Chap. V, AN TIENT METAPHYSICS. 153 



tal! Gauls and Germans ? Their race is certainly not totally extin- 

 guifhed ; but their fize and ftrength are gone. For it will not be 

 pretended that the Romans were lefs men than we are, and yet 

 there is no luch fuperiority of ftature above us to be found in Eu- 

 rope. 



The Cimbrians, according to the account that Plutarch has given 

 of them in the life of Marius, appeared in Gaul like a people that 

 had dropt from the clouds ; for the Romans, even in the time of 

 Plutarch, knew not with any certainty from whence they had come 

 They were fo big, fo ftrong, and fo fierce, that nothing could with- 

 lland them ; but they carried every thing before them like a tor- 

 rent. They defeated four Confular armies, and would have ex- 

 tinguifhed the Roman name, if it had not been for the extraor- 

 dinary abilities of Marius, the armour and difcipline of the Roman 

 legions, and thofe violent exercifes they were in ufe to take, by 

 which they made their bodies fo firm, and able to endure labour ; 

 v^hile the bodies of the Barbarians, for want of thefe exercifes, 

 though, by nature, much ftronger and larger than thofe of the Ro- 

 mans, were foft and Jluid^ as the Roman authors exprefs it : A re- 

 markable effedt of which wasfeen, as I have elfewhere obferved*, in 

 the laft battle with thefe barbarians. For one of the greateft advanta- 

 ges, which a civilized people have over a barbarous, is that volun- 

 tary pain and labour which civilized men fubmit to in exercifes, but 

 which the barbarian will not endure, any more than the brute. It 

 was not, therefore, without reafon, that Lucian, in the fine dialogue 

 above quoted f, De Gyjnnnjiis, makes Anacharfis, the Scythian, won- 

 der how the Athenian young men could voluntarily endure fo much 

 pain from blows and bruifes, as he faw them endure in the Palaeftra 

 which is the fcene of the Dialogue : And we, who pretend to be 

 Vol. III. U fo 



• Pages 77. and 112. 

 t Page 87. 



