In the further embrace of such conceptions there are no doubt points of connection with incipient symbolism, but we get out of them no real type of that mode of viewing things in its completeness; they will only pass muster as isolated traits in its direction. To such effect Ormuzd is on one occasion made to say of his beloved one Dschemschid: "The holy Ferver of Dschemschid, the son of Vivengham, was great before me. His hand received from me a dagger, whose sharpness was gold, and whose shaft was gold. Therewith Dschemschid marked out three hundred portions of the Earth. He split up the Earth-realm with his gold-plate, yea, with his dagger and spake: 'Let Sapandomad rejoice.' He spake the holy word with prayer to the tame cattle and the wild and unto men. So his passing through was happiness and blessing for these lands and animals of the home and the field, and men ran together into great dwellings." Here we find in the dagger, and the cleaving of the Earth-soil an image which may be interpreted as significant of agriculture. Agriculture is still no essentially spiritual activity, and just as little is it a purely natural one; it is rather a universal occupation of mankind, which results from reflective thought and experience, and which has point of association with all the relations of life. It is no doubt never expressly stated in this conception of the passing of Dschemschid that this splitting of the Earth with the dagger indicates agriculture; nor is there a single word added of any increase of the fruits of the field by virtue of this division; for the reason, however, that in this particular act more appears to be included than the mere turning over and loosening of the soil, we are led to look for a further significance beneath it. The same observations apply to more recent conceptions, such as we find exemplified in the later elaboration of the worship of Mithras, where Mithras is represented as a youth who in the dusk of a grotto raises on high the bull's head and plunges a dagger in his neck, whereon a serpent licks up the blood, and a scorpion gnaws his genitals. This symbolical account has received an astronomical and other interpretations. We may, however, find in it a still more universal and profounder meaning, and take the bull generally to personify the principle of Nature, over which man, as essentially spirit, secures the victory, and this though astronomical associations may also be implied in it. That, however, such a revolution as the victory of Spirit over Nature is contained in it is also suggested by the name of Mithras, or mediator, more especially if we refer it to a later period when such uplifting over Nature was already a necessity present to the national consciousness. Symbols such as the above, however, as already observed, only incidentally come to the fore in the conceptions of the ancient Parsees, and do not in any way constitute a principle for their fundamental type of thought.