conceptions of the greatness of his God. In the same way the
Aztecs were in many respects a refined and artistic people, and their
religion was not all superstition and bloodshed. Prescott says of them
(1) that they believed in a supreme Creator and Lord "omnipresent,
knowing all thoughts, giving all gifts, without whom Man is as
nothing--invisible, incorporeal, one God, of perfect perfection and
purity, under whose wings we find repose and a sure defence." How can
we reconcile St. Augustine with his own devilish creed, or the religious
belief of the Aztecs with their unspeakable cruelties? Perhaps we can
only reconcile them by remembering out of what deeps of barbarism and
what nightmares of haunting Fear, man has slowly emerged--and is
even now only slowly emerging; by remembering also that the ancient
ceremonies and rituals of Magic and Fear remained on and were cultivated
by the multitude in each nation long after the bolder and nobler spirits
had attained to breathe a purer air; by remembering that even to the
present day in each individual the Old and the New are for a long period
thus intricately intertangled. It is hard to believe that the practice
of human and animal sacrifice (with whatever revolting details) should
have been cultivated by nine-tenths of the human race over the globe
out of sheer perversity and without some reason which at any rate to
the perpetrators themselves appeared commanding and convincing. To-day
(1918) we are witnessing in the Great European War a carnival of human
slaughter which in magnitude and barbarity eclipses in one stroke all
the accumulated ceremonial sacrifices of historical ages; and when
we ask the why and wherefore of this horrid spectacle we are told,
apparently in all sincerity, and by both the parties engaged, of the
noble objects and commanding moralities which inspire and compel it. We
can hardly, in this last case, disbelieve altogether in the genuineness
of the plea, so why should we do so in the former case? In both cases we
perceive that underneath the surface pretexts and moralities Fear is and
was the great urging and commanding force.

(1) Conquest of Mexico, Bk. I, ch. 3.

The truth is that Sin and Sacrifice represent--if you once allow for the
overwhelming sway of fear--perfectly reasonable views of human conduct,
adopted instinctively by mankind since the earliest times. If in a
moment of danger or an access of selfish greed you deserted your brother
t