point, that a number of so-called assurance offices shall failthat confidence in the respectable offices shall be shaken, that the growth of the practice shall be retarded,—and that the number of "truly distressing cases" of men living in comfort and maintaining their families during their lives, and leaving them in destitution at their deaths, shall occur in rapidly increasing numbers.

Well, but why should not this trade, as well as every other, be left to itself? We grant that imprudent persons will be ruined; but is it not best for the public that competition should lower everything to its proper price? Best for the public! If a lion's mouth were opened, into which every man in the country were required anonymously to drop an account of the measures which he should consider best for himself, with reasons, an experienced statesman, with an honest mind, and a clear head, would, if he could read and arrange all the documents, have before him such materials for legislation as never yet existed. But suppose another orifice-an ass's mouth it should be-into which every person was to drop his notions of what he considered best for the public, with reasons also; already the newspapers give us some notion of the materials which would be thereby collected, though the editors do not allow it to be as complete as it might be. It is true that many of the propositions, in furtherance of the greatest happiness of the greatest number, privately proceed upon the hypothesis that number one is that greatest number; but these being detected and eliminated, there would remain a large quantity of materials, which would be nearly what they were intended to be. Much of this would be leavened by the principle of free competition carried everywhere. Let all teach, for competition will show the good and cheap teacher; let all heal, and good drugs and attendance will be themselves mere drugs; let all be trusted-the rogue can never compete in the long run with the honest man. The dunce, who cannot think because his teacher did not think before him, will know better next time he wants to be educated (would he?); the quack who kills the father, will lose the practice of the children and neighbours (will he?); and the man of sharp practice, whose conscience is eased by the consideration that he is spending in dollars what he plundered in pounds, will not find a market for his commodity (this is the approved phrase) if he ventures to England again. The last is true, because we have the Old Bailey, an establishment whose date is anterior to the times of free competition.

Competition in buttons is invaluable; it improves machinery,

employs workmen, and produces an excellent article. If they are found to break, we go elsewhere for others; and though we sustain some loss and much annoyance, yet upon the whole we do not demand the interference of the legislature. Nor, with regard either to buttons or many other such matters, do we much fear the unreasonably low prices at which they can. sometimes be bought; we may suspect that the seller will ruin himself, or cheat the wholesale dealer; but

"No matter, though the fellow be a knave,

Provided that the razors shave."

If we rise a little higher, as high as the top of a stage-coach, we find competition leading to consequences of some moment: it upsets the vehicle, and breaks the passengers' limbs. It is all competition; who would buy nine miles an hour for his money, when he can have twelve at the same rate? But law here steps in, and prohibits a dangerous article from being sold, even to willing purchasers. There is no plea of ignorance to be protected; all men are perfectly aware that they run a risk in travelling at the greatest speed, and many men are willing to encounter the danger; but the law says they shall not do any such thing. Does any one object to this? then he may consistently set his face against any interference with assurance offices. But those who admit that the law is in the right, must join with us in calling upon parliament to regulate the unlimited licence of contracting engagements, which are fatal in their consequences, if one of the contracting parties turn out to be insolvent. We say absolutely fatal and murderous; for, if an insurance office were to break, being unable to fulfil its engagements to a considerable number of men at an age too advanced to make a new provision for their families, a larger proportion of those men would die of vexation and anxiety in a twelvemonth, than would be killed, or even hurt, if they were all upset in stage-coaches.

But suppose our last assertion not admitted, and leaving life and health out of the question, suppose it asked, whether the legislature, which is bound to protect the existence of all its constituents, would be unreasonably beyond precedent in compelling them to a certain degree of prudence in the management of their fortunes. We say no; and we cite the case of the law as it stands with regard to bills payable after date. If a man give money without consideration, or for one which is insufficient, or even purely nominal, the cases are very rare in which the said money can be recovered. But if he give a bill, not only is it necessary that the instrument itself should state that it is given for value received, but its validity

can be destroyed upon proof that consideration was not given for it. How is this;-an abundance of cases exist in each of which present money is a valid payment, but an express promise to pay the same sum in a year is void? There can be no reason but this; it is known that men usually think before they pay, who would promise to pay without thinking, or upon an exaggerated estimate of their future means. But whatever the reason may be, it is clear that law does interfere daily to annul a contract, where it would recognize an act. Now, the annulment of a contract is always meant to be the redress of a wrong, or the prevention of an intended wrong: what is to be done in a case in which the party wronged has performed his share of the contract ab initio ?--there can clearly be no annulment, and law must interfere by prevention.

