as long as agreat number of those impressions which form character, like the nicemotions of the arm, remain absolutely independent of the will of man,though it would be the height of folly and presumption to attempt tocalculate the relative proportions of virtue and vice at the future periodsof the world, it may be safely asserted that the vices and moralweakness of mankind, taken in the mass, are invincible

as long as agreat number of those impressions which form character, like the nicemotions of the arm, remain absolutely independent of the will of man,though it would be the height of folly and presumption to attempt tocalculate the relative proportions of virtue and vice at the future periodsof the world, it may be safely asserted that the vices and moralweakness of mankind, taken in the mass, are invincible. (Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population)