ut that with such a "waste of the human
species," as is implied in some histories, the country could not have
been so populous as Cortes found it. The estimate of Casas is "that the
Mexicans never sacrificed more than fifty or a hundred persons in a
year."

Notwithstanding the wholesale bloodshed before the shrines of their gory
gods, we can still assign to the Aztecs a high degree of civilization.
The history of even modern Europe will illustrate this statement,
although apparently paradoxical.

Consider "the condition of some of the most polished countries in the
sixteenth century after the establishment of the modern Inquisition--an
institution which yearly destroyed its thousands by a death more painful
than the Aztec sacrifices, ... which did more to stay the march of
improvement than any other scheme ever devised by human cunning....
Human sacrifice was sometimes voluntarily embraced by the Aztecs as the
most glorious death, and one that opened a sure passage into paradise.
The Inquisition, on the other hand, branded its victims with infamy in
this world, and consigned them to everlasting perdition in the next."

The difficulty with the Aztecs is how to reconcile such refinement as
their extinct civilization showed with their savage enjoyment of
bloodshed. "No captive was ever ransomed or spared; all were sacrificed
without mercy, and their flesh devoured." The first of the four chief
counselors of the empire was called the "Prince of the Deadly Lance,"
the second "Divider of Men," the third "Shedder of Blood," the fourth
"the Lord of the Dark House."

The temples were very numerous, generally merely pyramidal masses of
clay faced with brick or stone. The roof was a broad area on which stood
one or two towers, from forty to fifty feet in height, forming the
sanctuaries of the presiding deities, and therefore containing their
images. Before these sanctuaries stood the dreadful stone of sacrifice.
There were also two altars with sacred fires kept ever burning.

All the religious services were public, and the pyramidal temples, with
stairs round their massive sides, allowed the long procession of priests
to be visible as they ceremoniously ascended to perform the dread office
of slaughtering the human victims.

Human sacrifices had not originally been a feature of the Aztec worship.
But about 200 years before the arrival of the Spanish invaders was the
beginning of this religious atrocity, and at last no public