monk who discovered gunpowder did not meanly affect the destinies of
mankind; wars are become less bloody by becoming less personal; mere
brutal strength is rendered of comparatively little avail; all the
resources of civilisation are required to maintain and move a large army;
wealth, ingenuity, and perseverance become the principal elements of
success; civilised man is rendered in consequence infinitely superior to
the savage, and gunpowder gives permanence to his triumph, and secures
the cultivated nations from ever being again overrun by the inroads of
millions of barbarians. There is so much identity of feature in the
character of the two or three centuries that are just passed, that I wish
you only to take a very transient view of the political and military
events belonging to them. You will find attempts made by the chiefs of
certain great nations to acquire predominance and empire; you will see
those attempts, after being partially successful, resisted by other
nations, and the balance of power, apparently for a moment broken, again
restored. Amongst the rival nations that may be considered as forming
the republic of modern Europe, you will see one pre-eminent for her
maritime strength and colonial and commercial enterprise, and you will
find she retains her superiority only because it is favourable to the
liberty of mankind. But you must not yet suffer the vision of modern
Europe to pass from your eyes without viewing some other results of the
efforts of men of genius, which, like those of gunpowder and the press,
illustrate the times to which they belong, and form brilliant epochs in
the history of the world. If you look back into the schools of
regenerated Italy, you will see in them the works of the Greek masters of
philosophy; and if you attend to the science taught in them, you will
find it vague, obscure, and full of erroneous notions. You will find in
this early period of improvement branches of philosophy even applied to
purposes of delusion; the most sublime of the departments of human
knowledge--astronomy--abused by impostors, who from the aspect of the