Ch. xiii. preceding View of Society. 527 



countries not so much subject to these diseases. 

 If Turkey and Egypt have been nearly stationary 

 in their average population for the last century, in 

 the intervals of their periodical plagues, the births 

 must have exceeded the deaths in a much greater 

 proportion than in such countries as France and 

 England. 



It is for these reasons that no estimates of future 

 population or depopulation, formed from any exist- 

 ing rate of increase or decrease, can be depended 

 upon. Sir William Petty calculated that in the 

 year 1800 the city of London would contain 

 5,359,000* inhabitants, instead of which it does 

 not now contain a fifth part of that number. 

 Mr. Eaton has lately prophesied the extinc- 

 tion of the population of the Turkish empire in 

 another century,! an event which will certainly 

 fail of taking place. If America were to con- 

 tinue increasing at the same rate as at present 

 for the next 150 years, her population would ex- 

 ceed the population of China; but though pro- 

 phecies are dangerous, I will venture to say 

 that such an increase will not take place in that 

 time, though it may perhaps in five or six hundred 

 years. 



Europe was without doubt formerly more sub- 

 ject to plagues and wasting epidemics than at pre- 

 sent; and this will account, in a great measure, 



* Political Arithmetic, p. 17. 



t Survey of the Turkish Empire, c. vii. p. 281. 



