years, and (Plagues considered) eight. Wherefore, since there be 24000 pair of Breeders, that is 1⁄8 of the whole, it follows, that in eight times eight years the whole People of the City shall double, without the access of Forreiners: the which contradicts not |86| our Account of its growing from two to five in 56 years with such accesses.
13. According to this proportion, one couple, viz. Adam and Eve, doubling themselves every 64 years of the 5610 years[1], which is the Age of the World according to the Scriptures, shall produce far more People than are now in it. Wherefore the World is not above 100 thousand years older[2], as some vainly imagine, nor above what the Scripture makes it.
CHAP. XII.
Of the Country-Bills.
1. WE have, for the present, done with our Observations upon the Accounts of Burials and Christenings in and about London; we shall next present the Accounts of both Burials, Christenings, and also of Weddings in the Country, having to that purpose inserted Tables of 90 years for a certain Parish in Hantshire[3], being a place neither famous for Longevity and Healthfulness, nor for the contrary. Upon which Tables we observe, |87|
1. That every Wedding, one with another, produces four Children, and consequently that that is the proportion of Children which any Marriageable Man or Woman may be
- ↑ According to the chronology of Scaliger (De emendatione temporum, pp. 431—432) which places the Creation in the year 3948 b.c.
- ↑ Previous editions, 'old.'
- ↑ Romsey in Hampshire, see p. 412, note 1.
considered, in eight. If, then, eight years are necessary for the birth of 48000 persons, the birth of 384000—a number sufficient, together with those already living, to double the population of the City—will require sixty-four years. It is unnecessary to dwell on the defects of this calculation. On one hand it ignores the increase in the number of pairs during sixty-four years. On the other hand, it tacitly assumes that the 384000 now living, and likewise all those new-born within the sixty-four years, will live to the end of that period.
