object is to prove that the power and providence of God in the
government of the world are not consistent with the current view
that the physical universe, the heavens and the elements, are
undergoing a process of decay, and that man is degenerating
physically, mentally, and morally. His arguments in general are
futile as well as tedious. But he has profited by reading Bodin and
Bacon, whose ideas, it would appear, were already agitating
theological minds.

A comparison between the ancients and the moderns arises in a
general refutation of the doctrine of decay, as naturally as the
question of the stability of the powers of nature arises in a
comparison between the ancients and moderns. Hakewill protests
against excessive admiration of antiquity, just because it
encourages the opinion of the world's decay. He gives his argument a
much wider scope than the French controversialists. For him the
field of debate includes not only science, arts, and literature, but
physical qualities and morals. He seeks to show that mentally and
physically there has been no decay, and that the morals of modern
Christendom are immensely superior to those of pagan times. There
has been social progress, due to Christianity; and there has been an
advance in arts and knowledge.

Multa dies uariusque labor mutabilis aeui
Rettulit in melius.


Hakewill, 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