i2o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE COMMERCIAL VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE. 



BY MARSHALL O. LEIGHTON. 



TT^NLIGHTENED society readily grants that the lives of its mem- 

 -*— ' * bers constitute its most treasured resource. Legislative authority 

 has reserved its severest penalties for those who plot against and 

 destroy its subjects. Along with the advancement of civilization has 

 come a higher and higher appreciation of the inalienable right of the 

 human organism to live its allotted time, and the most benign forms of 

 government in the present day assume that its first duty is the preserva- 

 tion of the life and the comfort of its units. 



Pagan history reveals a frightful waste of the resource vested in 

 human life, and early Christian times are marked by only a slight 

 improvement. Wanton destruction continued to be common even to a 

 later date, and is at the present time excused under well-known and 

 unusual circumstances. Yet the tendency has been and will ever be to 

 preserve more and more securely bodily existence of mankind. 



There are two radically distinct measures of human life. The one is 

 purely humanitarian and considers only the divinity of man. Under 

 such an estimate, the life of an individual must be priceless, and 

 cannot be approximately valued in terms employed in monetary denomi- 

 nation. The other seeks to eliminate all sentimental considerations, 

 and deals with the individual upon the basis of his value to the com- 

 munity as a productive agent, like a horse, locomotive or cotton gin. 

 The second basis of measurement is an unpopular one, and has received 

 so little attention that it is regarded as undeterminable by the general 

 public. The majority of the computations set forth in the few para- 

 graphs now available can be regarded as little more than wild, dis- 

 ingenious guesses. 



What, then, determines the value of human life? As eminent an 

 authority as Eochard has stated that it is the sum "that the individual 

 has cost his family, the community or the state, for his living, develop- 

 ment and education. It is the loan which the individual has made 

 from the social capital in order to reach the age when he can restore 

 it by his labor." It is hardly probable, however, that this statement 

 will receive permanent acceptance by a thoughtful man. A little 

 reflection will show that it reverts to the generally discredited and 

 socialistic theory that values are determined by cost. Under such a 

 valuation, the resource vested in an individual grows from birth, not 

 with his increasing powers of production and the greater certainty of 



