If this Inquiry and its important statements had not been accessible to them, at any rate they could readily have learned the same lesson from the well known History of Father Joseph de Acosta.

That author says, and repeats with great positiveness, that the Sun was in Peru a secondary divinity, and that the supreme deity, the Creator and ruler of the world, was Viracocha.[1] [Footnote 1: "Sientan y confiessan un supremo senor, y hazedor de todo, al qual los del Piru llamavan Viracocha.

* * Despues del Viracocha, o supremo Dios, fui, y es en los infieles, el que mas comunmente veneran y adoran el sol." Acosta, _De la Historia Moral de las Indias_, Lib, v.cap.iii, iv, (Barcelona, 1591).] Another misapprehension is that these natives worshiped directly their ancestors.

Thus, Mr.Markham writes: "The Incas worshiped their ancestors, the _Pacarina_, or forefather of the _Ayllu_, or lineage, being idolized as the soul or essence of his descendants."[1] But in the _Inquiry_ above quoted it is explained that the belief, in fact, was that the soul of the Inca went at death to the presence of the deity Viracocha, and its emblem, the actual body, carefully preserved, was paid divine honors in order that the soul might intercede with Viracocha for the fulfillment of the prayers.[2] [Footnote 1: Clements R.Markham, _Journal of the Royal Geographical Society_, 1871, p.291._Pacarina_ is the present participle of _pacarini_, to dawn, to begin, to be born.] [Footnote 2: _Informacion_, etc., p.

209.] We are compelled, therefore, by the best evidence now attainable, to adopt the conclusion that the Inca religion, in its purity, deserved the name of monotheism.