But, who can like to read “puerile details, disgusting descriptions, barbarous words――Zoroaster could not have written such nonsense――either he had no common sense, or he wrote not the book which Anquetil attributed to him.”[108] As much has been and may be said of the books attributed to other Asiatic legislators, who were nevertheless revered as sacred during many ages by numerous nations. Until we properly understand the ignorance and habitual ideas of Asiatics, we shall always remain ignorant of what is proverbially called _the wisdom of the East_. To appreciate the just value of the ancient codes of laws, we ought to represent to ourselves the primitive children of the earth, as Prometheus describes them: “They saw, indeed, they heard; but what avail’d Or sight, or sense of hearing, all things rolling, Like the unreal imagery of dreams, In wild confusion mix’d! The lightsome wall Of finer masonry, the rafter’d roof They knew not; but, like ants still buried, delved Deep in the earth, and scoop’d their sunless caves. Unmark’d the seasons chang’d, the biting winter, The flow’r-perfumed spring, the ripening summer, Fertile of fruits.”[109] It will then be felt how important it was to break the savage under the yoke of seemingly puerile practices and customs. In a state which was not unaptly called “the infancy of man,” it was by no means absurd to ensure health by dietetical prescriptions, cleanliness by obligatory ablutions, and decency with convenience by a regulated dress; the _koshti_, “the girdle,” of Zoroaster was then not so unmeaning as it now appears to us. It was necessary to educate the moral sense by appropriate images, and to occupy conveniently, by fables, symbols, and mythical accounts, the first active faculty of the soul, imagination. Although those men who, as legislators, were elevated above their barbarous age, could in many points but partake in the general imbecility and ignorance of an infant state of society, they have nevertheless, among seemingly childish and absurd precepts, promulgated most luminous truths, better than which none have hitherto been known, even at the most advanced degree of civilisation. Any information above the common understanding of the age is justly called “a revelation,” and every nation has received some from their prophets, by which we have all benefited.[110] We, the youngest sons of science, ought to keep a grateful and reverential remembrance of our elder brothers. Let it be a subject of regret that, by the maintenance of ancient institutions much longer than was required for their intended purpose, the intellectual growth of many Asiatic nations was stopped; thus they now appear made for their laws, whilst their laws were once made for them. After these and similar reflexions, we shall view Zoroaster’s hundred gates, and the remains of his twenty-one nosks, as venerable monuments of an antique civilisation, which ought never to be profaned by derision.