223 



divisions into casts, their language, and their mo- 

 nastic despotism. In the country of Anahuac the 

 sanguinary rites of Huitzilopochtli were estab- 

 lished in proportion as the Mexican empire swal- 

 lowed up all the neighbouring states. The great- 

 ness of this empire was founded on an intimate 

 alliance of the class of the priesthood with the 

 nobility destined to the trade of arms. The high 

 priest, teoteuctli (divine Lord) was generally a 

 prince of the royal blood ; and no war could be 

 undertaken without his permission. The priests 

 even went to combat, and were raised to the 

 first dignities in the army * ; their influence be- 

 came thereby as extensive as that of the Roman 

 patricians, who had the exclusive right of augury, 

 and in which a celebrated writer -f has seemed 

 to recognize traces of a political institution of 

 the Hindoos. 



In Mexico, where the number and the power 

 of the priests (teopixquis) and the monks (tlama- 

 cazques) were almost as great as they are at 

 present in Thibet and Japan, every thing which 

 was the effect of religious fanaticism would have 

 been changed but very slowly. History proves, 

 that the barbarous custom of human sacrifices 



* Peintares hieroglyphiques du Itecucil tie Mendoza. 

 Thevenot, vol. 4, fol. 57. 



+ Schlegel, Weisheit der Indier, s. 190. 



