Page:An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).djvu/270

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244
AN ESSAY ON THE

objects around us, so many instances of mighty power daily offer themselves to our view, that we may fairly presume, that there are many forms and operations of nature which we have not yet observed, or which, perhaps, we are not capable of observing with our present confined inlets of knowledge. The resurrection of a spiritual body from a natural body, does not appear in itself a more wonderful instance of power, than the germination of a blade of wheat from the grain, or of an oak from an acorn. Could we conceive an intelligent being, so placed, as to be conversant only with inanimate, or full grown objects, and never to have witnessed the process of vegetation and growth; and were ano-

    discover many more; but no analogy seems to indicate that he will discover a sixth sense, or a new species of power in the human mind, entirely beyond the train of our present observations.

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