Page:An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).djvu/275

Rh first view of it, advanced by able and ingenious men, seems at least to deserve investigation. For my own part I feel no disinclination whatever, to give that degree of credit to the opinion of the probable immortality of man on earth, which the appearances that can be brought in support of it deserve. Before we decide upon the utter improbability of such an event, it is but fair impartially to examine these appearances; and from such an examination I think we may conclude, that we have rather less reason for supposing that the life of man may be indefinitely prolonged, than that trees may be made to grow indefinitely high, or potatoes indefinitely large. Rh