This vast design of Gibbon, the magnificent whole into which he has cast the decay and ruin of the ancient civilization, the formation and birth of the new order of things, will of itself, independent of the laborious execution of his immense plan, render “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” an unapproachable subject to the future …
https://albertpeia.com/social-sciences/The-History-of-the-Decline-and-Fall-of-the-Roman-Empire.pdf