214 
half civilized people, the worship of the Sun, or 
tlie custom of sacrificing- human victims ; and 
this custom, far from having been brought from 
eastern Asia, may very probably have taken 
birth in the valley of Mexico itself. In fact,, 
history instructs us, that, when the Spaniards; 
arrived at Tenochtitlan, this sanguinary worship, 
which reminds us of those of Cali, of Moloch, 
and of the Esus of the Gauls, had existed only 
two hundred years. 
The nations, which from the seventh to the 
twelfth century have successively inundated 
Mexico, the Toltecks, the Chichimecks, the 
Nahuatlacks, the Acolhuans, the Tlascaltecks, 
and the Aztecks, formed a single group, con- 
nected by analogy of language and manners ; 
somewhat like the Germans, the Norwegians,^ 
the Goths, and the Danes, who are all confound- 
ed in a single race, that of the Germannic nations. 
It is probable, as we have already stated, that 
other nations, the Otomites, the Olmecks, the 
Cuitlatecks, the Zacatecks, and the Taraseks, 
appeared before the Toltecks in the equinoctial 
region of New Spain. Wherever nations have 
advanced in the same direction, the position of 
the countries in which they are found marks in 
some sort the chronological order of their mi- 
grations. Can we doubt, that in Europe, the 
most western nations, the Iberians, and the Can- 
