from one extremity of the empire to another BOOK without meeting oppofition; for, on producing

a fringe from the royal Borla, an ornament of the head peculiar to the reigning Inca, the lives and fortunes of the people were at his disposal.

VII.

ANOTHER Confequence of establishing govern- All crimes punished ment in Peru on the foundation of religion was, capitally. that all crimes were punished capitally. They were not confidered as tranfgreffions of human laws, but as infults offered to the Deity. Each, without any diftinction between fuch as were flight and fuch as were atrocious, called for vengeance, and could be expiated only by the blood of the offender. Confonantly to the fame ideas, punishment followed the trefpafs with inevitable certainty, because an offence against Heaven was deemed fuch an high enormity as could not be pardoned. Among a people of corrupted morals, maxims of jurisprudence fo fevere and unrelenting, by rendering men ferocious and defperate, would be more apt to multiply crimes than to reftrain them. But the Peruvians, of fimple manners and unfufpicious faith, were held in fuch awe by this rigid dif Icipline, that the number of offenders was ex

1

f Vega, lib. ii. c. 6♪^

tremely

VII.

BOOK tremely finall. Veneration for monarchs, enlightened and directed, as they believed, by the divinity whom they adored, prompted them to their duty; the dread of punishment which they were taught to confider as unavoidable vengeance inflicted by offended Heaven, withheld them from evil.

Mild genius

of their re

ligion.

THE fyftem of fuperftition on which the Incas ingrafted their pretenfions to fuch high authority, was of a genius very different from that eftablished among the Mexicans. Manco Capac turned the veneration of his followers entirely towards natural objects. The Sun, as the great fource of light, of joy, and fertility in the creation, attracted their principal homage. The Moon and Stars, as co-operating with him, were entitled to fecondary honours. Wherever the propensity in the human mind to acknowledge and to adore fome fuperior power, takes this direction, and is employed in contemplating the order and beneficence that really exist in nature, the fpirit of fuperftition is mild. Wherever imaginary beings, created by the fancy and the fears of men, are fuppofed to prefide in nature, and become the objects of worship, superstition, always affumes a more fevere and atrocious form. Of the latter we have an example among the Mexicans, of the former among the people of

Peru.

VII.

335

-Peru. The Peruvians had not, indeed, made в O O K fuch progrefs in obfervation or inquiry, as to have attained juft conceptions of the Deity; nor was there in their language any proper name or appellation of the Supreme Power, which intimated, that they had formed any idea of him as the Creator and Governor of the World. But by directing their veneration to that glorious luminary, which, by its univerfal and vivifying energy, is the best emblem of divine beneficence, the rites and obfervances which they deemed acceptable to him were innocent and humane. They offered to the Sun a part of those productions which his genial warmth had called forth from the bofom of the earth, and reared to maturity. They facrificed, as an oblation of gratitude, fome of the animals which were indebted to his influence for nourishment. They presented to him choice fpecimens of those works of ingenuity which his light had guided the hand of man in forming. But the Incas never stained his altars with human blood, nor could they conceive that their beneficent father the Sun would be delighted with fuch horrid victims ". Thus the Peruvians, unacquainted with those barbarous rites which extinguish sensibility, and

Acofta, lib. v. c. 3.

See NOTE XLII.

fupprefs

VII.

BOOK fupprefs the feelings of nature at the fight of human fufferings, were formed by the spirit of the fuperftition which they had adopted, to a national character, more gentle than that of any people in America.

Its influence

THE influence of this fuperftition operated in on civil po the fame manner upon their civil inftitutions,

licy,

and tended to correct in them. whatever was adverfe to gentlenefs of character. The dominion of the Incas, though the most abfolute of all defpotifms, was mitigated by its alliance with religion. The mind was not humbled and depreffed by the idea of a forced fubjection to the will of a fuperior; obedience, paid to one who was believed to be clothed with divine authority, was willingly yielded, and implied no degradation. The fovereign, confcious that the fubmiffive reverence of his people flowed from their belief of his heavenly defcent, was continually reminded of a distinction which prompted him to imitate that beneficent power which he was fuppofed to reprefent. In confequence of those impreffions, there hardly occurs in the traditional history of Peru, any inftance of rebellion against the reigning prince, and among twelve fucceffive monarchs, there was not one tyrant.

EVEN

VII.

and on their

fystem.

EVEN the wars in which the Incas engaged, BOOK were carried on with a spirit very different from that of other American nations. They fought military not, like favages, to deftroy and exterminate; or, like the Mexicans, to glut blood-thirsty divinities with human facrifices. They conquered, in order to reclaim and civilize the vanquished, and to diffuse the knowledge of their own institutions and arts. Prisoners feem not to have been exposed to the infults and tortures, which were their lot in every other part of the New World. The Incas took the people whom they fubdued under their protection, and admitted them to a participation of all the advantages enjoyed by their original fubjects. This practice, fo repugnant to American ferocity, and resembling the humanity of the most polished nations, must be afcribed, like other peculiarities which we have obferved in the Peruvian manners, to the genius of their religion. The Incas, confidering the homage paid to any other object than to the heavenly powers which they adored as impious, were fond of gaining profelytes to their favourite fyftem. The idols of every conquered province were carried in triumph to the great temple at Cuzco, and placed there as trophies of the fuperior power of the divinity who was the pro

i Herrera, dec. 5. lib. iv. c. 4. Vega, lib. v. c. 12.

VOL. II.

Z

tector