Page:An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).djvu/411

 involve some parts of the sacred writings, as any argument against their divine original. The Supreme Being might, undoubtedly, have accompanied his revelations to man by such a succession of miracles, and of such a nature, as would have produced universal overpowering conviction, and have put an end at once to all hesitation and discussion. But weak as our reason is to comprehend the plans of the great Creator, it is yet sufficiently strong, to see the most striking objections to such a revelation. From the little we know of the structure of the human understanding, we must be convinced, that an overpowering conviction of this kind, instead of tending to the improvement and moral amelioration of man, would act like the touch of a torpedo on all intellectual exertion, and