Page:An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).djvu/260

. The wonder that some of our modern discoveries would excite in the savage inhabitants of Europe in the times of Theseus and Achilles, proves but little. Persons almost entirely unacquainted with the powers of a machine, cannot be expected to guess at its effects. I am far from saying, that we are at present by any means fully acquainted with the powers of the human mind; but we certainly know more of this instrument than was known four thousand years ago; and therefore, though not to be called competent judges, we are certainly much better able, than savages, to say what is, or is not, within its grasp. A watch would strike a Savage with as much surprise as a perpetual motion; yet one, is to us a most familiar piece of mechanism, and the other, has constantly eluded the efforts of the most acute intellects. In many