392 



the science of assurance, as he considered that all cases of connected 

 lives, where there might be a connexion of any sort, of influences 

 acting with respect to the probability of co-existence, all questions 

 solved without reference to such influence, were faulty, and might 

 be importantly faulty. He states a striking instance with respect 

 to this observation as follows : If it be required to assure a sum on 

 the joint lives of A and B, that is, to pay the sum on the first of the 

 death of A and B, whichever may be that first, and if in another 

 case it were required to assure the sum on the death of B in parti- 

 cular, provided he should die in the lifetime of A, it is evident that 

 if A and B are of the same age, and not subject to any influential 

 connexion, that if they are both subject to the same uninfluenced 

 mortality, the price of the first assurance would be exactly double the 

 other. But if the assurance were for a very short time, for instance, 

 in the time a ship was passing from Dover to Calais, and they were 

 both going in the same ship together, the risk of the ship being 

 wrecked would affect them both equally, and the chance of their 

 separate escape would depend on circumstances, for instance, one 

 being a better swimmer than the other ; but there would be a chance 

 that neither of them could escape, and as far as that chance is con- 

 cerned, the assurance on one of the two, whichever it might be, who 

 died first, the assurance on one in particular, or the assurance on the 

 longest of their lives during that voyage would be all of equal value ; 

 and the method the author has adopted for all uninfluenced con- 

 tingencies would be available in all cases of influenced, by the intro- 

 duction of certain formulae which the author regards as of a very 

 interesting nature. 



In addition to the above particulars, the author presents a theory 

 of sickness, which appears to him to be a near approach to actual 

 statements of sickness occurring among Friendly Societies. 



The Society then adjourned over the Long Vacation, to Thursday, 

 November 21. 



