Studies on Celtic Law

XVI

PRÉFACE.

that this man had “watertight compartments” in his brain. Watertight compartment original: "cloison étanche"; a metaphor for the way the mind can hold two contradictory ideas separately, like the sealed sections of a ship's hull., a phrase borrowed from modern naval vocabulary, has, in the language of philosophy, a scent of novelty that the Greek word antinomy now lacks; but, if the philosophers who used this new formula had examined themselves well, they would have found in their own brains as many “watertight compartments” as in those of any opponent.

Let us conclude that Vercingétorix The leader of the Gallic tribes who led a great revolt against Julius Caesar in 52 BCE., aside from his aspiration to the kingship, offers to French patriotism one of the most admirable models from which it can draw inspiration, and that Roman civilization, introduced to our land through injustice, violence, and treachery, was for us an immense blessing whose value cannot be overpraised. As for those who would highlight the contradiction presented by these two propositions, there is no reason to worry about their possible jokes, nor their best-constructed arguments. A fatal law imposed by nature on the most eminent, most impartial, and most free spirits places them in the impossi-