In the Greek and Roman sacrifices, it was the blood of the victim, which, as the life of the victim, was poured out unto the gods, as unto the Author of life.[213] Moreover, there is reason for supposing that the _heart_ was always given the chief place, as representing the very life itself, in the examination and in the _tasting_ of the “entrails” (σπλάγχνα, _splangkhna_) in connection with the sacrifices of those classic peoples.[214] An indication of this truth is found in a statement by Cicero, concerning the sacrifices at the time of the inauguration of Cæsar: “When he [Cæsar] was sacrificing on that day in which he first sat in the golden chair, and made procession in the purple garment, there was no _heart_ among the entrails of the sacrificial ox. (Do you think, therefore, that any animal which has blood can exist without a heart?) Yet he [Cæsar] was not terrified by the phenomenal nature of the event, although Spurinna declared, that it was to be feared that both mind [literally ‘counsel’] and life were about to fail him [Cæsar]; for both of these [mind and life] do issue from the heart.”[215] Similarly it has been, and to the present day it is, with primitive peoples everywhere. Blood libations were made a prominent feature in the offerings in ancient Phoenicia,[216] as in Egypt. In India, the Brahmans have a saying, in illustration of the claim that Vishnu and Siva are of one and the same nature: “The heart of Vishnu is Sivâ, and the heart of Sivâ is Vishnu; and those who think they differ, err.”[217] The Hindoo legends represent the victim’s heart as being torn out and given to the one whom in life he has wronged.[218] In China, at the great Temple of Heaven, in Peking, where the emperors of China are supposed to have conducted worship without material change in its main features for now nearly three thousand years,[219] the blood of the animal sacrifice is buried in the earth[220] while the body of the sacrificial victim is offered as a whole burnt offering.[221] The blood is the life; the heart as the fountain of blood is the fountain of life; both blood and heart are sacred to the Author of life. The possession, or the gift, of the heart or of the blood, is the possession, or the gift, of the very nature of its primal owner. That has been the world’s thought in all the ages. 2. VIVIFYING POWER OF BLOOD. The belief seems to have been universal, not only that the blood is the life of the organism in which it originally flows, but that in its transfer from one organism to another the blood retains its life, and so carries with it a vivifying power. There are traces of this belief in the earliest legends of the Old World, and of the New; in classic story; and in medical practices as well, all the world over, from time immemorial until the present day.