Page:An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).djvu/402

 different from the being that has seen only good. They are pieces of clay that have received distinct impressions: they must, therefore, necessarily be in different shapes; or, even if we allow them both to have the same lovely form of virtue, it must be acknowledged, that one has undergone the further process, necessary to give firmness and durability to its substance; while the other is still exposed to injury, and liable to be broken by every accidental impulse. An ardent love and admiration of virtue seems to imply the existence of something opposite to it; and it seems highly probable, that the same beauty of form and substance, the same perfection of character, could not be generated, without the impressions of disapprobation which arise from the spectacle of moral evil.