the Country, who in a short time remove themselves from thence hither, so long, until the City, for want of receipt and encouragement, regurgitates and sends them back.
10. From the difference between Males and Females, we see the reason of making Eunuchs in those places where Polygamy is allowed, the later being useless as to multiplication, without the former, as was said before in case of Sheep and other Animals usually gelt in these Countries.
11. By consequence, this practice of Castration serves as well to promote increase, as to meliorate the Flesh of those Beasts that suffer it. For that Operation is equally practised upon Horses, which are not used for food, as upon those that are.
12. In Popish Countries, where Polygamy is forbidden, if a greater number of Males oblige themselves to Cœlibate, than the natural over-plus, or difference between them and Females amounts unto; then multiplication is hindred: for if there be eight Men to ten Women, all of which eight Men are married to eight of the ten Women, then the other two |70| bear no Children, as either admitting no Man at all, or else admitting Men as Whores (that is, more than one;) which commonly procreates no more than if none at all had been used: or else such unlawful Copulations beget Conceptions, but to frustrate them by procured Abortions, or secret Murthers; all which returns to the same reckoning. Now, if the same proportion of Women oblige themselves to a single life likewise, then such obligation makes no change in this matter of increase.
13. From what hath been said appears the reason, why the Law is and ought to be so strict against Fornications and Adulteries: for, if there were universal liberty, the Increase of Mankind would be but like that of Foxes at best.
14. Now forasmuch as Princes are not only Powerful, but Rich, according to the number of their People (Hands being the Father, as Lands are the Mother and Womb of Wealth)[1] it is no wonder why States, by encouraging Marriage,
- ↑ This idea, which occurs in slightly different phraseology in Petty's Treatise of Taxes (p. 68), has been pronounced a "leading thought in his writings."
