The fifth proposition is the general deduction from the four former and will consequently fall, as the foundations which support it have given way.  In the sense in which Mr Godwin understands the term ‘perfectible’, the perfectibility of man cannot be asserted, unless the preceding propositions could have been clearly established.  There is, however, one sense, which the term will bear, in which it is, perhaps, just.  It may be said with truth that man is always susceptible of improvement, or that there never has been, or will be, a period of his history, in which he can be said to have reached his possible acme of perfection.  Yet it does not by any means follow from this, that our efforts to improve man will always succeed, or even that he will ever make, in the greatest number of ages, any extraordinary strides towards perfection.  The only inference that can be drawn is that the precise limit of his improvement cannot possibly be known.  And I cannot help again reminding the reader of a distinction which, it appears to me, ought particularly to be attended to in the present question:  I mean, the essential difference there is between an unlimited improvement and an improvement the limit of which cannot be ascertained.  The former is an improvement not applicable to man under the present laws of his nature.  The latter, undoubtedly, is applicable.

The real perfectibility of man may be illustrated, as I have mentioned before, by the perfectibility of a plant.  The object of the enterprising florist is, as I conceive, to unite size, symmetry, and beauty of colour.  It would surely be presumptuous in the most successful improver to affirm, that he possessed a carnation in which these qualities existed in the greatest possible state of perfection.  However beautiful his flower may be, other care, other soil, or other suns, might produce one still more beautiful.

Yet, although he may be aware of the absurdity of supposing that he has reached perfection, and though he may know by what means he attained that degree of beauty in the flower which he at present possesses, yet he cannot be sure that by pursuing similar means, rather increased in strength, he will obtain a more beautiful blossom.  By endeavouring to improve one quality, he may impair the beauty of another.  The richer mould which he would employ to increase the size of his plant would probably burst the calyx, and destroy at once its symmetry.  In a similar manner, the forcing manure used to bring about the French Revolution, and to give a greater freedom and energy to the human mind, has burst the calyx of humanity, the restraining bond of all society; and, however large the separate petals have grown, however strongly, or even beautifully, a few of them have been marked, the whole is at present a loose, deformed, disjointed mass, without union, symmetry, or harmony of colouring.