The great
pyramid of Cholula, the enormous mounds of the Mississippi valley, the
elaborate edifices on artificial hills in Yucatan, were miniature
representations of the mountains hallowed by tradition, the "Hill of
Heaven," the peak on which their ancestors escaped in the flood, or that
in the terrestrial paradise from which flow the rains. Their
construction took men away from war and the chase, encouraged
agriculture, peace, and a settled disposition, and fostered the love of
property, of country, and of the gods. The priests were also close
observers of nature, and were the first to discover its simpler laws.
The Aztec sages were as devoted star-gazers as the Chaldeans, and their
calendar bears unmistakable marks of native growth, and of its original
purpose to fix the annual festivals. Writing by means of pictures and
symbols was cultivated chiefly for religious ends, and the word
_hieroglyph_ is a witness that the phonetic alphabet was discovered
under the stimulus of the religious sentiment.
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