matters of negotiation and methods of civil polity, which we see
this age arrived to.

Nor is it a hard matter to assign probable causes of the perfection
in this modern art. I am not of their melancholy opinion who
ascribe it to the general poverty of the nation, since I believe it
is easy to prove the nation itself, taking it as one general stock,
is not at all diminished or impoverished by this long, this
chargeable war, but, on the contrary, was never richer since it was
inhabited.

Nor am I absolutely of the opinion that we are so happy as to be
wiser in this age than our forefathers; though at the same time I
must own some parts of knowledge in science as well as art have
received improvements in this age altogether concealed from the
former.

The art of war, which I take to be the highest perfection of human
knowledge, is a sufficient proof of what I say, especially in
conducting armies and in offensive engines. Witness the now ways of
rallies, fougades, entrenchments, attacks, lodgments, and a long et
cetera of new inventions which want names, practised in sieges and
encampments; witness the new forts of bombs and unheard-of mortars,
of seven to ten ton weight, with which our fleets, standing two or
three miles off at sea, can imitate God Almighty Himself and rain
fire and brimstone out of heaven, as it were, upon towns built on
the firm land; witness also our new-invented child of hell, the
machine which carries thunder, lightning, and earthquakes in its
bowels, and tears up the most impregnable fortification.