218 INSURANCE 



people; and thus probably it will ever be until those who possess 

 property shall be acquainted with the principles and laws of trade 

 and shall at the same time be desirous to restore to the commercial 

 character generally an inviolate and inflexible spirit of single-minded 

 honesty." 



In the selection of risks for insurance it is necessary to take into 

 consideration certain broad principles of anthropology, in particu- 

 lar the primary distinction of race, or the varieties of mankind. 

 Even the most cursory inquiry reveals important differences between 

 the longevity of different races and peoples which no conservative 

 insurance company can prudently ignore. " The physical peculiar- 

 ities and geographical distribution of the human family," wrote 

 Pickering, " form one of the most interesting problems in history; ' 

 and in the words of Darwin, " There is no doubt that the various 

 races, when carefully compared and measured, differ much from each 

 other." Unfortunately, most of the earlier anthropologists took more 

 interest in speculations as to the unity or plurality of the human 

 species than in determining types of mankind by careful and exten- 

 sive measurements and observations of physical, psychological, and 

 pathological characteristics. Quetelet, to whom insurance owes 

 much light on the theory of probability, was also the author of valu- 

 able works on normal man and anthropometry, which have done 

 much to suggest the more recent investigations. The methods of 

 Quetelet, as to both measurement and description, were followed 

 to advantage in the more elaborate works of Beddoe, Roberts, 

 Gould, Baxter, and many others. We are nearer to the truth to-day 

 than we have been, but yet far from having the required data for a 

 practical anthropology or science of man applicable to the solution 

 of pending problems of insurance. 



Every advance in geography and the more accurate mapping of 

 the surface of the earth contributes to the science of insurance. 

 Medical topography and geographical pathology depend primarily 

 upon accurate topographic surveys, and the immense advances which 

 have been made in this direction during the past twenty years have 

 been of great value to insurance science. The geographical distri- 

 bution of disease is receiving more and more the intelligent consid- 

 eration of the geographers of to-day. As an admirable illustration 

 of what in time may develop into a distinct science, I may mention 

 Haviland's work on the Geographical Distribution of Disease in Great 

 Britain. Even the very early American geographers recognized 

 the relation of physiographic and climatic conditions to health and 

 mortality, and Guthrie, for example, in his geography published in 

 1795, refers to the subject at some length. Darby, following Guthrie, 

 contributed valuable observations in his various writings, in particu- 

 lar his View of the United States, published in 1828, and his Geo- 



