name to a new dynasty. After this, four other princely families are named, that of _Shai Abad_, _Shai Giliv_, _Shai Mahbul_, and _Yasan_.[83] I shall not count the many millions of years during which they ruled; all that is said of their reigns appears nothing but a repetition of the first; a period of peace, order, and happiness is followed by war, disorder, and misery, until a revolution renews the state of things. Such traditions of a progress and regress in virtue and happiness, and of repeated changes from one condition to another, are not destitute of general truth. The moral is not, more than the physical world, exempt from revolutions. These, although their date cannot be determined, have left behind them undeniable traces, and without a reference to them, we could not explain so much of the strangeness, incoherence, and heterogeneity in the history of men and nature.