Note 26b — Part II. SCRIPTURE IRRECONCILABLE WITH HUMAN EXPERIENCE.
Reading edition
The absurdity of such an increase as even the “small” supposition of doubling every twenty years will be obvious to any one who will take the trouble of working out the figures for 440 years, which would bring us to the reign of David. At the Exodus the number was three millions; if they doubled every twenty years the people in the little kingdom of David would have been twelve and a half trillion!! And if the increase of the book of Exodus is taken as the standard the numbers must be increased a hundred-fold. Now the whole population of the world is somewhat more than 1,000 millions, so that in a space not so large as Yorkshire, and three-fourths wilderness, would be gathered together more than all the inmates of all the world twelve thousand times over.