Mankind and Political Arithmetic | Page 8

country but 10,917,389, which is but inconsiderably more. Wherefore it is certain and necessary that the growth of the city must stop before the said year 1840, and will be at its utmost height in the next preceding period, A.D. 1800, when the number of the city will be eight times its present number, 5,359,000. And when (besides the said number) there will be 4,466,000 to perform the tillage, pasturage, and other rural works necessary to be done without the said city, as by the following table, viz.:-
A.D. Burials People in People in London England 1565 2,568 77,040 5,526,929 As in the } 1605 5,135 former table } 1642 11,883 } 1682 22,331 669,930 7,369,230 1722 44,662 1762 89,324 1802 178,648 5,359,440 9,825,650 1842 357,296 10,718,889 10,917,389
Now, when the people of London shall come to be so near the people of all England, then it follows that the growth of London must stop before the said year 1842, as aforesaid, and must be at its greatest height A.D. 1800, when it will be eight times more than now, with above 4,000,000 for the service of the country and ports, as aforesaid.
Of the aforementioned vast difference between 10 years and 1,200 years for doubling the people, we make this use, viz.:- To justify the Scriptures and all other good histories concerning the number of the people in ancient time. For supposing the eight persons who came out of the Ark, increased by a progressive doubling in every ten years, might grow in the first 100 years after the Flood from 8 to 8,000, and that in 350 years after the Flood (whereabouts Noah died) to 1,000,000 and by this time, 1682, to 320,000,000 (which by rational conjecture are thought to be now in the world), it will not be hard to compute how, in the intermediate years, the growths may be made, according to what is set down in the following table, wherein making the doubling to be ten years at first, and within 1,200 years at last, we take a discretionary liberty, but justifiable by observations and the Scriptures for the rest, which table we leave to be corrected by historians who know the bigness of ancient cities, armies, and colonies in the respective ages of the world, in the meantime affirming that without such difference in the measures and periods for doubling (the extremes whereof we have demonstrated to be real and true) it is impossible to solve what is written in the Holy Scriptures and other authentic books. For if we pitch upon any one number throughout for this purpose, 150 years is the fittest of all round numbers; according to which there would have been but 512 souls in the whole world in Moses' time (being 800 years after the Flood), when 603,000 Israelites of above twenty years old (besides those of other ages, tribes, and nations) were found upon an exact survey appointed by God, whereas our table makes 12,000,000. And there would have been about 8,000 in David's time, when were found 1,100,000, of above twenty years old (besides others, as aforesaid) in Israel, upon the survey instigated by Satan, whereas our table makes 32,000,000. And there would have been but a quarter of a million about the birth of Christ, or Augustus's time, when Rome and the Roman Empire were so great, whereas our table makes 100,000,000. Where note, that the Israelites in about 500 years, between their coming out of Egypt to David's reign, increased from 603,000 to 1,100,000.
On the other hand, if we pitch upon a less number, as 100 years, the world would have been over-peopled 700 years since. Wherefore no one number will solve the phenomena, and therefore we have supposed several, in order to make the following table, which we again desire historians to correct, according to what they find in antiquity concerning the number of the people in each age and country of the world.
We did (not long since) assist a worthy divine, writing against some sceptics, who would have baffled our belief of the resurrection, by saying, that the whole globe of the earth could not furnish matter enough for all the bodies that must rise at the last day, much less would the surface of the earth furnish footing for so vast a number; whereas we did (by the method afore mentioned) assert the number of men now living, and also of those that had died since the beginning of the world, and did withal show, that half the island of Ireland would afford them all, not only footing to stand upon, but graves to lie down in, for that whole number; and that two mountains in that country were as weighty as all the bodies that had ever been from the beginning of the world