COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



the Great, was the continual taming of the brute 

 force of barbarism, and the enlisting it on the 

 side of civilization. In the earlier times there 

 seems to have been real danger in the invasions 

 of Brennus and of the Cimbri, and perhaps in 

 that of Ariovistus. But with the conquest of 

 Gaul and the more subtle process of Roman- 

 ization which the Teutons underwent, the dan- 

 ger from these sources disappeared, until, when 

 the great struggle with outer barbarism came in 

 the fifth century, we see the Empire saved on a 

 Gaulish field by the prowess of the West-Goth. 

 The battle of Chalons seems to me to have 

 been the last of the great fights in which the 

 further continuance of European civilization 

 was really imperilled. Though the victory of 

 Attila could hardly have entailed the rebarba- 

 rizing of the whole Empire, it might well have 

 caused such a temporary " solution of continu- 

 ity " between ancient and modern history as the 

 old historians supposed to have been wrought 

 a few years later by the comparatively insigni- 

 ficant intrigues of Odoacer. Many hard-work- 

 ing years might have been needed to recover 

 the ground thus lost. But in passing to the 

 eighth century, I think we may well doubt the 

 soundness of Gibbon's suggestion that the vic- 

 tory of Abderahman at Tours might have led 

 to the Mohammedanization of Europe ; for 

 while one great defeat forced the Arabs to re- 



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