CONTENTS. 



own farm as to population ; — cultivated by one utmiarried fervant and a boy In the 

 houfe, and by 27 cottagers and fmall tenants. — Advantages rel'u!ting from the popu- 

 lation of a country. — Many great improvers depopulate their eftates. — Praife of Mr 

 Barclay of Urie : — An account of his improvements, and of the benefits he has 

 thereby conferred on the county of Kincardine. — Cottagers, though much diminifh- 

 ed in Scotland, ftill more fo in England. — The number of houfe iervants, kept by 

 the rich and great, multiply little :— Very different among the antitnt Romans ; and, 

 in former times, in Great Britain. — Service Itill an mheritance in fonv. p^rts of the 

 Highlands of Scotland. — Our (landing armies contribute nothmg to popuUtion.— . 

 Population a moft material part of the pohtical fyftem, and, therefore, much miill- 

 ed on. — Proof, from our prefent exertions by fea and land, that our po.ul.stion 

 is very confidcrable : — It might be increafed by proper means. — Our lituatiou. with 

 refpecl to population and finance, much better than that of France : — Favourable 

 inference from thence deduced. p. 299. 



C H A P. IX. 



The continual decreafe of the numbers of men, from the earlieft times, mufl: end in 

 their extindion. — The extindion of particular families proved : — And nations, be- 

 ing compofed of families, muft end with them. — Inftances of nations being extin- 

 guifhed ; fuch as many nations that were, of old, in Italy, and fuch as the antient 

 Egyptian nation. — The unnatural life of man in the civilized (late, and the vices and 

 difeales it produces, the caufe of this extindlion : — The (ilence of antient authors on 

 this fubjeft accounted for : — Some of them maintained that a renovation of things 

 was to take place — Uncertain, if a calculation of the time of the extinftion of the 

 fpecies can be made. — An end of this fcene of things, a dodlnne of Chridianity j 

 and the chief end of the mifEon of Jelus Chrift to reveal it to men, and to perfuade 

 them to prepare for the world to come : — Proof of this from Scripture. — Agreement 

 of hiftory with revelation — Our prefent mifery not fo much the (liortnefs of our 

 lives as the length of our deaths. — Revealed to us, that a lingering death of the fpe- 

 cies is to be prevented by fome convulfion in nature. — No neceffity for fuppofing the 

 convulfion general :— It may happen in different countries at different times ;— In- 

 flances of this from antient and modern hiftory — The goodnefs of God reconciled 

 with the mifery of man in civiUty.-— An end of man as well as of his woiks. — Con- 

 clufion of this volume, , o. -^i^. 



