312 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS, Book VIL 



I have only farther to add, upon the fubjevSl of the population of 

 Britain, that there is a race of men, both in the towns and in the 

 country, and a very numerous race too, which mukipUes very Uttle ; 

 I mean the houfchold lervants of the rich and great, who are much 

 more numerous than their maftcrs. Among the Romans, their fer- 

 vants, who were all Oaves, were married, and begot that race of people 

 which they called vcr?iae^ who were very numerous; fo that they, and 

 their defcendents, in later times,- peopled a great part of Italy. And, 

 in anlient times, both in England and Scotland, the rural fervices, 

 and a great part of the domeftic, were performed by men who held 

 lands by that tenure, and were, no doubt, married, and begot m.my 

 children : And there are fome remains of this antient fyftem ftill 

 prelcrved, as I am informed, in fome parts of the Highlands of Scot- 

 land, where fervice is hereditary, and goes from father to fon. But, 

 in all the reft of Britain, the fervants are commonly not married ; 

 or, where they are married, I am afraid the public gets no good ac- 

 count of their iflue. And there is another body of men in Great 

 Britain, and a very numerous body at prefent, which contributes lit- 

 tle or nothing to the population of the country j I mean the foldiers. 

 But of thefe I have fpoken elfewhere, and Ihown the difference, in 

 that refpedt, betwixt our ftanding armies and the antient feudal mili- 

 tia *. 



Thus, I think, it is proved, that the number of inhabitants in 

 Scotland, as well as in England, is decreafed. I have infifted the 

 more upon the number of inhabitants in Britain, that I think popu- 

 lation is the moft material part of the political fyftem, fo material, 

 that without it, the fyftem cannot fubfiit. Of that fyftem, as I have 

 obferved in a preceeding part of this work, there are three capital ar- 

 ticles, the healthy the morals^ and the numbers of the people. With- 



ont 



* Vol. 4. of this work, p. 218. 



