It is well to observe the force and virtue and consequence
of discoveries, and these are to be seen nowhere more
conspicuously than in those three which were unknown to the
ancients, and of which the origin, though recent, is obscure
and inglorious; namely, printing, gunpowder and the magnet
[i.e. Mariner's Needle]. For these three have changed the
whole face and state of things throughout the world.
-- Francis Bacon
