There is no figure of a religious teacher so elusive as that of Zoroaster, and they are all elusive. But in the case of Zoroaster it is not only the man that eludes us—it is also his environment. Brahmanical India of to-day reflects as in a glass the society into which Sakya Muni cast his seed; in fact, we understand the seed-sowing better than the harvest; Buddhism at its apogee seems of the nature of an interlude in the history of the changeless East. China still throws light on its passionless sage, passionless in a sense so far deeper than the Indian recluses, who, though they knew it not, did but substitute for the passion of the flesh the more inebriating passion of the spirit. From the splendid treasury of præ-Islamic poetry, we know that the Arab race had acquired its specialised type before the Muezzin first called the faithful to prayer. The moral petrifaction of the many and the religious and patriotic ferment of the few which formed the _milieu_ of nascent Christianity, can be realised without any stretch of the imagination. Buddha, Confucius, and He that was greater than they, came into highly civilised societies in organised states; Mohammed came into an unorganised state which lacked political and religious cohesion, but the unity of race was already developed: the Emirs of the Soudan whose star set at Omdurman were the living pictures of the Arabs who first rallied to the Prophet’s banner. Of the society of Old Iran to which Zoroaster spoke, it is difficult to form a distinct idea and to judge how far it had moved away from early Aryan simplicity. We gather that it was still a society in which sheep-raising and dairy-farming played a preponderant part. Those modern expressions may serve us better than to say “shepherds” and “herdsmen,” since fixity of dwelling with the possession of what then was considered wealth seems to have been a very common case. Nomadic life lasted on, but it was held in disrepute. There appears to have been nothing like a national or warlike spirit such as that possessed by the Jews, though occasional Turanian incursions had to be repelled. There were few towns and many scattered villages and homesteads. We are conscious that these impressions derived from the Avesta may be partially erroneous. Teachers of religion only take note of political or other circumstances so far as it suits their purpose.