conquer a noteworthy greatness if the men that compose it fail of a certain culture, a certain energy, a social morale sufficiently vigorous; but though these qualities are necessary, they are not equally productive in all periods, but serve more or less, in different periods, according as general circumstances are disposed about a people. Gaul was fertile, and its people possessed before the conquest the qualities that they displayed later: and yet, as long as Gaul remained apart from the Empire, without continuous and numerous communications with the vast Mediterranean world; as long as it was split into so many petty rival states, occupied in serious wars against the Germanic tribes, its fertility remained hidden in the earth, and the ability of its inhabitants dissipated itself in devastating wars, instead of spending itself in fruitful effort. All that changed, and without any one's foresight or intent, when the Roman policy, urged by the internal forces that stirred the Republic, had destroyed that old order of things.
The ancients understood that peoples, like individual men, can regulate their destiny only in part; that about us, above us, are forces complex and obscure, which we can hardly comprehend, which invest us, seize us, impel us whither we
