If so, it must accompany the preceding proposition in its fall.
But it may be worth while to inquire, with reference to the
principal argument of this essay, into the particular reasons
which we have for supposing that the vices and moral weakness of
man can never be wholly overcome in this world.

Man, according to Mr Godwin, is a creature formed what he is
by the successive impressions which he has received, from the
first moment that the germ from which he sprung was animated.
Could he be placed in a situation, where he was subject to no
evil impressions whatever, though it might be doubted whether in
such a situation virtue could exist, vice would certainly be
banished. The great bent of Mr Godwin's work on Political
Justice, if I understand it rightly, is to shew that the greater
part of the vices and weaknesses of men proceed from the
injustice of their political and social institutions, and that if
these were removed and the understandings of men more
enlightened, there would be little or no temptation in the world
to evil. As it has been clearly proved, however, (at least as I
think) that this is entirely a false conception, and that,
independent of any political or social institutions whatever, the
greater part of mankind, from the fixed and unalterable laws of
nature, must ever be subject to the evil temptations arising from
want, besides other passions, it follows from Mr Godwin's
definition of man that such impressions, and combinations of
impressions, cannot be afloat in the world without generating a
variety of bad men. According to Mr Godwin's own conception of
the formation of character, it is surely as improbable that under
such circumstances all men will be virtuous as that sixes will
come up a hundred times following upon the dice. The great