282 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



vock occafioned by war, murder, drunkennefs, and all fpc- 

 cies of violence to which women are not fiibjecl:. 



I need not fay, that this, at leaft, fufficiently fhcws the 

 weaknefs of the argument. . For, if the equal proportion had 

 been in femine mafculino of our firfl parent, the confequence 

 mull have been, that male and female would have been in- 

 variably born, from the creation to the end of all things. 

 And it is a fuppolition very unworthy of the wifdom of God, 

 that, at the creation of man, he could make an allowance 

 for any deviation that was to happen, from crimes, againfl 

 the commiflion of which his pofitive precepts ran. Weak 

 as this is, it is not the weakcll part of this artificial argu- 

 ment, which, like the web of a fpider too finely woven, 

 whatever part you touch it on, the whole falls to pieces. . 



After taking it for granted, that he has proved the equa- 

 lity of the two fexes in number, from the bills of mortality 

 in London, he next fuppofes, as a confequence, that all the 

 world is in the fame predicament ;. that is, that an equal 

 number of males and females is produced every where. 

 Why Dr Arbuthnot, an eminent phyfician (which furcly 

 implies an informed naturalill) fliould imagine that this 

 inference would hold, is what I am not able to account for. 

 He mould know, let us fay, in the countries of the eafl, that 

 fruits, flowers, trees, birds, fifh, every blade of grafs, is com- 

 monly different, and that man, in his appearance, diet, ex- 

 ercife, pleafure, government, and religion, is as widely dif- 

 ferent ; why he mould found the ifTue of an Afiatic, how- 

 ever, upon the bills of mortality in London, is to the full as 

 abfurd as to affert, that they do not wear either beard or 

 whifkers in Syria, becaufe that is not the cafe in London. 



I AM 



