When the sacrifice is completed the priest returns, as it were, to earth, and becomes human. He formally puts off his sacrificial vow, and rehabilitates himself with humanity, saying, "I am even he that I am."[40] As such a man, through service to the gods become a divine offering, and no longer human, was doubtless considered the creature that first served as the sacrificial animal. Despite protestant legends such as that just recorded, despite formal disclaimers, human sacrifice existed long after the period of the Rig Veda, where it is alluded to; a period when even old men are exposed to die.[41] The _anaddh[=a]purusha_ is not a fiction; for that, on certain occasions, instead of this 'man of straw' a real victim was offered, is shown by the ritual manuals and by Brahmanic texts.[42] Thus, in _Çat. Br_. vi. 2. 1. 18: "He kills a man first.... The cord that holds the man is the longest." It is noteworthy that also among the American Indians the death of a human victim by fire was regarded as a religious ceremony, and that, just as in India the man to be sacrificed was allowed almost all his desires for a year, so the victim of the Indian was first greeted as brother and presented with gifts, even with a wife.[43] But this, the terrible barbaric side of religious worship, is now distinctly yielding to a more humane religion. The 'barley ewe'[44] is taking the place of a bloodier offering. It has been urged that the humanity[45] and the accompanying silliness of the Brahmanic period as compared with the more robust character of the earlier age are due to the weakening and softening effects of the climate. But we doubt whether the climate of the Punj[=a]b differs as much from that of Delhi and Patna as does the character of the Rig Veda from that of the Br[=a]hmanas. We shall protest again when we come to the subject of Buddhism against the too great influence which has been claimed for climate. Politics and society, in our opinion, had more to do with altering the religions of India than had a higher temperature and miasma. As a result of ease and sloth--for the Brahmans are now the divine pampered servants of established kings, not the energetic peers of a changing population of warriors--the priests had lost the inspiration that came from action; they now made no new hymns; they only formulated new rules of sacrifice. They became intellectually debauched and altogether weakened in character. Synchronous with this universal degradation and lack of fibre, is found the occasional substitution of barley and rice sacrifices for those of blood; and it may be that a sort of selfish charity was at work here, and the priest saved the beast to spare himself. But there is no very early evidence of a humane view of sacrifice influencing the priests.