206 INSURANCE 



which as a persistent thing has been almost banished by science. 

 They feared the terrors of the law, human and divine, to an extent 

 not customary with the present generation. 



" This element of fear, affecting human society in old days as we 

 can now hardly realize, has been of enormous value to the race, to 

 look for a moment at the other side of the question. Without fear, 

 there would have been no caution, no prudence, no leadership, no 

 discipline, no laws, no social order, no patriotism; in short, no organ- 

 ization of mankind, if indeed mankind could exist at all without it. 

 It would seem impossible to look back without recognizing fear as one 

 of the most powerful forces which have affected the minds of men 

 and the progress of the race. Punishment of unwise acts by natural 

 law, punishment of criminal acts by the law of society, both have 

 assisted progress to an extent which we can hardly exaggerate. 

 Yet we sometimes hear the theory advanced that the fear of punish- 

 ment cannot deter any one from crime, and that society has, there- 

 fore, no right to punish criminals. 



" In speaking thus of the useful fears which have benefited man- 

 kind, I may have seemed to be getting away from the subject of 

 insurance. It cannot, however, have been useless for us, during 

 a few minutes, to recall the enormous effects which fears of all kinds 

 have produced in the past upon the human mind, whether these 

 fears have been useful or injurious. It is a happy thought for us 

 that those fears which have been dissipated by insurance have all 

 belonged to that noxious class which paralyze human energies and 

 shorten human life." 



