BENEFITS OF INSURANCE. 487

or a series of events, not regulated by any law that we perceive.Not perceiving the existence of a law, we reason as if there werenone, or no principle by which a previous state of things deter-mines that which is to follow. But the farther our knowledgehas extended, the more phenomena have been rescued from thedominion of chance, and brought within the government of knowncauses, and the farther off have the boundaries of darknessand uncertainty been carried. * No such thing, therefore, aschance can exist in the Divine mind, nor in the nature of things ;still, with respect to us, the term has a real and important mean-ing, derived from the relation which our imperfect knowledgesustains to the laws by which all things are regulated. The onlycaution to be suggested, is, that we use it with a full knowledgeof its meaning, and so that it may not exclude from any eventthe Providence of God.

To the members generally of the three learned professions, toevery one whose income arises from his own personal exertionsor talents, to every one having a life income, or receiving a salarythat will cease at his death ; to every person engaged in commerce,manufactures, or any other employment, whose own immediateexertions are the support of the establishment in which he isengaged ; to persons generally, who have not yet acquired a suf-ficiency to leave at their death a comfortable maintenance fortheir wives, children, or dependents, —to all such, and to manyother classes of persons, who cannot be particularly enumerated,life insurance and annuities become a subject of vast importanceand are well adapted to their situation. Their families are fre-quently nurtured in ease and indulgence, and, in a greater or lessdegree, they have been accustomed to the refinements and ele-gances of superior society. But their condition is lamentablyreversed, when death deprives them of their natural protector.The comforts of life vanish from around them ; they are unableto struggle through the world by the labor of their hands ; and,while they mourn the loss of a husband or a father, want, with itsattendant evils, embittered too by the remembrance of happier

* La Place, Essai Philosophique sur les Probability. — Edinburgh Review,Vol. XXIII. pp. 320,321.