In our last Lecture we passed in review the chief gods and goddesses of ancient Mexico, and you might see how, in spite of very characteristic differences, the Mexican mythology obeys the same law of formation that manifests itself among the peoples of the Old World, thereby proving once more that the religious development of humanity is not arbitrary, that it proceeds in every case under the direction of the inherent and inalienable principles of the human mind.
To-day we are to complete the internal study of the Mexican religion, by dealing with its sacrifices, its institutions, and its eschatological and cosmogonical doctrines. We begin with those sacrifices of which I have already spoken as so numerous and so horrible.
I.
We have some little difficulty in our times, familiar as we are with spiritual conceptions of God and the divine purposes, in comprehending the extreme importance which sacrifices, offerings, gifts to the divine being, assumed in the eyes of peoples who were still enveloped in the darkness of polytheism and idolatry. And perhaps we may find it more difficult yet to realize the primitive object and intention of these sacrifices. There can be no doubt that they were originally suggested by the idea that the divine being, whatever it may have been—whether a natural object, an animal, or a creature analogous to man—liked what we like, was pleased with what pleases us, and had the same tastes and the same proclivities as ours. This is the fundamental idea that urged the polytheistic peoples along the path of religious anthropomorphism.
This principle once established, and the object being to secure the goodwill and the protection of the divine beings, what could be more natural than to offer them the things in which men themselves took pleasure, such as viands, drinks, perfumes, handsome ornaments, slaves and wives? We must not carry back to the origins of sacrifice the meta-physical and moral ideas which did not really appear until much later. And since the necessity of eating, and the pleasure of eating choice food, take a foremost rank in the estimation of infant peoples, it is not surprising that the food-offering was the most frequent and the most important amongst them, so as in some sort to absorb all the rest.
And here we are compelled to bow before a fact which cannot possibly be disputed, namely, that traces of the primitive sacrifice of human victims meet us everywhere. And this shows that cannibalism, which is now restricted to a few of the savage tribes who have remained closest to the animal life, was once universal to our race. For no one would ever have conceived the idea of offering to the gods a kind of food which excited nothing but disgust and horror amongst men.
This being granted, two rival tendencies must be reckoned with. In the first place, moral development, with its influence on religious ideas, worked towards the suppression of the horrible custom of human sacrifice, whilst at the same time extirpating the taste and desire for human flesh. For we must not forget that where cannibalism still reigns, human flesh is regarded as the most delicious of foods; and the Greek mythology has preserved legends and myths that are connected with the very epoch at which human sacrifices first became an object of horror to gods and men. But, in the second place, in virtue of the strange persistency of rites and usages connected with religion, human sacrifices prevailed in many places when cannibalism had completely disappeared from the habits and tastes of the population. Thus the Semites of Western Asia and the Çivaïte Hindus, the Celts, and some of the populations of Greece and Italy, long after they had renounced cannibalism, still continued to sacrifice human beings to their deities.
And this gives us the clue to a third phase, which was actually realized in Mexico before the conquest. Cannibalism, in ordinary life, was no longer practised. The city of Mexico underwent all the horrors of famine during the siege conducted by Fernando Cortes. When the Spaniards finally entered the city, they found the streets strewn with corpses, which is a sufficient proof that human flesh was not eaten even in dire extremities. And, nevertheless, the Aztecs not only pushed human sacrifices to a frantic extreme, but they were ritual cannibals, that is to say, there were certain occasions on which they ate the flesh of the human victims whom they had immolated.
This practice was connected with another religious conception, grafted upon the former one. Almost everywhere, but especially amongst the Aztecs, we find the notion that the victim devoted to a deity, and therefore destined to pass into his substance and to become by assimilation an integral part of him, is already co-substantial with him, has already become part of him; so that the worshipper in his turn, by himself assimilating a part of the victim's flesh, unites himself in substance with the divine being. And now observe that in all religions the longing, whether grossly or spiritually apprehended, to enter into the closest possible union with the adored being is fundamental. This longing is inseparable from the religious sentiment itself, and becomes imperious wherever that sentiment is warm; and this consideration is enough to convince us that it is in harmony with the most exalted tendencies of our nature, but may likewise, in times of ignorance, give rise to the most deplorable aberrations.
Note this, again, that immolation or sacrifice cannot be accomplished without suffering to the victim. Yet more: the immense importance of sacrifice in the inferior religions raises the mere rite itself to a position of unrivalled efficacy as gauged by the childlike notions that have given it birth, so that at last it acquires an intrinsic and magical virtue in the eyes of the sacrificers. They have lost all distinct idea as to how their sacrifice gives pleasure to the gods, but they retain the firm belief that as a matter of fact, it is the appointed means of acting upon their dispositions and modifying their will. The civilized Greeks and Romans no longer believed that their gods ate the flesh of the sacrifices, but this did not prevent their continuing them as the indispensable means of appeasing the wrath or conciliating the favour of the deities. To such a length was this carried in India and Iran, that sacrifice finally came to be regarded as a cosmic force, a creative act. The gods themselves sacrificed as a means of creation, or of modifying the existing order of the world. This idea of the intrinsic and magical virtue of sacrifice naturally re-acted on the importance attached to the sufferings of the victim so inseparably connected with it, until the latter came to be regarded as amongst the prime conditions of an efficacious sacrifice. For the rest, I need not do more than mention the notions of substitution, of compensation, and of renunciation on the part of the sacrificer, which so readily attach themselves to the idea of sacrifice, and represent its moral aspects.