Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/286

262 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, in a word, is the most universal incitement, iron the ^^' most powerful instrument, of human industry ; and it is very difficult to conceive by what means a people, neither actuated by the one, nor seconded by the other, could emerge from the grossest barbarism ^ Their indo- If we contemplate a savage nation in any part of the lence. globe, a supine indolence and a carelessness of futurity will be found to constitute their general character. In a civilized state, every faculty of man is expanded and exercised ; and the great chain of mutual dependence connects and embraces the several members of society. The most numerous portion of it is employed in con- stant and useful labour. The select few, placed by fortune above that necessity, can however fill up their time by the pursuits of interest or glory, by the im- provement of their estate or of their understanding, by the duties, the pleasures, and even the follies of social life. The Germans were not possessed of these varied resources. The care of the house and family, the management of the land and cattle, were delegated to the old and the infirm, to women and slaves. The lazy warrior, destitute of every art that might employ his leisure hours, consumed his days and nights in the animal gratifications of sleep and food. And yet, by a wonderful diversity of nature, (according to the remark of a writer who had pierced into its darkest recesses,) the same barbarians are by turns the most indolent and the most restless of mankind. They delight in sloth, they detest tranquillity ^. The languid soul, oppressed with its own weight, anxiously required some new and powerful sensation ; and war and danger were the only amusements adequate to its fierce temper. The sound that summoned the German to arms was grateful to his ear. It roused him from his uncomfortable lethargy, gave him an active pursuit, and, by strong exercise of f It is said that the Mexicans and Peruvians, without the use of either money or iron, had made a very great progress in the arts. Those arts, and the monuments they produced, have been strangely magnified. See Recherches sur les Am^ricains, torn. ii. p. 153, etc. « Tacit. Germ. 15.