During the following centuries Istakhr gradually declines, until, as a city, it ceased to exist.
It narrows to the north and the altitude declines in the same direction.
If the tax-payer declines to pay his due, he is brought before the proper authorities by the tahsildar; if he persists in his refusal, all his goods, except those indispensable for his dwelling and the pursuit of his trade, are sold by auction, without recourse to a judgment by tribunal.
The text will be faithful but unreadable, and his work will be that of an honest man but of a textual antiquarian, not a textual critic, since he declines the duty of "the restoration of the text, as far as possible, to its original form."
This theory gives birth to a sort of ethical by-product whose dominant note is Harmony, the subordination of the individual to the universal reason; moral failure is proportionate to the degree in which the individual declines to recognize his personal transience in relation to the eternal Unity.
