MODERN BASIS OF LIFE INSURANCE. 625 



wrote like the Shemites, from the light toward the shadow, and con- 

 sequently from left to right ? If I insist so much on the primitive 

 sanctity of the action of writing, it must not be forgotten that a close 

 connection exists, even in our day, between the great religious domains 

 and the method of writing. Buddhism, with all the Oriental religions 

 of Asia which have preceded or followed it, writes from the top down ; 

 Islamism, the real continuation of Shemitism, writes from right to 

 left ; and Christianity, the emigrant product of Shemitism, which has 

 left its father to settle among the Aryans, is scattering writing from 

 left to right over nearly the whole world. Each of the three great 

 religious groups has, then, a direction of writing peculiar to it. 



I am far from meaning to pretend that all the questions are 

 solved, and that the series of proofs I have presented is continuous. 

 If I publish the results so far obtained, it is to excite interest and 

 awaken discussion. But it seems to me to follow, from what I have 

 said, that the direction of writing, the order of the letters and the 

 lines, are in no way the forced consequence of a physiological cause, 

 of a particular structure of the brain. I believe that I have proved, 

 on the other hand, that the order of writing was primarily dictated by 

 exterior causes, w^hich, in many cases, may have wholly disappeared, 

 but the result of which has been retained by habit and hereditary 

 transmission. Our organization permits us to write with equal facility 

 from the top down, from right to left, from left to right ; no physiologi- 

 cal condition has compelled us to choose a particular direction. If we 

 select a determined order and drop the others, it is because we have 

 learned to do so from our ancestors ; and this order has been imposed 

 on our ancestors in consequence of different external circumstances. 



-^^ 



M0DER:N' basis of life mSURAXCE. 



By THEODORE WEHLE. 



WITH the year 1839 a new phase is reached in the first effort 

 to tabulate the actual experience of insurance companies. 

 Heretofore the average life of towns had furnished the data for mor- 

 tality tables ; now a table was to be deduced from observations of 

 insured lives. Seventeen leading offices appointed a committee, to 

 whom copies of their records were to be intrusted, which, owing to 

 jealousies, were not as perfect as desirable. In 1843, after years of 

 labor, a table was published, now known as " Actuaries' Experience Ta- 

 ble Xo. 1." It was based on 18,282 policies, of which 7,372 had been 

 discontinued, 4,786 had terminated by death, and 6,124 were still in 

 force. The average duration of the policies under observation was 

 eight and a half years, 

 vol.. XIX. 40 



