Chap.IV. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 2% 



America has been almoft depopulated ; for one neceflary confc- 

 quence of trade is, that there muft be a commerce, not only of com- 

 modities, but of vices and difeafes. 



From what I have faid of the increafe of vices and difeafes, and of 

 their propagation to to many different parts of the world, I think I 

 might conclude with great certainty, that the depopulation of the 

 earth has increafed very much in later times, that is in the period 

 fmce the coming of our Saviour. But I will prove it from fadls, as 

 well as from the reafon of the thing ; And for this purpofe I will 

 mention particular countries, in which depopulation has increafed 

 very much in the period I fpeak of; and I will begin with Italy, of 

 the population of which, in antient times, I have faid a good deal. 

 But, as we are fo well informed concerning it, I will add what fol- 

 lows. In it, as ^lian in his Various H'ljiory tells us^% were antient- 

 ly 1 197 cities: And at prefent they do not exceed 300, accordmg 

 to the calculation of fome authors; nor docs any author make them 

 more than 360, as we are told by an author who appears to be ex- 

 ceedingly well informed both of the antient and prefent Rate of Italy; 

 I mean Dempfter, a Scotchman and a Profeflbr of Civil Law in tiic 

 Univerfity of Pifa, who has written a book in two folio volumes, 

 De Etruria Regali f. Of thefe cities which have difappeared, he 

 has given us a long catalogue in the fecond volume, many of them 

 fo annihilated that a veftige of them is not to be found. Among 

 thefe is the city of Vcii^ one of the moft remarkable cities in Italy, 

 equal in fize to the city of Athens, as the HalicarnafTian, in his An* 

 tiquities, has informed us J, and which cofl the Romans a ten years 

 fiege before they could take it. But, when they took it, they raf- 

 ed it, ploughed the ground upon which it flood, and did not leave 

 the ieaft veftige of it: So that, as Florus tells us, Laborat Auualmm 



Vol. V. LI fjes, 



* Lib. 9. Cap. 1 5. f Vol. 2. p. 42. 



X Lib. 2. p. 116. 



