If we assume, as we must needs do, that the opinions which Basilides promulgates as the teaching of the "barbari" (Acta Archelai c. 55) were in fact his own, the fragments prove him to have been a decided dualist, and his teaching an interesting further development of oriental (Iranian) dualism.
Plotinus is no dualist, like the Christian Gnostics; he admires the beauty and splendour of the world.
But clear signs of the decay of the dualist and of the growth of an extreme nationalist Magyar spirit were already visible.
Intended by the Liberal leaders to serve as a diversion in favour of the Liberal-dualist standpoint; nevertheless, Nationalist feeling found strong expression during the negotiations of Banffy and Szell with various Austrian premiers for the renewal of the economic Ausgleich, or " Customs and Trade Alliance."
These " capitulations " obliged the Coalition government to carry on a dualist policy, although the majority of its adherents became, by the general election of May 1906, members of the Kossuth or Independence party, and, as such, pledged to the economic and political separation of Hungary from Austria save as regards the person of the ruler.
