It is curious to observe how war in every stage of civilisation has been the central interest of public religious supplication; and how, from the pagans of old to modern savages, the pettiest quarrels and conflicts have been deemed a matter of interest to the immortals. The Sandwich islanders and Tahitians sought the aid of their gods in war by human sacrifices. The Fijians before war were wont to present their gods with costly offerings and temples, and offer with their prayers the best they could of land crabs or whales’ teeth; being so convinced that they thereby ensured to themselves the victory, that once, when a missionary called the attention of a war party to the scantiness of their numbers, they only replied, with disdainful confidence, ‘Our allies are the gods.’ The prayer which the Roman pontifex addressed to Jupiter on behalf of the Republic at the opening of the war with Antiochus, king of Syria, is extremely curious: ‘If the war which the people has ordered to be waged with King Antiochus shall be finished after the wish of the Roman senate and people, then to thee, O Jupiter, will the Roman people exhibit the great games for ten successive days, and offerings shall be presented at all the shrines of such value as the senate shall decree.’[268] This rude state of theology, wherein a victory from the gods may be obtained for a fair consideration in exchange, tends to keep alive, if it did not originate, that sense of dependence on invisible powers which constitutes the most rudimentary form of religion; for it is a remarkable fact that the faintest notions of supernatural agencies are found precisely among tribes whose military organisation or love for war is the lowest and least developed. In proportion as the war-spirit is cultivated does the worship of war-presiding deities prevail; and since these are formed from the memories of warriors who have died or been slain, their attributes and wishes remain those of the former earthly potentate, who though no longer visible, may still be gratified by presents of fruit, or by slaughtered oxen or slaves.