According to this theory, the domestic animals were early regarded as of the same kin or blood as the tribe; and the slaughter of an ox, a goat, or a sheep could only be permitted if it were done, like the slaughter of a king’s son, sacrificially and sacramentally. In my own opinion, this scarcely means more than that the sacred domestic animals were early accepted as substitutes for the human victim, and that they were eaten sacrificially and sacramentally as the human victim was also eaten. But I will waive this somewhat controversial point, and content myself with suggesting that the animal victim was habitually treated as in itself divine, and that its blood was treated in the same way as the blood of the original cannibal offering. At the same time, the sacrifice was usually offered at the altar of some older and, so to speak, more constant deity, while the blood of the victim was allowed to flow over the sacred stone. Certainly, both among the Arabs and the Hebrews, all slaughter of domestic animals appears to have been at one time sacrificial; and even when the slaughter ceased necessarily to involve a formal sacrifice, it was still thought {331}necessary to slay the victim in the name of a god, and to pour out the blood in his honour on the ground. Even in the Græco-Roman world, the mass of butcher’s meat was “meat offered to idols.” We shall see hereafter that among existing savages the slaughter of domestic animals is still regarded as a sacred rite. I believe also that as a rule the blood-offering is the earliest and commonest form of slaughter to the gods; and that the victim in the earlier stages was generally consumed by the communicants, as we know the cannibal victim to have been consumed among the Mexicans, and as we saw the theanthropic goat or kid was orgiastically devoured by the worshippers of Dionysus. It is a detail whether the sacred victim happened to be eaten raw or cooked; the one usage prevailed in the earlier and more orgiastic rites, the other in the milder and more civilised ceremonies. But in either case, the animal-god, like the human god, was eaten sacramentally by all his worshippers, who thus took into themselves his divine qualities. The practice of burning the victim, on the other hand, prevailed mainly, I think, among cremationists, like the Tyrians and Hellenes, though it undoubtedly extended also to many burying peoples, like the Hebrews and Egyptians. In most cases even of cremated victims, it would appear, a portion at least of the animal was saved from the fire and sacramentally eaten by the worshippers.