Finally, there is one idea common as an adjunct to the five religions of mankind. Common are their failings, common their sufferings, common is also their consolation――hope. Always regretting a purity, simplicity, and independence, supposed to have been lost in the past, because not to be found any where in the present, and never exempt from oppression, men look to the future, and listen gladly to the promise of universal reform and restoration to one rule, which each religionist says, will be his own, to be effected among the Hindus by _Kalki_, an incarnation of Brahma[204], among the other nations by the reappearance of their respective _prophet_, _Messiah_, _Mahdi_. “And then shall come, When the world’s dissolution shall be ripe, With glory and pow’r to judge both quick and dead, To judge th’ unfaithful dead, but to reward His faithful, and receive them into bliss, Whether in Heav’n or Earth, for then the Earth Shall all be Paradise.”[205] [198] Hermelaus Barbaro relates that, finding the interpretation of that word so difficult, he one night invoked the devil for assistance. The old scoffer did not fail to appear, but told him a word still more unintelligible than the Greek. Hermolaus at last brought forth the strange term _perfectihabia_, which, I think, nobody adopted. [199] Cicero circumscribes the word: _Quasi quandam continuatam motionem et perennem_ (_Tusc. Quæst._, I. 10). Budæus translates it _efficacia_.――(On this subject see _Thesaurus Græcæ linguæ ab Henr. Stephano constructus_, new edit., Paris, 1838.) [200] Leibnitz (Op. t. II. p. II. p. 53; t. III. p. 321), after having said, that to the material mass must be added some superior principle, which may be called _formal_, concludes: “This principle of things, whether we call it _entelechia_, or ‘force,’ is of no matter, provided we recollect that it can only be explained by the notion of force.” [201] Vol. III. p. 276. [202] _Ibid._, p. 289. [203] Vol. I. p. 286. [204] Vol. II. p. 24, and _Vishnu-purana_, transl. of Wilson, p. 484. [205] Milton’s Paradise Lost, XII. v. 458-464. PART III. CONCLUSION. § GENERAL APPRECIATION OF THE DABISTAN AND ITS AUTHOR.