With all these advantages, he would still have had a very
important lesson for civil society to teach, that by which a few learn to
command, and the many are taught to obey: he would have all his precautions
to take against the future intrusion of mercenary arts, the admiration of
luxury, and the passion for interest: he would still perhaps have a more
difficult task than any of the former, in teaching his citizens the command
of appetite, and an indifference to pleasure, as well as a contempt of
pain; in teaching them to maintain in the field the formality of uniform
precautions, and as much to avoid being themselves surprised, as they
endeavour to surprise their enemy.
For want of these advantages, rude nations in general, though they are
patient of hardship and fatigue, though they are addicted to war, and are
qualified by their stratagem and valour to throw terror into the armies of
a more regular enemy; yet, in the course of a continual struggle, always
yield to the superior arts, and the discipline of more civilized nations.
Hence the Romans were able to overrun the provinces of Gaul, Germany, and
Britain; and hence the Europeans have a growing ascendancy over the nations
of Africa and America.
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