like Tassoni, surveys all the arts and sciences, and concludes
that the moderns are equal to the ancients in poetry, and in almost
all other things excel them. [Footnote: Among modern poets equal to
the ancients, Hakewill signalises Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser, Marot,
Ronsard, Ariosto, Tasso (Book iii. chap. 8, Section 3).]

One of the arguments which he urges against the theory of degeneration
is pragmatic--its paralysing effect on human energy. "The opinion of the
world's universal decay quails the hopes and blunts the edge of men's
endeavours." And the effort to improve the world, he implies, is a duty
we owe to posterity.

"Let not then the vain shadows of the world's fatal decay keep us either
from looking backward to the imitation of our noble predecessors or
forward in providing for posterity, but as our predecessors worthily
provided, for us, so let our posterity bless us in providing for them,
it being still as uncertain to us what generations are still to ensue,
as it was to our predecessors in their ages."

We note the suggestion that history may be conceived as a sequence of
improvements in civilisation, but we note also that Hakewill here is
faced by the obstacle which Christian theology offered to the logical
expansion of the idea. It is uncertain what generations are still to
ensue. Roger Bacon stood before the same dead wall. Hakewill thinks that
he is living in the last age of the world; but how long it shall last
is a question which cannot be resolved, "it being one of those secrets
which the Almighty hath locked up in the cabinet of His own counsel."
Yet he consoles himself and his readers with a consideration which
suggests that the end is not yet very near. [Footnote: See Book i.
chap. 2, Section 4, p. 24.] "It is agreed upon all sides by Divines that
at least two signs forerunning the world's end remain unaccomplished--the
subversion of Rome and the conversion of the Jews. And when they shall
be accomplished God only knows, as yet in man's judgment there being
little appearance of the one or the other."

It was well to be assured that nature is not decaying or man
degenerating. But was the doctrine that the end of the world does
not "depend upon the law of nature," and that the growth of human
civilisation may be cut off at any moment by a fiat of the Deity, less
calculated to "quail the hopes and blunt the edge of men's endeavours?"
Hakewill asserted with confidence that the universe will be su