as long as a
great number of those impressions which form character, like the nice
motions of the arm, remain absolutely independent of the will of man,
though it would be the height of folly and presumption to attempt to
calculate the relative proportions 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.
— Thomas Robert Malthus
charactermankindmorality
