Then if you look at their laws of war, you come to know very well how this people came to be almost blotted out.  If they had a true spiritual purpose, instead of mere personal pride, I should say the world would be Celtic-speaking and Celtic-governed now.  Yet still their reliance was all on what we must call spiritual qualities.  The first notice we get in classical literature of Celts and Teutons—­I think from Strabo—­is this:  “The Celts fight for glory, the Teutons for plunder.”  Instead of plunder, let us say material advantage; they knew why they were fighting, and went to get it.  But the Celtic military laws—­Don Quixote in a fit of extravagance framed them!  There must be no defensive armor; the warrior must go bare-breasted into battle.  There are a thousand things he must fear more than defeat or death—­all that would make the glory of his soul seem less to him.  He must make fighting his business, because in his folly it seemed to him that in it he could best nourish that glory; not for what material ends he could gain.  Pitted against a people—­with a definite policy, he was bound to lose in the long run.  But still he endowed the human spirit with a certain wealth; still his folly had been a true spiritual wisdom at one time.  The French at Fontenoy, who cried to their English enemies, when both were about to open fire:  "Apres vous, messieurs! “ were simply practicing the principles of their Gaulish forefathers; the thrill of honor, of ’Pundonor’ as the Spaniard says, was much more in their eyes than the chance of victory.

Now, in what condition does a race gain such qualities?  Not in sorrow; not in defeat, political dependence or humiliation.  The virtues which these teach are of an opposite kind; they are what we may call the plebeian virtues which lead to success.  But the others, the old Celtic qualities, are essentially patrician.  You find them in the Turks; accustomed to sway subject races, and utterly ruthless in their dealings with them; but famed as clean and chivalrous fighters in a war with foreign peoples.  See how the Samurai, the patricians of never yet defeated Japan, developed them.  They are the qualities the Law teaches us through centuries of domination and aristocratic life.  They are developed in a race accustomed to rule other races; a race that does not engage in commerce; in an aristocratic race, or in an aristocratic caste within a race.  Here is the point:  the Law designs periods of ascendency for each people in its turn, that it may acquire these qualities; and it appoints for each people in its turn Periods of subordination, poverty and sorrow, that it may develop the opposite qualities of patience, humility, and orderly effort.