Ghap. VIIT. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 299 



refpeSl to popiilatmi and finance^ much better than that of France : 

 — Favourable inference from thence deduced. 



OF the numbers in Scotland, we have an account that may be 

 more depended upon than any we have of the numbers in 

 England : What I mean is, Sir John Sinclair's Statijlical Account (as 

 he calls it) of Scotland^ made up from the reports given in by the mi- 

 nifters of the feveral parifhes of Scotland of the numbers of their 

 parifhioners. And thefe reports, I think, may be depended upon, if 

 they are all as accurately made up as the account of the numbers in 

 the parifh of Fordoun, in the county of Kincardine, where 1 live, 

 is made up by the two minifters, father and (on, of that parifh ; 

 who, every year, in going through the parifh, for the pui^ofe of 

 catechifmg the people, make out an account of all the men, women, 

 and children in it. But Sir John's Account is not yet complete ; for 

 though he has publifhed 13 volumes of it, it is faid four or five vo- 

 lumes more are expeded. In this account, he includes the towns ; 

 which, undoubtedly^ are, of late years, very much increafed in Scot- 

 land as well as in England, particularly the capitol, which, in my 

 memory, is twice as great as it formerly was. But the queflion is 

 concerning the population of the country in Scotland as diftinguiih- 

 ed from the towns j for the towns, as I have faid, fo far from in- 

 creafmg the population of the country, in general diminifh it. Al- 

 though, therefore, it fhould appear from Sir John's Account, when 

 it is finifhed, that the numbers in general, of the whole parifhes, 

 are increafed from 1755, when their numbers were reported to Dr 

 Webfter, down to 1790, when Sir John's Account was taken j it 

 would not from thence follow, that the numbers in the country pa- 

 riflies were increafed. Of the (late, therefore, of the population of 

 the country pariflics, we cannot judge from what Sir John has 

 hitherto publillied. All I can fay, with any certainty upon the fub- 



P p 2 jea, 



