[8:1] This should not be confounded with Plato's non-being. To Zoroaster all forms of existence proceeding from the creative agency of the spirit of darkness are unreal; because, considering the final triumph of the spirit of Light, they have a temporary existence only. Zoroaster's view of the destiny of the soul is very simple. The soul, according to him, is a creation, not a part of God as the votaries of Mithra[9:1] afterwards maintained. It had a beginning in time, but can attain to everlasting life by fighting against Evil in the earthly scene of its activity. It is free to choose between the only two courses of action--good and evil; and besides the power of choice the spirit of Light has endowed it with the following faculties:-- 1. Conscience[10:1]. 2. Vital force. 3. The Soul--The Mind. 4. The Spirit--Reason. 5. The Farāwas̱ẖi[10:2].--A kind of tutelary spirit which acts as a protection of man in his voyage towards God. The last three[10:3] faculties are united together after death, and form an indissoluble whole. The virtuous soul, leaving its home of flesh, is borne up into higher regions, and has to pass through the following planes of existence:-- 1. The Place of good thoughts. 2. The Place of good words. 3. The Place of good works. 4. The Place of Eternal Glory[11:1].--Where the individual soul unites with the principle of Light without losing its personality. [9:1] Mithraism was a phase of Zoroastrianism which spread over the Roman world in the second century. The partisans of Mithra worshipped the sun whom they looked upon as the great advocate of Light. They held the human soul to be a part of God, and maintained that the observance of a mysterious cult could bring about the souls' union with God. Their doctrine of the soul, its ascent towards God by torturing the body and finally passing through the sphere of Aether and becoming pure fire, offers some resemblance with views entertained by some schools of Persian Ṣūfīism. [10:1] Geiger's Civilisation of Eastern Iranians, Vol. I, p. 124. [10:2] Dr. Haug (Essays p. 206) compares these protecting spirits with the ideas of Plato. They, however, are not to be understood as models according to which things are fashioned. Plato's ideas, moreover, are eternal, non-temporal and non-spatial. The doctrine that everything created by the spirit of Light is protected by a subordinate spirit has only an outward resemblance with the view that every spirit is fashioned according to a perfect supersensible model.