147 accounted a mineral, and no wise to be feared; but imagination says: " this is true; nevertheless we " must fear;" and when one finds himself in a house alone with a dead man, it may happen that his mind experiences an agitation of terror. The Siifis too agree with this, as we find it expressed by the venerable Shaikh Mahmtid Shdsteri1 in a chapter of the Herat ul Mohakakin, u the mirror of the investi- *' gators of truth." It is stated in the Akhvdn us a/a, " the companions of purity/' ofMulla Ali, that there were intelligences and spirits which were not or- dered to adore Adam, as being of a higher rank, as it is written in the Koran, that God, the All-just, addressed this speech to Iblis: " Thou art proud; believest thou thyself to be one of the more exalted " beings?"2 And this was the occasion on which the angels of the earth were ordered to adore Adam. The Orientals maintain that when the soul real- ises, as it ought to do, the conditions of its primitive origin, it obtains emancipation from the bodily bonds, and joins the intelligences and spirits : this exalted dignity is Paradise. 1 Shosten, or Tostert', " native of the town of Shoster or Toster," is the surname of AbuMuhammed (above Mahmud / Sahal Sen And. He is reputed as one of the principal chiefs of the Sufis; he was a disciple of Zu al nun, and condisciple of Jionaid. He died in his eightieth year, in the year of the Hejira 283 (A. I). 896). 2 See pp. 8-9, note 2.