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 suddenly wrecked by fire.

Una dies dabit exitio.

Was the prospect of an arrest which might come the day after to-morrow likely to induce men to exert themselves to make provision for posterity?
The significance of Hakewill lies in the fact that he made the current theory of degeneration, which stood in the way of all possible theories of progress, the object of a special inquiry.

And his book illustrates the close connection between that theory and the dispute over the Ancients and Moderns.