I am well aware, that it may be urged by those who permit themselves to say every thing, because they are not at pains to consider any thing, that the course of my argument will lead to a defence of polygamy in general, the supposed doctrine of the Thelypthora *[1]. Such reflections as these, unless introduced for merriment, are below my animadversion; all I shall say on that topic is, that they who find encouragcment to polygamy in Mr Madan's book, the Thelypthora, have read it with a much more acute perception than perhaps I have done; and I shall be very much mistaken, if polygamy increases in England upon the principles laid down in the Thelypthora.
England, says Dr Arbuthnot, enjoys an equality of both sexes, and, if it is not so, the inequality is so imperceptible, that no inconvenience has yet followed. What we have now to inquire is, Whether other nations, or the majority of them, are in the same situation? For, if we are to decide by this, and if we should happen to find, that, in other countries, there are invariably born three women to one man, the conclusion, in regard to that country, must be, that three women to one man was the proportion of one sex to the other, impressed at the creation in femine of our first parent.
I confess I am not fond of meddling with the globe before the deluge. But as learned men seem inclined to think that Ararat and Euphrates are the mountain and river of antediluvian times, and that Mesopotamia, or Diarbekir, is the ancient situation of the terrestrial paradise, I cannot give
- ↑ * A late publication of Dr Madan's, little understood, as it would seem.
- A late publication of Dr Madan's, little understood, as it would seem.
