Allan Kardec-THE Spirit's Book_ The Principles of Spiritist Doctrine (1989)

287
THE SPIRITS’ BOOK
Sacrifices.
669. The custom of offering human sacrifices dates from the remotest antiquity. How can
mankind have been led to believe that such an enormity could be pleasing to God?
"In the first place, through their not having comprehended God as being the source of all
goodness. Among primitive peoples, matter predominates over spirit. Their moral qualities
not being yet developed, they give themselves up to the instincts of brutality. In the next
place, the men of the primitive periods naturally considered that a living creature must be
much more valuable in the sight of God than any merely material object; and this
consideration led them to immolate, to their divinities, first animals, and afterwards men,
because, according to their false ideas, they thought that the value of a sacrifice was
proportioned to the importance of the victim. In your earthly life, when you wish to offer a
present to any one, you select a gift, the costliness of which is proportioned to the amount of
attachment or consideration that you desire to testify to the person to whom you offer it. It
was natural that men who were ignorant of the nature of the Deity should do the same."
-The sacrificing of animals, then, preceded that of human beings?
"Such was undoubtedly the case."
-According to this explanation, the custom of sacrificing human beings did not originate in
mere cruelty?
"No; but in a false idea as to what would be acceptable to God. Look, for instance, at the story
of Abraham. In later times men have still farther debased this false idea by immolating their
enemies, the objects of their own personal animosity. But God has never exacted sacrifices of
any kind; those of animals, no more than those of men. He could not be honoured by the
useless destruction of His own creations."
670. Have human sacrifices, when offered with a pious intention, ever been pleasing to God."
"No, never; but God always weighs the intention which dictates any act. Men, being ignorant,
may have believed that they were performing a laudable deed in immolating their fellowbeings;
and, in such a case, God would accept their intention, but not their deed. The human
race, in working out its own amelioration, naturally came to recognise its error, and to
abominate the idea of sacrifices