486

CONCLUSION.

hazardous enterprises, and of insurance against fire, are too wellknown and too universally acknowledged to require illustration.

Insurance against marine risks and against the calamities of fire,however, do not require any special applications of the mathe-matics ; and it was not until about the middle of the seventeenthcentury, that the doctrine of probabilities (doctrine of chances,generally so called by English writers) began to be successfullyapplied to life-insurances, annuities, reversions, &c. Establish-ments for effecting insurance, of all these various kinds, have longbeen very numerous in France and England, and are continuallybecoming more known in this country.

It may be well to observe, that prejudices have existed, tosome extent, against life-insurances, and are believed to existstill, among persons whose merits entitle their feelings and opin-ions to the most respectful consideration. Their objectionsseem to be referable to two particulars, — to the term, life-insur-ance ; as if man were assuming to take the dispensation of lifeand death from the hands of the Almighty, — and to the doctrineof chances or probabilities, by which life-insurances, annuities,&c., are calculated. Both these difficulties, however, are instantlyremoved, when the true meaning of the terms chance and life-insurance, are explained.

It may be admitted, that the term life-insurance is an unfortu-nate one, in some respects ; but let it be called a guaranty thata sum of money will be paid at the decease of a person, or termeda means of leaving a legacy to a family or heirs, which is its truemeaning, and it will at once become intelligible to all; and all rea-sonable objection against the term, and against the institutionitself, must at once vanish.

So, also, in respect to the term, chance. It is to the imperfec-tion of the human mind, and not to any irregularity in the natureof things, that our ideas of chance and probability are to be re-ferred. Events, which to one man seem accidental and precari-ous, to another, who is better informed, or who has more powerof generalization, appear to be regular and certain. Contingency,verisimilitude, probability, and chance are, therefore, the offspringof human ignorance , and, with an intellect of the highest order, can-not be supposed to have any existence. Chance means an event,