Now the material forces put onto the field of battle on each side in any of the wars were the product of the material resources of the country, of its wealth, its ability to manufacture weapons and transport troops; that is, of its utilization of invented mechanisms, processes and methods. The skill with which they were handled--(especially when supreme skill was exerted, as in the cases of Alexander and Cæsar)--was the outcome not of mere laborious training, not of mere knowledge, or courage, or carefully detailed arrangement, but of plans so conceived, developed and produced (invented) as to confront the enemy with unexpected situations that they were not prepared to meet. So the influence of even the wars seems to have been due fundamentally to invention. As to the other agencies that influenced the course of ancient history, they seem to owe their influence even more obviously to invention than war does. Every department of ancient civilization seems traceable back to some invention or inventions. The whole of ancient civilization seems to rest primarily on inventions. As inventions were made by inventors, we seem forced to the conclusion that inventors influenced ancient history more than any other one class did. This does not mean that the inventor of a child's toy influenced history more than did any one of the millions of wise and good men in each generation who helped to keep the machine of civilization working smoothly; for it refers to inventors as a class, and not to inventors as individuals. CHAPTER V THE INVENTION OF THE GUN AND OF PRINTING The period from the fall of Rome to the beginning of the fourteenth century was almost destitute in the matter of inventions that can be distinctly named: though the conception and carrying into effect of Mohammedanism in the seventh century, the campaigns and governmental systems of Charlemagne in the ninth century, the invasion of England by William of Normandy in the eleventh century, and the Crusades in the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as well as all the numerous wars and campaigns that succeeded each other so rapidly, indicate a mental and nervous restlessness which sought relief in action, and which received guidance in seeking that relief from the suggestions of invention. During the interval, paper is supposed by some to have been invented, or at least the art of making it from rags. Paper itself, however, had been invented long before in China. The early part of the twelfth century opened a new era in Europe with the introduction of one of the most important inventions ever made, the gun. It is often said that gunpowder was invented then. Gunpowder, of course, had been invented or discovered many centuries before.