And as the heart is
the seat and symbol of life, bleeding hearts of men and animals were
presented to the sun to maintain him in vigour and enable him to run
his course across the sky. Thus the Mexican sacrifices to the sun
were magical rather than religious, being designed, not so much to
please and propitiate him, as physically to renew his energies of
heat, light, and motion. The constant demand for human victims to
feed the solar fire was met by waging war every year on the
neighbouring tribes and bringing back troops of captives to be
sacrificed on the altar. Thus the ceaseless wars of the Mexicans and
their cruel system of human sacrifices, the most monstrous on
record, sprang in great measure from a mistaken theory of the solar
system. No more striking illustration could be given of the
disastrous consequences that may flow in practice from a purely
speculative error. The ancient Greeks believed that the sun drove in
a chariot across the sky; hence the Rhodians, who worshipped the sun
as their chief deity, annually dedicated a chariot and four horses
to him, and flung them into the sea for his use.
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