But the result in either case is the same, so long as we start with the hypothesis that the Good will do us more good and the Evil do us less harm by reason of our sacrifices, for then it logically follows that the more valuable your sacrifices and the oftener they are presented the better chance you have of good luck.

Doubtless some such conception as this was held by the mass of the Hebrew people under the sacrificial system of the Levitical Law, and perhaps this was one reason why they were so prone to fall into idolatry--for in this view their fundamental notion was practically identical in its nature with that of the heathen around them.
Of course this was not the fundamental idea embodied in the Levitical system itself.

The root of that system was the symbolizing of a supreme ideal of reconciliation hereafter to be manifested in action.

Now a symbol is not the thing symbolized.

The purpose of a symbol is twofold, to put us upon enquiry as to the reality which it indicates, and to bring that reality to our minds by suggestion when we look at the symbol; but if it does not do this, and we rest only in the symbol, nothing will come of it, and we are left just where we were.