Mankind and Political Arithmetic

Mankind and Political
Arithmetic

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Essays on Mankind and Political
Arithmetic
by Sir William Petty (#1 in our series by Sir William Petty)
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Title: Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic
Author: Sir William Petty
Release Date: May, 2004 [EBook #5619] [Yes, we are more than one

year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on July 23, 2002]
Edition: 10
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, MANKIND
AND POLITICAL ARITHMETIC ***

Transcribed from the Cassell & Co. edition by David Price, email
[email protected]

ESSAYS ON MANKIND AND POLITICAL ARITHMETIC

Contents:
Introduction (by Henry Morley) Another Essays The stationer to the
reader The principal points of this discourse Of the growth of the city
of London Further observation upon the Dublin bills The stationer to
the reader A postscript to the stationer Two essays in political
arithmetic To the king's most excellent majesty An essay in political
arithmetic Five essays in political arithmetic The first essay The second
essay The third essay. The fourth essay The fifth essay Of the people of
England (by Gregory King)

INTRODUCTION.

William Petty, born on the 26th of May, 1623, was the son of a clothier
at Romsey in Hampshire. After education at the Romsey Grammar
School, he continued his studies at Caen in Normandy. There he
supported himself by a little trade while learning French, and
advancing his knowledge of Greek, Latin, Mathematics, and much else
that belonged to his idea of a liberal education. His idea was large. He
came back to England, and had for a short time a place in the Navy; but
at the age of twenty he went abroad again, and was away three years,

studying actively at Utrecht, Leyden, and Amsterdam, and also in Paris.
In Paris he assisted Thomas Hobbes in drawing diagrams for his
treatise on optics. At the age of twenty- four Petty took out a patent for
the invention of a copying machine. It was described in a folio
pamphlet "On Double Writing." That was in 1647, in Civil War time,
and although Petty followed Hobbes in his studies, he did not share the
philosopher's political opinions, but held with the Parliament. In 1648
he added to his former pamphlet a "Declaration concerning the newly
invented Art of Double Writing."
Samuel Hartlib, the large-hearted Pole, who in those days spent his
worldly means in England for the advancement of agriculture and of
education, and other aids to the well-being of a nation, had caused
Milton to write his letter on education, as has been shown in the
Introduction to the hundred and twenty-first volume of this Library,
which contains that Letter together with Milton's Areopagitica. Young
Petty's first published writing was a Letter to Hartlib on Education,
entitled "The Advice of W. P. to Mr. Samuel Hartlib for the
Advancement of some Particular Parts of Learning." This appeared in
1648, when Petty's age was twenty-five, and its aim was to suggest a
wider view of the whole field of education than had been possible in
the Middle Ages, of which schools and colleges were then preserving
the traditions, as they do still here and there to some extent. This
pamphlet has been reprinted in the sixth volume of the "Harleian
Miscellany." William Petty wished the training of the young to be in
several respects more practical.
His own activity of mind caused him to settle at Oxford, where he
taught anatomy and chemistry, which he had been studying abroad. He
had read with Hobbes the writings of Vesalius, the great founder of
modern practical anatomy. In 1649 William Petty graduated at Oxford
as Doctor of Medicine, obtained a fellowship at Brasenose, and
practised. In 1650 he surprised the public by restoring the action of the
lungs in a woman who had been hanged for infanticide, and so
restoring her to life.
Dr. Petty now took