298 Education. 



or will take place. Bat if a certain cause pro-* 

 duce a given effect, there must be a tendency in 

 that cause to produce this effect. Now, if this ten- 

 dency be real, when the cause is exerted in a cer- 

 tain degree, the effect may generally, if not always 

 be looked for in a corresponding degree. But if 

 it be not generally true, that the most enlightened 

 are the most virtuous; if it be not generally true, 

 that in proportion as men make progress in intel- 

 lectual improvement, they make progress in moral 

 excellence; we may with confidence conclude, 

 that these two species of improvement do not ne- 

 cessarily stand in the relation of cause and effect to 

 each other, and, therefore, that from the existence 

 of the former, we cannot legitimately infer the ex- 

 istence of the latter. 



Thirdly. A further objection to the doctrine of 

 human perfectibility has been drawn, with great 

 force, from the principle of population, compared 

 with the means of subsistence. It has been as- 

 serted by acute and well-informed writers, that 

 the progress of population, when unrestrained, is 

 always in a geometrical ratio, and that the increase 

 of the means of subsistence is, under the most 

 favourable circumstances, only in an arithmetical 

 ratio. If this be the case, it is evident, that the 

 progress of population must continually, unless in 

 extraordinary circumstances, be checked by the 

 want of subsistence; that these two will ever be, 

 from their very nature, contending forces, and will 

 be found more or less, in the most advantageous 

 states of society, to produce want, fraud, violence, 

 irregularity in the sexual intercourse, disease, and 

 various kinds of vice; and, as the natural conse- 

 quence of these, especially in their combined force, 

 much misery and degradation to man. There seems 

 to be no method of avoiding this conclusion, but by 

 contending, that when knowledge shall have made 



