Page:An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).djvu/297

 of virtue and vice at the future periods of the world; it may be safely asserted, that the vices and moral weakness of mankind, taken in the mass, are invincible.

The fifth proposition, is the general deduction from the four former, and will consequently fall, as the foundations which support it have given way. In the sense in which Mr. Godwin understands the term perfectible, the perfectibility of man cannot be asserted, unless the preceding propositions could have been clearly established. There is, however, one sense, which the term will bear, in which it is, perhaps, just. It may be said with truth, that man is always susceptible of improvement; or that there never has been, or will be, a period of his history, in which he can be said to have reached his