I might multiply instances of human sacrifices of the mystic order elsewhere, but I prefer to pass on to the various mitigations which they tend to undergo in various communities. In its fullest form, I take it, the mystic sacrifice ought to be the self-immolation of a divine priest-king, a god and descendant of gods, himself to himself, on the altar of his own divine foundation-ancestor. But in most cases which we can trace, the sacrifice has already assumed the form of an immolation of a willing victim, a temporary king, of the divine stock only by adoption, though sometimes a son or brother of the actual monarch. Further modifications are that the victim becomes a captive taken in war (which indeed is implied in the very etymology of the Latin word victima), or a condemned criminal, or an imbecile, who can be more readily induced to undertake the fatal office. Of all of these we have seen hints at least in previous cases. Still more mitigated are the forms in which the victim is allowed to escape actual death by a subterfuge, and those in which an image or effigy is allowed to do duty for the living person. Of these intermediates we get a good instance in the case of the Bhagats, mentioned by Col. Dalton, who “annually make an image of a man in wood, put clothes and ornaments on it, and present it before the altar of a Mahadeo” (or rude stone phallic idol). “The person who officiates as priest on the occasion says, ‘O, Mahadeo, we sacrifice this man to you according to ancient customs. Give us rain in due season, and a plentiful harvest.’ Then, with one stroke of the axe, the head of the image is struck off, and the body is removed and buried.” This strange rite shows us a surviving {330}but much mitigated form of the Khond Meriah practice. As a rule, however, such bloodless representations do not please the gods; nor do they succeed in really liberating a ghost or corn-god. They are after all but feeble phantom sacrifices. Blood the gods want, and blood is given them. The most common substitute for the human victim-god is therefore the animal victim-god, of which we have already seen copious examples in the ox and kid of Dionysus, the pig of Attis, and many others. It seems probable that a large number of sacrifices, if not the majority of those in which domestic animals are slain, belong in the last resort to the same category. Thus, indeed, we can most easily explain the theory of the so-called “thean-thropic” victim,--the animal which stands for a man and a god,--as well as the point of view of sacrifice so ably elaborated by Dr. Robertson Smith.