Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/27

 Enemies were anciently of the same Nature, as they have been since; that is, they might possibly make entire Conquests of the Countries which were so invaded; but we cannot suppose that any of these pretended Ante-Mosaical Conquests, of which we are now speaking, made a greater Alteration than that which the Goths and Vandals made in the Roman Empire; that which the Saracens first, and the Turks afterwards made in the Greek; or that of the Tartars in China. The Goths and Vandals had no Learning of their own; and if we consider Politeness of Manners, and nothing else, they seem truly to have deserved the Name of Barbarous: They therefore took some of the Roman Learning, as much as they thought was for their Turn, the Memory whereof can never be said to have been quite extinct during the whole Course of those ignorant