he remarks of the war of the Spanish Succession that 'before
it England was one of the sea-powers, after it she was _the_
sea-power without any second.' In all these passages, as appears
from the use of the indefinite article, what is meant is a naval
power, or a state in possession of a strong navy. The other meaning
of the term forms the general subject of his writings above
enumerated. In his earlier works Mahan writes 'sea power' as
two words; but in a published letter of the 19th February 1897,
he joins them with a hyphen, and defends this formation of the
term and the sense in which he uses it. We may regard him as
the virtual inventor of the term in its more diffused meaning,
for--even if it had been employed by earlier writers in that
sense--it is he beyond all question who has given it general
currency. He has made it impossible for anyone to treat of sea-power
without frequent reference to his writings and conclusions.

[Footnote 2: _Hist._of_Greece_, v. p. 67, published in 1849, but
with preface dated 1848.]

[Footnote 3: _Expansion_of_England_, p. 89.]

[Footnote 4: _Influence_of_Sea-power_on_History_, published 1890;
_Influence_of_Sea-power_on_the_French_Revolution_and_Empire_,
2 vols. 1892; _Nelson:_the_Embodiment_of_the_Sea-power_of_Great_
_Britain_, 2 vols. 1897.]

[Footnote 5: _Griechische_Geschichte_. Berlin, 1889.]

[Footnote 6: _Ibid_. ii. p. 37.]