Page:PettyWilliam1899EconomicWritingsVol2.djvu/15

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To the Honourable

Sr Robert Moray [1], Knight, One of His
Majestie's Privy Council for His Kingdom
of Scotland, and President of the Royal
Society of Philosophers meeting at Gresham-
Colledg
, and to the rest of that honourable
Society.

THE Observations which I happened to make (for I designed them not) upon the Bills of Mortality, have faln out to be both Political and Natural, some concerning Trade and Government, others concerning the Air, || Countries, Seasons, Fruitfulness, Health, Diseases, Longevity, and the proportions between the Sex and Ages of Mankind. All which (because Sir Francis Bacon reckons his Discourses of Life and Death to be Natural History[2]; and because I understand your selves are also appointing means, how to measure the Degrees of Heat, Wetness, and Windiness in the several Parts of His Majesties Dominions) I am humbly bold to think Natural History also,

  1. Sir Robert Moray (or Murray) was born about the beginning of the seventeenth century. He was educated at St Andrews and in France, and, being devoted to the royal cause, lived chiefly on the continent until the Restoration. He was one of the founders of the Royal Society and presided over its meetings from March 1661 to July 1662. Moray died 4 July, 1673.
  2. The History of Life and Death, or the second Title in natural and experimental History for the Foundation of Philosophy: being the third Part of the Instauratio magna. Works, x. 9-176.