But strong as may be the necessity for a parliamentary inquiry, which, whatever its value may be, is the only one to be got, the question must at last arise, what sort of enactment is to follow the investigation? The details must depend upon the state of things proved in evidence to exist; but the principle must be restriction, simple restriction. It must no longer be the right of a small number of persons to constitute themselves guardians of the dearest interests of others, whom they induce to trust them by flattering promises, and the most barefaced exaggeration of the benefits to be received. Perfect security, certain gain, the most liberal terms: as safe as the national debt, as rich as the Equitable, as cheap as the. A numerous body of proprietors have signed that self-denying ordinance, a deed of settlement, not with a view to profit (that is low), but to secure to the public the "blessings" of life insurance, which the other fifty offices have, somehow or other, never fully comprehended. But if it should happen that a profit is realized, which is stated as very certain, in spite of the low terms at which assurance is offered, then the proprietors will accept a fifth, or perhaps two-fifths,-returning the rest.

A prudent man, in reading such a prospectus, asks the following questions:-1. To whom am I to trust for the truth of this statement? 2. Are the terms asked high enough to enable the office to do what it professes to do? 3. How much of the capital is paid up, and actually in the hands of the directors as a collateral security? 4. In whose hands is the management of the office? 5. How am I to know that he is qualified for his duties? 6. If anything should go wrong, what security is there that a timely warning can be given, and that it will be taken? At present he must answer these questions

to himself by information which he picks up where he can; by the vague assurance of some friend, that his friends, Mr. A and Mr. B, most respectable men, are director and actuary; on the faith of some "eminent mathematician," who is asserted in the prospectus to have calculated new tables, combining the best and newest information upon the value of human life. He takes some authority, and presumes knowledge in some quarter or other, from which advice, whether printed or oral, has come to him. Before we proceed to suggest methods by which parliament might help him, we must say a few words upon the province of authority in such a matter.

There is a great confusion in the minds of many, perhaps most persons, which the dictionary might help to set right. The words indispensable and sufficient give rise to it; they are confounded. If we say that mathematical knowledge is indispensable to the successful prosecution of such and such inquiries, we shall be thought to have said that it is sufficient. Such is not, however, the case; and we have two extreme opinions, both very common, and both pernicious. First, we have those who hold that the indispensable must be sufficient; secondly, those whose bias leads them to suppose that the insufficient must be worthless. This is, perhaps, the proper way of stating the reason for the inconceivable reverence in which many persons hold the exact sciences, and the scorn with which those branches of knowledge are treated by others. If these sects were compelled to live for six months, the first in houses having doors, but no windows, and the second in others having windows, but no doors, the first might feel and the second see, their way to certain definite notions by which, on comparing notes, they might find themselves some way advanced towards the manufacture of a decent treatise on the use of knowledge.

When the House of Commons made the inquiries into the state of friendly societies, which fill a thick volume with the evidence collected, the members of the committee must have been surprised to find very considerable differences of opinion between the mathematicians who were examined. It would have been surprising if it had not been so, for two reasons, which we shall treat separately.

To proceed upon an example: a work before us says, "Some idea may be formed of the difficulty of equitably distributing the profits of an assurance company among its members, from the fact that in the cases submitted by the Assurance Society in 1823, for the opinions of scientific men, the committee of the society to whom the matter was referred, stated

in their report, that the men of science had all differed from each other in their opinions on the subject!" The italics and the note of exclamation are those of the writer from whom we quote. We shall now cite some parallel cases. A countryman who went to see the American calculating boy, was observed to have something carefully wrapped up in a handkerchief. When it came to his turn to ask a question, he stepped forward, and begged the young gentleman to tell him what he had got in his handkerchief. This was declined, to the great astonishment of the interrogator. Here only one man of science was consulted, and, though but a chicken, he knew. when he had not data enough. In another case, the person consulted did not act so wisely. It was a young Cambridge man, one of those who cram, who was asked by a wicked friend to settle the question, whether the oscillations of a nonentity in vacuo are or are not affected by gravitation? The man of science here consulted took to his tools, and in less than a week brought his friend two quires of paper, ending in a differential equation, which he could not solve. Had two such men of science been consulted, they would probably have differed from each other in their opinions on the subject! Here a society asks half a dozen men of science for an equitable distribution of their profits. Why do not the judges of the Court of Queen's Bench have all their cases calculated? Perhaps the result of the inquiry made by the Assurance Company has deterred them. One man's equity is not that of another man, as we know well enough in the affairs of life; though had the half-dozen men (sound mathematicians, we have no doubt) happened to agree in their notions of equity, their science would have led them to the same result, within the millionth part of a farthing, had such been thought necessary. Science, then, did not lead men to a common notion of what was equitable: put it in italics by all means, but why so sparing of notes of exclamation? They are not charged extra. Seriously, to form an idea (our's or another's) of the mode of equitable division of an admitted surplus, requires no more mathematics than is just necessary to understand the operation of compound interest, and the use of a table of mortality; provided that there be sense enough to see that a perfect

The mathematical reader may possibly be reminded of the rule for the equation of payments (equity again) which is discussed in books of algebra on different grounds, and different results are arrived at. The common rule is equitable quoad all time after the last payment would have been due; a more difficult rule, preferred by the writers on theory, puts the parties in a state of equity at an intermediate time. Either is equitable on its own notions.