Page:An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).djvu/257

 men are impotent. But this is reasoning against an almost universal rule from a few exceptions: and these exceptions seem to be rather tricks, than powers, that may be exerted to any good purpose. I have never heard of any man who could regulate his pulse in a fever; and doubt much, if any of the persons here alluded to, have made the smallest perceptible progress in the regular correction of the disorders of their frames, and the consequent prolongation of their lives.

Mr. Godwin says, "Nothing can be more unphilosophical, than to conclude, that, because a certain species of power is beyond the train of our present observation, that it is beyond the limits of the human mind." I own my ideas of philosophy are in this respect widely different from Mr. Godwin's. The only