( ix )
the Celts ‘or Goths,’ and the sequel of this work will show, perhaps, that their opinions, however obsolete, still subsist in the effects which they have produced. May not we esteem of this kind (for example) that love and admiration for the profession of arms, which was carried among us even to fanaticism, and which for many ages incited the Europeans, mad by system and fierce through a point of honour, to fight, with no other view, but merely for the sake of fighting? May not we refer to this source, that remarkable attention and respect which the nations of Europe have paid to the fair sex, by which they have been so long the arbiters of glorious actions, the aim and the reward of great exploits, and that they yet enjoy a thousand advantages which every where else are reserved for the men? Can we not explain from these Celtic ‘and Gothic’ Religions, how, to the astonishment of posterity, judiciary combats and ordeal proofs were admitted by the legislature of all Europe; and how, even to the present time, the people are still infatuated with a belief of the power of Magicians, Witches, Spirits, and Genii, concealed under the earth or in the waters, &c.?
In fine, do we not discover in these religious opinions, that source of the
