azed egg-shell, bad things came by this means to be
intermixed with good. But the fatal time is now approaching, in which
Arimanius, who by means of this brings plagues and famines upon the earth,
must of necessity be himself utterly extinguished and destroyed; at which
time, the earth, being made plain and level, there will be one life, and
one society of mankind, made all happy, and one speech. But Theopompus
saith, that, according to the opinion of the Magees, each of these gods
subdues, and is subdued by turns, for the space of three thousand years
apiece, and that for three thousand years more they quarrel and fight and
destroy each other's works; but that at last Pluto shall fail, and mankind
shall be happy, and neither need food, nor yield a shadow.[115] And that
the god who projects these things doth, for some time, take his repose and
rest; but yet this time is not so much to him although it seems so to man,
whose sleep is but short. Such, then, is the mythology of the Magees."

We shall see presently how nearly this account corresponds with the
religion of the Parsis, as it was developed out of the primitive doctrine
of Zoroaster.[116]

Besides what was known through the Greeks, and some accounts contained in
Arabian and Persian writers, there was, until the middle of the last
century, no certain information concerning Zoroaster and his teachings.
But the enterprise, energy, and scientific devotion of a young Frenchman
changed the whole aspect of the subject, and we are now enabled to speak
with some degree of certainty concerning this great teacher and his
doctrines.

Sec. 3. Anquetil du Perron and his Discovery of the Zend Avesta.

Anquetil du Perron, born at Paris in 1731, devoted himself early to the
study of Oriental literature. He mastered the Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian
languages, and by his ardor in these studies attracted the attention of
Oriental scholars. Meeting one day in the Royal Library with a fragment of
the Zend Avesta, he was seized with the desire of visiting India, to
recover the lost books of Zoroaster, "and to learn the Zend language in
which they were written, and also the Sanskrit, so as to be able to read
the manuscripts in the _Bibliotheque du Roi_, which no one in Paris
understood."[117] His friends endeavored to procure him a situation in an
expedition just about to sail; but their efforts not succeeding, Du Perron
enlisted as a private soldier, telling no one of his intent