and no presumptions in favour of an opposite
doctrine; in which case the inference that Kent was German would be
irrefragable, and would stand thus--

The Belgae were Germans--

The south-eastern Britons were the same class with the Belgae--

Therefore they were Germans.

Such a syllogism, I repeat, would be in proper form, and the inference
satisfactory.

But there is a great deal to set against both: so much as to make it
extremely probable that the utmost that can be got from the first
statement is, that a part of the Belgae, and more especially the
Condrusi, Eburones, Caerasi, and Paemani were Germans only in the way that
the people of Guernsey and Jersey are English, _i.e._, politically but
not ethnologically; and that the second only proves that certain
national names occurred on both sides of the channel.

If we look at the numerous local, national, and individual names of the
Belgae, we find that they agree so closely in form with those of the
undoubted Gauls, as to be wholly undistinguishable. The towns end in
-_acum_, -_briva_, -_magus_, -_dunum_, and -_durum_, and begin with
_Ver_-, _Caer_-, _Con_-, and _Tre_-, just like those of Central Gallia;
so that we have--to go no farther than the common maps--Viriovi-_acum_,
Minori-_acum_, Origi-_acum_, Turn-_acum_, Bag-_acum_, Camar-_acum_,
Nemet-_acum_, Catusi-_acum_, Gemini-_acum_, Blari-_acum_, Mederi-_acum_,
Tolbi-_acum_; Samaro-_briva_; Novio-_magus_, Moso-_magus_; Vero-_dunum_;
Marco-_durum_, Theo-_durum_; _Ver_-omandui; _Caer_-asi; _Con_-drusi;
_Tre_-viri--all Gallic compounds on Belgian ground, and all forms
either wholly foreign to any German area, or else exceedingly rare. Now
it is no objection to this remarkable and exclusive preponderance of
Gallic names in Belgian geography, to say that there is no proof of the
designations in question being native; and that, although they existed
in the language of Caesar's informants, who were Gauls, they were
strange to the Belgae, even as the word _Welsh_ is strange to a
Cambro-Briton--being the name by which he is known to an Englishman, but
not the true and native denomination. I say that all argument of this
kind, valid as it is in so many other cases where it is never applied,
has no place here; since Caesar's informants about the Belgic populations
were the Belgae themselves, and it is inconceivable that they should have
used nothing but Gallic terms when they spoke of themselves, if they had
not been Ga