of strength for swallowing up and absorbing as much as we choose;
there is nothing to hinder us from effacing the last poor material
remains of that Celtic power which once was everywhere, but has long
since, in the race of civilisation, fallen out of sight. We may
threaten them with extinction if we will, and may almost say in so
threatening them, like Caesar in threatening with death the tribune
Metellus who closed the treasury doors against him: 'And when I
threaten this, young man, to threaten it is more trouble to me than
to do it.' It is not in the outward and visible world of material
life, that the Celtic genius of Wales or Ireland can at this day hope
to count for much; it is in the inward world of thought and science.
What it HAS been, what it HAS done, let it ask us to attend to that,
as a matter of science and history; not to what it will be or will
do, as a matter of modern politics. It cannot count appreciably now
as a material power; but, perhaps, if it can get itself thoroughly
known as an object of science, it may count for a good deal,--far
more than we Saxons, most of us, imagine,--as a spiritual power.

The bent of our time is towards science, towards knowing things as
they are; so the Celt's claims towards having his genius and its
works fairly treated, as objects of scientific investigation, the
Saxon can hardly reject, when these claims are urged simply on their
own merits, and are not mixed up with extraneous pretensions which
jeopardise them. What the French call the science des origines, the
science of origins,--a science which is at the bottom of all real
knowledge of the actual world, and which is every day growing in
interest and importance--is very incomplete without a thorough
critical account of the Celts, and their genius, language, and
literature. This science has still great progress to make, but its
progress, made even within the recollection of those of us who are in