Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/325

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  • [Footnote: and not where it chooses itself." (Garcilaso, Comment.

Reales, P. i. lib. viii. cap. 8, p. 276.) The view taken of the circling round of a heavenly body, as if it was fastened to a cord, is very striking. As Huayna Capac died at Quito in 1525, seven years before the arrival of the Spaniards, he no doubt used, instead of "res atada," the general expression of an "animal" fastened to a cord; but indeed, even in Spanish, "res" is by no means limited to oxen, but may be applied to any tame cattle. We cannot examine here how far the Padre may have mingled parts of his own sermons with the heresies of the Inca, with the view of weaning the natives from the official and dynastic worship of the Sun, the religion of the Court. We see in the very conservative State policy, and in the maxims of State and proceedings of the Inca Roca, the conqueror of the province of Charcas, the solicitude which was felt to guard strictly the lower classes of the people from such doubts. This Inca founded schools for the upper classes only, and forbade, under heavy penalties, to teach the common people any thing, "lest they should become presumptuous, and should create disturbances in the State!" (No es lecito que enseñen á los hijos de los Plebeios las Ciencias, porque la gente baja no se eleve y ensobervezca y menoscabe la Republica; Garcilaso, P. i. p. 276.) Thus the policy of the Inca's theocracy was almost the same as that of the Slave States in the United Free States of North America.]*