Page:Native Religions of Mexico and Peru.djvu/30

14 had done) has enabled history to carry to the point of demonstration its fundamental thesis of the natural development, in subjection to fixed laws, of the religious tendency in man. All those curious resemblances, amidst the differences which we shall also bring out, between the religious history of the New World and that of the Old, are not at bottom any more extraordinary than the fact that, in spite of the differences of physical type which separated the natives from their conquerors, they none the less saw with eyes, walked on feet, ate with a mouth and digested with a stomach.

We shall begin our study with Mexico. But a few preliminary ethnographical remarks are indispensable. I spare you the catalogue of the numerous sources and documents from which a detailed knowledge of the Mexican religion may be drawn.