THE VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE. 121 



his attaining the age of self-support and becoming useful, but by reason 

 of the fact that his maintenance is costing more and more. It would 

 mean that the individual is most valuable at the moment before he 

 becomes self-sustaining, and thereafter loses value until he has paid 

 back to society the cost of his maintenance during dependent years. 

 The time arrives when the account is balanced, and he is of no value 

 whatsoever, even though he might be at the prime of his productive 

 powers. On the other hand, the generally accepted meaning of value has 

 little relation to the cost of production; it depends upon final utility. 

 The value of a commodity depends upon its use, or its productive 

 ability in a community, and, as we are dealing with life as a com- 

 modity, in truth, an article, these well-established economic principles 

 must apply, even as truly as in the case of commercial products, in the 

 market of New York. The more logical view, therefore, must be that 

 the commercial value of a life must be measured by its general useful- 

 ness, its power of production, and the monetary returns which it makes 

 to society. 



Numerous suits for damages, in courts of law, for the wrongful 

 deaths of individuals constitute the commonest, the most fruitful and 

 almost the only trustworthy references available in which life values 

 are dealt with. It has been necessary for judicial authority to con- 

 sider the question to a minute degree, and if the basis of computation 

 is applicable to the conditions found in the general social universe, it 

 ought to provide a trustworthy source of information upon the subject. 



It will be seen at once that in suits at law for compensation for 

 death, the loss is computed from the standpoint of the surviving 

 relatives who bring the suit; a widow prays for compensation for the 

 loss of her means of support ; or a bereaved family petitions for damages 

 occasioned by the loss of services of a mother. The question therefore 

 to be determined is : Does the loss to the surviving relatives represent, 

 in any degree, the loss to society? Let us examine into the conditions 

 governing judicial, procedure in cases of this kind. 



The principle generally adhered to in estimates of life values is 

 well defined by the English court procedure, and this has been followed 

 in spirit if not in letter by the majority of the states of our union. It 

 is, in effect, as follows: "The jury may give such damages as they 

 shall deem a fair and just compensation with reference to the pecuniary 

 injury resulting from such death." In nearly every state, therefore, 

 pecuniary loss is made the basis of damages, and exemplary or punitive 

 damages are not permitted. This means that the damages allowed in 

 such cases represent what are believed by such courts to be actual loss, 

 without any suspicion of punishment for the party responsible for the 

 destruction. Such punishment assumes a charge for premeditation or 

 criminal negligence, and is dealt with by other methods than by civil 



