The Gauls, who were dying of hunger, not finding anything to eat in
Rome, went off therefore to seek their fortune farther away, as was the
practice of the Romans later, when they ravaged so many countries one
after the other; as did the peoples of the North when they destroyed the
Roman Empire.
And, further, what is it which instructs very feebly about these
emigrations? It is a few lines that the Romans wrote at hazard; because
for the Celts, the Velches or the Gauls, these men who it is desired to
make pass for eloquent, at that time did not know, they and their bards,
how either to read or write.
But to infer from that that the Gauls or Celts, conquered after by a few
of Caesar's legions, and by a horde of Bourguignons, and lastly by a
horde of Sicamores, under one Clodovic, had previously subjugated the
whole world, and given their names and laws to Asia, seems to me to be
very strange: the thing is not mathematically impossible, and if it be
_demonstrated_, I give way; it would be very uncivil to refuse to the
Velches what one accords to the Tartars.
_ARTS_
THAT THE NEWNESS OF THE ARTS IN NO WISE PROVES THE NEWNESS OF THE GLOBE
All the philosophers thought matter eternal but the arts appear new.
There is not one, even to the art of making bread, which is not recent.
The first Romans ate pap; and these conquerors of so many nations never
thought of either windmills or watermills.
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