i82 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER- 



vock occasioned by war, murder, drunkennefs, and all fpe- 

 cies of violence to which women are not fubject, 



I need not fay, that this, at leaft, fufficiently fhews the* 

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

 been in fcmine mafculino of our firft- parent, the confequence 

 muft 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 fuppofition 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, againit 

 the commiffion of which his poiitive precepts ran. Weak 

 as this is, it is not the weakeil 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 furely 

 implies an informed naturalifl) mould imagine that this 

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

 lie mould know, let us fay, in the countries of the eaft, 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 fhould found the iffue of anAfiatic, 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. 



