liar to itself, though
obscurely seen and often wholly misconceived. It is only when an action
is utterly dissevered from other ends, and is purely and solely
religious, that it can satisfy this sentiment. "_La religion_," most
truly observes Madame Necker de Saussure, "_ne doit point avoir d'autre
but qu'elle meme_."

The uniform prevalence of these ideas in rites may be illustrated from
the simplest or the most elaborate. Father Brebeuf, missionary to the
Hurons in 1636, has a chapter on their superstitions. He there tells us
that this nation had two sorts of ceremonies, the one to induce the
gods to grant good fortune, the other to appease them when some ill-luck
had occurred. Before running a dangerous rapid in their frail canoes
they would lay tobacco on a certain rock where the deity of the rapid
was supposed to reside, and ask for safety in their voyage. They took
tobacco and cast it in the fire, saying: "O Heaven (_Aronhiate_), see, I
give you something; aid me; cure this sickness of mine." When one was
drowned or died of cold, a feast was called, and the soft parts of the
corpse were cut from the bones and burned to conciliate the personal
god, while the women danced and chanted a melancholy strain. Here one
sacrifice was to curry favor with the gods, another to soothe their
anger, and the third was a rite, not a sacrifice, but done for a
religious end, whose merit was specific performance.

As the gift was valued at what it cost the giver, and was supposed to be
efficacious in this same ratio, self-denial soon passed into
self-torture, prolonged fasts, scourging and lacerations, thus becoming
legitimate exhibitions of religious fervor. As mental pain is as keen as
bodily pain, the suffering of Jephthah was quite as severe as that of
the Flagellants, and was expected to find favor in the eyes of the gods.

A significant corrollary[TN-12] from such a theory follows: that which is
the efficacious part of the sacrifice is the suffering; given a certain
degree of this, the desired effect will follow. As to what or who
suffers, or in what manner he or it suffers, these are secondary
considerations, even unimportant ones, so far as the end to be obtained
is concerned. This is the germ of _vicarious_ sacrifice, a plan
frequently observed in even immature religions. What seems the
diabolical cruelty of some superstitious rites, those of the
Carthaginians and Celts, for example, is thoroughly consistent with the
abst