Were the human race, in the beginning, cannibals? Some affirm this, others deny it. What is certain is that the custom of eating one’s fellow-men has existed in many places, and still exists in some. It has been explained by scarcity of food, by superstitious beliefs, by the intoxication of triumph in annihilating a vanquished enemy, by the idea of assimilating his strength and courage, and by a variety of other reasons; but it has not been sufficiently remarked that its extinction has not always been due to the intervention of superior races. It has sometimes taken place on the spot. In the Tahiti Islands it had disappeared shortly before the arrival of Bougainville; among the Redskins, and even among the Fijians, parties had been formed in order to suppress not only cannibalism, but the tortures inflicted on prisoners of war.[180] The promoters of this abolition, whether individuals or groups, were certainly inventors. The universality of human sacrifices is well known; they are found still existing during the historic period, from China to Judæa, from Greece to Gaul, from Carthage to Rome. How did they disappear? On this point we have nothing but ignorance or legends, but they could not have disappeared without the agency of man. Du Chaillu cites a case in which reform is, so to speak, caught in the act—that of an African chief who was the first to give orders that no slave should be killed at his tomb.[181] Among the Aztecs, with their bloodthirsty religion, a sect, formed before the arrival of the Spaniards, had placed itself under the protection of a deity who abhorred bloodshed. All the great ancient legislators, whether historical or legendary—Manes, Confucius, Moses, Buddha,—we might say all founders of religions, have been discoverers in morals; whether the discovery originated with themselves alone or with a collectivity as whose summary and embodiment they may be regarded, matters little. ----- Footnote 180: