In the course of religious development, human sacrifice gave way to animal sacrifice, and cult anthropophagy was displaced by the eating of the flesh of the sacrificial animal. Inasmuch as the latter cult was not only more common than the former but everywhere probably existed prior to the rise of human sacrifice, this later period involved a recurrence of earlier conditions. Nevertheless, there were phenomena which clearly indicated the influence of the fear of the blood, and this militated against the appropriation of the blood soul. Of extreme significance, for example, was the injunction of the Israelitic Priests' Code against partaking of the blood of animals. The original motive for drinking the blood became a motive for abstaining from it--a counter-motive, in which the prohibition, as in many other cases, may also indicate an intentional abandonment of an earlier custom. Among the Israelites, as among many other Semitic tribes, the blood of the animals was poured out at the sacrificial altar. That which was denied man was fitly given to the gods, to whom the life of the animal was offered in its blood. In early ages, reaching down probably into the beginnings of totemic culture, _two_ organ complexes, in addition to the blood, were held, in an especial degree, to be vehicles of the corporeal soul--the kidneys with their surrounding fat, and the external sexual organs. The fact that, in many languages, kidneys and testicles were originally denoted by the same name, indicates that these two organs were probably regarded as essentially related, a view that may possibly be due to the position of the urethra, which apparently connects the kidneys with the sexual organs. The Bible also offers remarkable testimony in connection with the history of the belief that soul powers are resident in the kidneys and their appended organs. In the earlier writings of the Old Testament, the kidneys, as well as the heart, are frequently referred to as bearers of the soul. It is said of God that he searches the heart and tries the reins; and Job, afflicted with sorrow and disease, complains, "He cleaveth my reins asunder and doth not spare." The sacrificial laws of the Israelites, therefore, state that, in addition to the blood, the kidneys with their surrounding fat are the burnt offering which is most acceptable to God. Rationalistic interpretation has sometimes held that man retains the choice parts of the flesh of the sacrificial animal for himself and devotes the less agreeable parts to the gods. Such motives may have played a rôle when sacrificial conceptions were on the wane. The original condition, however, was no doubt the reverse. The most valuable part belonged to the gods, and this consisted of the organs that were pre-eminently the vehicles of the soul. Though man first aimed to appropriate the soul of the sacrifice for himself, the developed religious cult of a later period made this the privilege of the deity.