One of the many proofs that the idea of a blood-covenanting sacrifice is that of a loving inter-communion between man and God, or the gods, is the fact that the animals offered in sacrifice are always those animals which are suitable for eating, whether their eating is allowed at other times than when sacrificed, or not. “Animals offered in sacrifice [at the Temple of Heaven, in China],” says Dr. Edkins, “must be those in use for human food. There is no trace in China of any distinction between clean and unclean animals, as furnishing a principle in selecting them for sacrifice. That which is good for food is good for sacrifice, is the principle guiding in their selection.”[376] The same _principle_ has been already noted as prevailing in the sacrifices of India, Assyria, and Egypt; although in these last named countries many animals which are “good for food” are not “in use for human food” except as they are served up at the table of the gods.[377] In the primitive New World it was the same as in the primitive Old World. Referring to the sacrifices in ancient Peru, Réville says, “It should be noted that they only sacrificed edible animals, which [as he would understand it] is a clear proof that the intention was to feed the gods”;[378] and it certainly seems a clear proof that the intention was to feed the worshipers who shared the sacred food. That this sharing of the proffered and accepted sacrifice, in divine-human inter-communion, was counted a sharing of the divine nature, by the communicant, seems evident, as widely as the world-wide custom extended. The inter-union was wrought by intermingled blood; the inter-communion gave a common progress to the common nature. The blood gave common life; the flesh gave common nourishment. “Almost everywhere,” says Réville,[379] “but especially among the Aztecs, we find the notion, that the victim devoted to a deity, and therefore destined to pass into his substance, and to become by assimilation an integral part of him, is already co-substantial with him, has already become part of him; so that the worshiper in his turn, by himself assimilating a part of the victim’s flesh, unites himself in substance with the divine being. And now observe [continues this student in the science of comparative religion] that in all religions the longing, whether grossly or spiritually apprehended, to enter into the closest possible union with the adored being, is fundamental. This longing is inseparable from the religious sentiment itself, and becomes imperious wherever that sentiment is warm; and this consideration is enough to convince us that it is in harmony with the most exalted tendencies of our nature, but may likewise, in times of ignorance, give rise to the most deplorable aberrations.” This observation is the more noteworthy, in that it is made by so pronounced a rationalist as Réville.