degree than was the mental constitution of either. The former was of giant stature and strength, and of fair complexion; the latter slender. nervous, and swarthy. With the Goth, female chastity was held in the highest esteem; with the Arab, it was the subject of caustic epigram, of jest, and of satire. The Goth, a monogamist, knew nothing of the pleasures of gallantry; the polygamous Arab placed indulgence in them second only to the excitement of battle. The Goths were among the first and most devout proselytes of Christianity; the Arabs have ever obstinately refused to acknowledge the divinity of Christ or the superior authority of the Gospel. That invincible prowess which, nurtured by poverty and an abstemious life, was displayed with equal distinction and success amidst the forests of Europe and on the sandy plains of Africa, was the potent weapon which obtained for each of these great nations supremacy over their adversaries; an advantage which, through internal dissension, sectarian prejudice, and social corruption, was eventually lost; but not until the moral and physical peculiarities of both had impressed themselves upon their contemporaries, so deeply as to insure their transmission, with but little modification, to subsequent ages. The spirit of the Visigoths was, almost from the first, decidedly progressive. This general tendency towards improvement, and a desire for the blessings of civilization, stimulated commercial activity, increased domestic happiness, and opened a field for the development of art, the advancement of science, the strict administration of justice, and the consequent decrease of brutality and crime. The wisdom of the Gothic polity and the equity of its laws afford a pleasing and instructive example of the capacity of a people to raise itself unaided from barbarism--a people which, in addition to the romantic interest attaching to its history, is entitled to the grateful remembrance of mankind for the beneficent influence it has exerted upon the political institutions and the social order of Europe; as well as for the creation of a judicial system whose merits and whose principles, confirmed by the experience of centuries, are still acknowledged by the most august tribunals of the civilized world. CHAPTER V THE INVASION AND CONQUEST OF SPAIN 710–713