know not, unless I should pick out some remarkable accident
happening in each part of the said period, and make that to be the
cause of this increase (as vulgar people make the cause of every
man's sickness to be what he did last eat), wherefore, rather than
so to say quidlibet de quolibet, I had rather quit even what I have
above said to be the cause of London's increase from 1642 to 1682,
and put the whole upon some natural and spontaneous benefits and
advantages that men find by living in great more than in small
societies, and shall therefore seek for the antecedent causes of
this growth in the consequences of the like, considered in greater
characters and proportions.

Now, whereas in arithmetic, out of two false positions the truth is
extracted, so I hope out of two extravagant contrary suppositions to
draw forth some solid and consistent conclusion, viz.:-

The first of the said two suppositions is, that the city of London
is seven times bigger than now, and that the inhabitants of it are
4,690,000 people, and that in all the other cities, ports, towns,
and villages, there are but 2,710,000 more.

The other supposition is, that the city of London is but a seventh
part of its present bigness, and that the inhabitants of it are but
96,000, and that the rest of the inhabitants (being 7,304,000) do
cohabit thus: 104,000 of them in small cities and towns, and that
the rest, being 7,200,000, do inhabit in houses not contiguous to
one another, viz., in 1,200,000 houses, having about twenty-four
acres of ground belonging to each of them, accounting about
28,000,000 of acres to be in the whole territory of England, Wales,
and the adjacent islands, which any man that pleases may examine