ABSTRACT
THE most certain, and at the same time the most uncertain of events, is the period of the termination of human life. This is a seeming paradox; nay, it is more than seeming. The time when any member of the human family will shuffle off this mortal coil no science can forecast, no art discover; but the successive numbers out of any thousand men of given ages who will, year after year, die, has been ascertained by actual count in so many instances and verified by experience for so long a time, that it is safe to say that no law in nature is better established by proof. Given these elements, how easy to erect the fabric of life insurance – how easy to spread among the many the misfortunes of the individuals who die untimely deaths, their numbers being known beforehand.
