“And here we determine the άκμή [acme], i.e. perfect state, of the nations, which is enjoyed when the sciences, disciplines and arts, all of which draw their being from religion and the law, are in service to religion and the law. Hence when the nations conduct themselves in a different way, as they would with the Epicureans and Stoics, or with indifference to it, as with the sceptics, or contrary to it, as with the atheists, they proceed to their downfall, losing their own dominant religions and, with them, their own laws. And because they do not value their own religions and laws as being worthy of defence, they proceed to lose also their own arms and languages and, with the loss of these properties, the further property of retaining their own names within those of other dominant nations. Hence, having proved that their nature is such that they are incapable of governing themselves, they lose their own governments. Thus, in accordance with the eternal law of Providence, the natural law of the heroic gentes, in which there is no equality of justice between the weak and the strong, recurs.”